While nuclear weapons of mass destruction exist, thankfully they have only been used in anger twice. Therefore, there is little know about how people will react to them. As a consequence of this unknown, we synthesized a hundred years of disaster research to build a model to explore this gap in our understanding of the social effects of a nuclear weapon of mass destruction (NWMD). By reviewing disaster literature, we argue that disasters, including a NWMD, should be viewed as a complex system of three parts (i.e., the physical, social and individual). These three parts inform an agent-based model on how society might react following a nuclear weapon of mass destruction. Specifically, the agent-based model captures the main properties of complex adaptive systems such as heterogeneity, webs of connections (i.e., social networks), relationships and interactions, and adaptations arising from individual actions and decisions. Our NWMD model represents the road network and weapon effects as part of the physical environment. It also includes synthesized individuals and their social environment through agents’ social networks and emergent group dynamics after the event. This NWMD model supports the exploration of the effects of different agent behavior in times of disaster. In the base model, we characterized the response of victims of a nuclear WMD, first responders, and the rest of the population not directly impacted by the weapon. Such a model of the New York mega-city is poised to support additional studies of social effects of a nuclear WMD or disasters more generally.
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