This is the August 30th, 2016 report on the status of the northeastern United States.
The Doomsday event of September 25-26, 1983 forever changed the face of the planet in every way imaginable. Every country was affected, but few more than the United States of America. It is estimated that the U.S. lost at least 90 percent of its population as a result of the devastation caused by the Soviet Union's missiles.
Fortunately, people have survived in the former United States. Small, independent nations have arisen in the northeastern, mid-western and western U.S., all showing great potential for positive contributions of all kinds to the world.
Even with news of these nations having recently become known to the world at large, there are nevertheless several areas of the former United States that very little is known about. Major portions of the northeastern United States are well known by WCRB and LoN explorers. The interior portions of the region, however is relatively unexplored, and contact is only through some surrounding nations.
In 2014 the League of Nations accepted a proposal by Canada and Vermont to launch an exploration into the interior portion of the Northeastern portion of the former United States.
The exploration mission was launched in April of 2015 and was completed in March of 2016. Over that eleven month period, portions of ten states were visited. It was found there were two major functioning nations (Delmarva, Vermont) as well as almost fifteen smaller city states or survivor communities were found in all the explored states except for Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Maryland.
For the purposes of the expedition, the following states, having been considered part of the "northeastern" United States, were chosen for exploration:
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New York
- Rhode Island
More to come...
The majority of military facilities and larger cities were destroyed by nuclear weapons on the evening of September 25th, 1983 (Some cities, such as New York City or Philadelphia were struck by multiple weapons). A handful of military bases were not struck due to being rendered useless by the electromagnetic pulse or being cut off by other nuclear strikes. There were a handful of regions that were not struck, but were expected to. This included Niagara Falls, NY; Binghamton, NY; Johnstown, PA; Fort Indiantown Gap, PA; and Manchester, VT. Some of this is due to the belief that events on Doomsday led to some regions not being deemed important enough in the short window for the nuclear launch.
A brief, state-by-state overview of the region and the first years post-Doomsday follows.
Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Erie, Harrisburg, Bethlehem, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton were all destroyed. Much of the state collapsed into violence due to the chaos. Surviving remnants of the state government fled to State College and formed a provisional government, stabilizing the region over the next fifteen years. They would be partially successful. Reading set up a separate provisional government with local and state officials forming a city state. They slowly expanded into the surrounding region and are one of the more powerful nations in the state. With the destruction of Erie, PA and refugees from Cleveland, what is now North Pennsylvania was under an authoritarian regime for several years, but overthrew it in the mid 1990's.