Heavily polluted by fallout and chemical spills, New Jersey is an inhospitable wasteland populated only by the brave or the foolish. The northern half of the state is still virtually unlivable and might be for centuries to come. There are some viable settlements in the state, mostly along the southeastern coast.
Jersey City, SS-18M2
Newark, SS-N-17
Elizabeth, SS-N-8
Paterson, SS-N-8
Trenton, SS-18M1
Fort Dix, SS-16
Pickatinny Arsenal, Earle, SS-N-17
Lakehurst NAS, SS-N-17
Salem 1 nuclear reactor, Salem, SS-N-17
McGuire AFB, SS-N-17
Discretionary nuclear targets:
Camden, SS-18M1
Clifton, SS-N-8
Oyster Creek nuclear reactor, Tom's River,
SS-17
Situation, pre-war: Like most areas just outside the suburban sprawl, western Morris, Sussex, Warren and northern Hunterdon counties were largely farming communities supporting corn, soybeans, hay, wheat, dairy cattle and other agricultural products. The quaint small-town atmosphere was present, augmented by a satellite dish here and a convenience store there. The open spaces, green hills and dense forest supported a population of approximately 500,000 in the 1,500 square mile region.
Traffic from the already over-concentrated suburbs to the east made the commute into the urban areas slow and frustrating. As a result, there was reluctance to move westward until an increasing number of businesses moved into the I-287 corridor that split Morris County into eastern and western sections. With this recent development, the townhouses were beginning to spread into the western portion of the Garden State, primarily along Interstates 78, 80 and 287, when the bombs fell.
Situation, the war: The bombs fell on November 18th, 1989, mushrooming all across the world in a spasm of nuclear fire. Fortunately, the missiles landed just as the tail end of a massive storm front was passing over New Jersey and Long Island. The high winds pulled the fallout rooster tails east out to sea, polluting a large swath of the state but saving the northwestern corner from the bulk of the heavy fallout.
The vast population, industrial capacity, and economic resources of the New York metropolitan area were blanketed with nuclear weapons. The concentrated effects of the warheads striking Paterson, Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth, combined with that multiple warheads striking New York City, and Yonkers vaporized 20 million people and turned the once sprawling metropolis into a radioactive desert. The missile targeted for Lakehurst Naval Air Station was knocked off course and landed instead 50 miles north, in South River, New Jersey. This impact combined with the weapons targeted for Trenton, McGuire Air Force Base and Fort Dix extended the desert from Ridgewood in the north to Lakehurst in the south.
Situation, post-war: Physically, northwestern New Jersey survived the holocaust intact. The blizzard and terrain contained most of the effects of the Picatinny blast, and most of the fallout was swept eastward. However, fear of inevitable after-effects prompted most people to pack up their belongings and head west into Pennsylvania, where the impact of the nuclear exchange was concentrated in a few distinct areas.
The survivors that trickled through in the weeks and months that followed further encouraged this. Many were horribly burned and mangled, while others fled westward in a panic, stripping the region of anything of value in their path. The injured flooded the area hospitals, where fighting for the scarce resources occurred frequently. Few survived the particularly cold and snowy winter.
With the coming of spring, adventurous souls explored the wastes to the east and south. Many failed to return. The rare survivors told of the sea of dust and radiation that lay beyond the hills to the east. Indeed, the former New York metropolis, wrapping around the hills into the Trenton blast zone, was reduced to mile upon mile of dust, now known as the "Jersey Desert". Over the years, weather and nature turned the area into a proper desert where only scrub plants grow and unimpeded winds gust to 50mph. Hearty (or fool hearty) souls venture into the Jersey Desert in search of relics. Occasionally finds of old technology are uncovered by the elements, usually in underground structures that newly exposed by storms. The environment is generally inhospitable to humans, with some radioactive hot spots.
Many of the waterways in the now desert region that feed the Hudson were poisoned by the radiation still flowing from the ruins of the Indian River nuclear plants up river. Mutant plant life grows along the banks. These oases in the vast waste lure unwary travelers to their toxic shores, where the acidic waters can dissolve a carcass in a few hours. Those who avoid this hazard often find themselves prey to the scavengers that have adapted to the harsh environment.
Several small communities of farmers and hunters now live in the Kitatinny Mountains and along the winding Rockaway and Wallkill River valleys, areas relatively untouched by the fallout. In total, there are perhaps 300 people in this area, spread out between three settlements and numerous family farms. Population densities are low enough that the tilled fields and oak forests provide enough crops and game for the summer months, and even enough for surpluses in the colder months. These people mostly keep to themselves, with only occasional out-of-state trade with similar settlements in southern New York and eastern Pennsylvania. Salvage trips to the ruins of New York City and down the Delaware to the Philadelphia area are made at least once per spring, but less and less of value is brought back each time.
The ruins of New York City (see New York entry for more information): A still-devastated wasteland of melted rubble and barren fields of bare dirt. The huge New York City metroplex was nuked heavily, the firestorms racing into and through the suburbs in the state, burning everything in their path. Essentially everything east of the Ramapo and Passaic Rivers has been destroyed and is uninhabited. In the rolling hills to the west of that arbitrary line, there are a few scattered settlements of hunters and trappers, but nothing larger than a dozen people during the warmer months.
Site-X: This full-size Snake Eater base was placed inside of the old Fort Monmouth communications compound and was disquised as an "MX Missile System Mock up". The facility was actually 20 feet under the mock up, and as such, survived the holocaust on Warday completely intact. Curiously, the SS-N-17 that caused the detonation of the mountains of munitions at the Earle Naval Weapons Redoubts actual helped excavate the base to the point that now barely a meter of sand covers the base and access hatches. The teams are still sleeping, awaithing their wake-up signal.
Fort Dix: First blasted by four nukes, this large base was then blanketed with massive fallout clouds that killed off everyone still alive in a week. Under the shifting sands of the desert lie great treasures waiting to be excavated.
The area beyond the Jersey Desert to the south has now become a different kind of horror. The slow seeping radiation of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Salem explosions was absorbed into the once-fertile farming lands and waterways of the central and southern peninsula. Mutated plants, animals and people have evolved, and the previously rural region has turned wild and dangerous.
Over the long decades, a few small populations struggled to survive, farming small glens and clutching to the Atlantic beaches. Today, the southeastern coastal plain supports a tiny, and totally isolated, population of fishermen and small-plot farmers. The changed weather patterns have altered the pre-war coastlines considerably, in some areas eroding dozens of miles inland, creating wide bays and inlets. Therefore, the communities listed below, while some distance inland in 1989, are now coastal.
"Corbin": Formerly Corbin City on the Tuckahoe River. Now the largest community in South Jersey, home to some 150 people. They are generally friendly to the few visitors that come by, even providing guides along the coast upon occasion. They are currently trying to build better boats, strong enough to brave the open waters to reach the prime fishing grounds further out in the Atlantic.
"Englishtown": Formerly English Creek on the wide mouth of the Great Egg River. Home to some 20 farmers, herdsmen, and their families. These people often make the trek to Corbin to sell their goods, often with the entire community packing up and staying in Corbin for a month or longer before returning to Englishtown.
Mays Landing: Home to some 30 farmers and fishermen who cling to the southernmost tip of the peninsula. They are probably the least friendly of the settlements, having several bad experiences with pirate raids in the last few dozen years. These pirates came from North Carolina and rode in boats larger than anything these people have seen before or since.
The ruins of Atlantic City: The vacation capital of the east coast is now mostly underwater. The shifting sands and 150 years of storms and erosion have left nearly all the ritzy casinos and hotels either completely submerged or just barely sticking up out of the marshes. The area has been a Mecca of sorts for the last 100 years, since the ruins were rediscovered by adventurers from the south. Local men who are looking for a quest to prove their manhood to their fathers and girlfriends often travel here to explore the ruins of the gilded casinos. They bring back trinkets, chips, game tokens, anything that can prove that they braved the wilds to reach the fabled place.
The Pine Barrens: The large pine forest was burned in great quantity in the years after the war, and regrowth was stunted by the thick blanket of radioactive fallout. Only along the southern edges has it recovered even a little bit, the vast majority of the once teeming forest now the southern zone of the great Jersey Desert. A few settlements surely exist in the narrow band of forest, but few people ever venture in to find out for sure.
Scraggers: The truth is almost as strange as the fiction. The "new" Pine Barrens, in parts of the pre-war counties of Atlantic and Cape May, hide a population of Scraggers. A Scragger is a "throwback" human to the level of the prehistoric era, a people much like a modern Neanderthal except that their bodies are covered with hair. Scraggers dislike normal humans and will attack any lone individuals or small groups they encounter, though it has been decades since they had any direct contact with the people along the coast. They are wise enough to use the legend of the Jersey Devil to keep people away from their homes and forage lands. However, not all the strange sightings and deaths can be attributed to the xenophobic Scraggers...
The Jersey Devil: The legendary "Jersey Devil", part devil, part man, has been a common resident of the Pine Barrens for five hundred years. It is fitting that since the nuclear war, the Jersey Devil has been particularly active. Nearly everyone living in the area, or just traveling through, seems to have a story about when they saw, heard, smelled, sensed or were actually attacked by the Devil. One wonders if the sophisticated weaponry of the Project would be enough to end this threat...
People who have contributed to this entry:
John Raner
Joab Ben Stieglitz
Karl Zohler