Editor’s Note: “Charlottesville” is a short story that was commissioned by the Office of Technology Assessment in 1979 as an appendix to the report The Effects of Nuclear War. The story was written by Nan Randall, a young journalist who had previously worked on nuclear stories with the executive director of the Arms Control Association. It had a remarkable life for a governmental report appendix, as recounted in Alexis Madrigal’s story about the impact of the piece, and became a key source for the biggest made-for-TV movie of all time, The Day After. As it is in the public domain, the story is presented here in its entirety with its original introduction in bold.
In an effort to provide a more concrete understanding of the situation that survivors of a nuclear war would face, OTA commissioned the following work of fiction. It presents one among many possibilities, and in particular it does not consider the situation if martial law were imposed or if the social fabric disintegrated into anarchy. It does provide detail that adds a dimension to the more abstract analysis presented in the body of the report.
At first, it seemed like a miracle. No fireball had seared the city, no blast wave had crumbled buildings and buried the inhabitants, no dark mushroom cloud had spread over the sky. Much of the country had been devastated by massive nuclear attack, but the small, gracious city of Charlottesville, Virginia, had escaped unharmed.
* * *
The nuclear attack on the nation did not come as a complete surprise. For some weeks, there had been a mounting anxiety as the media reported deteriorating relations between the superpowers. The threat of possible nuclear war hung heavy in the world’s consciousness. As evidence reached the U.S. president’s desk that a sizable number of Americans were deserting the major cities for what they perceived to be safety in the rural areas, he considered ordering a general evacuation. But, with the concurrence of his advisors, he decided that an evacuation call from the federal government would be premature, and possibly provocative. There was no hard evidence that the Soviets were evacuating and there was a good chance that the crisis would pass.
Spontaneous evacuation, without official sanction or direction, grew and spread. A week before the attack, Charlottesville had no free hotel or motel rooms. A few evacuees found lodgings with private families, at great expense, but most were forced to camp by their cars in their trailers next to the fast-food chains on Route 29. The governing bodies of Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County were rumored to be concerned about the drain on the area resources, without really having any way of turning back newcomers. “If this keeps up,” remarked a member of the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, “we’re going to be overrun without any war.”