Safest Places in the US During a Nuclear War: What the Data Shows

Ask where the safest places in the US are during a nuclear war and you get confident maps, usually with a “FEMA” label on them. The honest answer is narrower. Nobody outside the war plans knows what would be targeted. What we have is a mix of public information about where the weapons are, one declassified government planning study, and basic physics about wind and fallout.

This article puts those pieces together, labels every estimate as an estimate, and ends with what holds up wherever you live. If you are looking for a state to move to, the evidence says that is the wrong lever.

What we actually know about nuclear targets in the US

Targeting plans are classified. Anything that claims otherwise is guessing. The best public evidence is of three kinds.

1. A declassified FEMA planning study

FEMA’s Nuclear Attack Planning Base-1990 was dated April 1987 and released publicly in 2005 (Federation of American Scientists archive). It modeled a Soviet attack, chose military and industrial sites by simulating Soviet strategic planning, and did not target population directly (executive summary). It is a Cold War document. Today’s adversaries, weapons and sites differ. The study says itself that it has no specific confidence limits and does not claim full realism.

Its blast estimates, by overpressure tier:

Together, 175.1 million people (about 72%) lived in areas hit by at least 0.5 psi in that scenario. The scenario was a massive attack. A single weapon or a limited exchange would touch far fewer people.

2. Where today’s US nuclear forces are based

The Federation of American Scientists’ 2025 Nuclear Notebook lists the current footprint (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists). These are the places adversary planners would be expected to care about, by logic, not by any published list:

Silos are hard targets built to survive blast. Destroying one would call for a burst at or near the ground, and Ready.gov notes that a ground detonation draws material into the air that returns as fallout. That is physics, not a prediction of anyone’s plan.

3. Everything else is inference

Command centers, major ports, power infrastructure, and big cities are often named in articles. We found no primary public source that confirms them as targets in a current plan. Treat any “likely targets” map that does not cite its method with suspicion, including viral maps credited to FEMA. The FEMA document with real standing is the planning base above. For city-level planning examples, not target claims, see what would happen if a nuke hit New York, Los Angeles or Chicago.

Why wind matters more than distance alone

Blast and fire kill near the target. Fallout is the part that reaches distant places, and it goes where the wind sends it.

Ready.gov says radiation levels decrease rapidly during the first 24 hours after a blast (Ready.gov). A US government study of nuclear war effects notes that the location and extent of fallout depend on weather, especially wind speed and direction, and that the neat ellipses on diagrams assume constant wind and no rain (OTA, The Effects of Nuclear War).

Over most of the contiguous US, the prevailing winds in the mid-latitudes blow from the west (NWS glossary). The jet stream band shifts north and south through the year, so it is a tendency, not a rule (NOAA). Our inference: places east of the Plains missile fields and west-coast naval bases sit downwind more often than not. Day-of weather could reverse that. Two city case studies show how local wind and buildings change the picture: what would happen if a nuke hit Washington DC and what would happen if a nuke hit Seattle.

FEMA’s own fallout tiers show how broad the problem is. They used the highest one-week unprotected dose across 12 monthly wind patterns for each county:

Read the bottom row twice. Half the population fell in the “low” tier, and “low” still means thousands of roentgens to an unprotected person. The tiers assume no shelter, and shelter changes everything: see how fallout decays and the fallout decay calculator.

Safest places in the US during nuclear war, by area type

Nobody can honestly rank states. We can rank situations. This table uses the evidence above and is our own estimate.

Alaska, Hawaii and specific regions are sometimes cited as low risk. We could not verify a primary source for state-level rankings, so we leave them out rather than repeat a guess. For hiding from a wider breakdown rather than a blast, see where to hide when society collapses.

A limited strike is not a full exchange

Most “safest place” lists quietly assume one scenario. There are at least two, and the geography changes between them.

In a massive exchange like the one FEMA modeled, the target set is wide: strategic forces, military bases and industry across the country. Blast damage reaches most of the population and the question becomes who gets fallout, and how bad. In a limited or single-weapon event, effects stay local to the burst and to the plume downwind. Most of the country sees no direct damage, though it could see disruption, panic and supply problems. A very large exchange could also affect climate and food supply, which scientists still dispute, as we explain in our nuclear winter review.

We cannot say which scenario is more likely. FEMA’s study was scenario-independent by design, which is a polite way of saying the planners did not know either. What you can do is prepare for the more demanding case and be glad if the lighter one arrives.

How to size up your own location in about ten minutes:

1. Find the nearest ICBM wing, bomber base and submarine base from the table above. Note the distance.
2. Look up large military and industrial facilities near you. These are the kind of sites FEMA’s model aimed at.
3. Check which way the wind usually blows in your area. Is any of that list upwind of you?
4. Identify your best shelter room, and how long it would take to reach it.
5. Write down what you would need to stay there 24 hours.

If steps 1 and 2 turn up nothing close, your blast risk is lower. Step 3 tells you about fallout. Steps 4 and 5 are the ones you control.

What geography cannot do for you

The first minutes decide a lot, and they are the same in Idaho or Ohio. The flash comes first, blast follows seconds later at distance, fallout arrives from minutes to hours later depending on how far downwind you are. The step-by-step timeline covers it.

A realistic plan combines three things:

1. Know your local risk. Are you within tens of miles of a base or large target? Are you generally downwind? Use NUKEMAP as an illustration. It lets you set yield, burst type and wind, but its output is a model, not a forecast.
2. Pick your shelter in advance. The safest buildings have brick or concrete walls, and the best spot is a basement or the center of a large building (Ready.gov). No basement? See the apartment guide.
3. Hold a plan for 24 hours, then follow instructions. Ready.gov says sheltering usually lasts at least 24 hours.

Note: Moving your family across the country because of a map is a large, costly decision based on a guess. Improving your shelter spot costs far less and works wherever you live.

Lab verdict

• There is no verified list of safe places. Maps that claim one are estimates with hidden assumptions.
• Risk clusters near ICBM fields, bomber and submarine bases, and large military-industrial hubs, and then runs downwind.
• Every part of the continental US is exposed to fallout in FEMA’s planning study. The “low” tier is only low relative to the rest.
• Sheltering well for the first day does more than picking a state.
• If you want to reduce risk by location, avoid the highest-risk category (close to bases) and ask whether you can shelter well where you already live.

Frequently asked questions

What cities would be targeted in a nuclear attack?

Nobody outside the war plans knows. FEMA’s 1980s planning study assumed attacks on military and industrial sites, not population directly, which in practice means areas near bases and industry. Current public information lists ICBM wings, bomber and submarine bases and storage sites. Claims about specific cities are guesses.

Is there a safe state in a nuclear war?

No state is verified safe. FEMA’s planning study rated fallout risk for the whole continental US, and its lowest tier still covered doses of up to 3,000 R in a week for an unprotected person. States away from bases may face lower blast risk, but fallout and disruption still apply.

Is there an official FEMA nuclear target map?

The FEMA document with standing is the Nuclear Attack Planning Base-1990, a Cold War study released in 2005 for academic and historical value. It gives county-level blast and fallout risk, not a current target list. Treat viral “FEMA target maps” cautiously and check what source and method they cite.

Which direction does fallout travel in the US?

Mostly eastward, since mid-latitude winds over the contiguous US generally blow from the west. The pattern shifts with the jet stream and local weather, so it is a tendency, not a guarantee. The wind on the day of an attack decides the actual path.

Is the countryside safer than a city in a nuclear war?

Often safer from blast, since aim points tend to be near bases and industry, but not from fallout, which travels downwind into rural land. Rural areas also have fewer shelters, hospitals and supplies. A good shelter room helps more than rural versus urban.

Sources

• FAS: Nuclear Attack Planning Base-1990 (FEMA, 1987), overview
• FAS: NAPB-90 executive summary
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists / FAS: United States nuclear weapons, 2025
• Ready.gov: Nuclear Explosion
• OTA: The Effects of Nuclear War, fallout chapter
• NWS glossary: westerlies
• NOAA: The jet stream
• NUKEMAP (Alex Wellerstein)