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The computer screen shows a toxic cloud rolling slowly over buildings,a visualization that permits scientists to record every lethal swirl and eddy and to calculate the toll for a city's residents.It's a far cry from "The Sims", an addictive computer game that lets users create a virtual universe. As displayed on computers nicknamed"Coyote''and "Thunderbird,'' disaster simulations conducted under a $25 million program run by Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories are helping the U.S. government predict the impact of chemical or biological attacks,killer hurricanes,or accidents such as the collapse of the bridge on the main highway into Minneapolis.For years,simulations have helped manage the nuclear-weapons stockpile and conduct war games.Now disaster planners are using them to create a"virtual U.S.''in which scientists gird for worst-case scenarios to test the vulnerability of the country's infrastructure,former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke said.Simulation programs permit scientists to"imagine a whole series of events and one by one run the tests,'' said Clarke,an early booster of the technique."It's as close to reality as you can get.''Spurred by the twin disasters of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina, officials at the Department of Homeland Security have gotten the message.They're using graphic modeling to predict a disaster's human and economic toll,expose weak spots in defenses and train policy makers in improving their crisis responses.Flu Pandemic
As early as this month,the Homeland Security Department will release results from the second part of a simulation study of a flu pandemic. The initial phase of the test concluded that a merely adequate vaccine given immediately would be more effective than delayed inoculations with a better drug.By the end of this year,the lab will complete a study on the Midwest's New Madrid Fault, a break in the earth's crust that some scientists fear could produce an earthquake more devastating than one caused by the San Andreas Fault in California.Lab staffers' enthusiasm about the insights they've gained from simulations sometimes gets the better of them. After discussing how the U.S. financial system has"the most robust'' security of any electronic network in the world,Los Alamos economist Sam Flaim said"there are two ways'' to disrupt it.
As he began to elaborate,he was shushed by colleagues who reminded him that the information shouldn't be made public.
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As in the days of Noah...
