Considering the Effects of a Catastrophic Terrorist Attack

A (pdf) on the effects of a nuclear bomb in a shipping container on L.A.

Within the first 72 hours, the attack would devastate a vast portion of the Los Angeles metropolitanarea. Because ground-burst explosions generate particularly large amounts of highly
radioactive debris, fallout from the blast would cause much of the destruction. In some of themost dramatic possible outcomes:

…Gasoline supplies might run critically short across the entire region because of the loss of Long Beach
RAND Report