If the U.S. Got Nuked, You Wouldn’t Want to Be in Michigan

When I was a kid growing up the cold war was still a thing. That was until Rocky IV came out, and the cold war subsided. Sarcasm aside, nuclear war was something that was always on my mind as a kid growing up. Movies like War Games didn't help with the anxiety.

We had a fallout shelters at all of my schools, elementary thru high school. What is a fallout shelter? According to Merriam-Webster a fallout shelter is:

a shelter built underground to protect people from radioactive fallout

We don't see fallout shelters anymore unless it is in an older building constructed during the cold war.

My anxiety had me thinking about this as a kid and I still think about it today. Again, this is pure speculation. I wondered where "bombs" might fall close to me. I grew up in Southwest Michigan.

Growing up in St. Joe, Michigan was awesome for so many reasons, Lake Michigan being the tops on the list. I also realized that St. Joseph is smack dab in the middle of two nuclear power plants and only 60 miles across the lake from the nations third largest city, Chicago. Oh yeah, Detroit isn't that far away from where I grew up either. Detroit is even closer now that I live in Lansing. Metro areas of major cities would be good targets for jerks with nukes.

Cook Nuclear Plant is located in Bridgman, Palisades Nuclear Plant is located in South Haven. It seems that if a stupid country wanted to bomb us that this area might make a huge target because of the nuke plants and the massive metro area of Chicago.

Let's hope that this doesn't happen. The odds of one landing are very slim. We have some pretty awesome missile defense systems nowadays.