Book Review: The Day We Lost Southern California: A Future History

by Roger Gloss

Book review by Sharon and Ace Hoffman, April 2025

The Day We Lost Southern California: A Future History paints a picture of the inevitable results of continuing to produce nuclear waste. The “future history” outlined in this brief novel is bleak and, unfortunately, probably very accurate regarding what could happen. As the author explains, the specific triggering event that causes widespread radioactive contamination to Southern California could be many things, but in all cases the potential for loss of life, property, livelihood, culture, and happiness is the same.

As Gloss points out, many people have warned against nuclear power and specifically about storing nuclear waste in a highly-populated area that is subject to earthquakes and flooding. The vulnerability of the San Onofre site and the thin-walled casks stored there are plain to see. Gloss cites many actual past failures at the site, while acknowledging that the difference between San Onofre and other locations is only a matter of degree: There is no 100% guaranteed safe place to store nuclear waste, yet this fact is ignored by most people and by nearly all government officials and elected representatives.

The book touches on factors that increase the possibility of disaster, such as known damage to existing casks, aging effects on the stainless steel casks, the impact of climate change and so on. Many of the examples Gloss uses to illustrate these dangers are specific to San Onofre, but similar potential for disaster exists at every location with nuclear reactors or even "very old" spent nuclear fuel.

San Onofre is at increased likelihood of flooding due to climate change. In other parts of the United States, climate change increases the risk from tornadoes. The mechanisms are different, but the increased potential for dispersing nuclear waste due to climate change exists everywhere (along with many other risks).

The idea that other communities will be willing to accept nuclear waste is essentially ludicrous. This has always been true, but in the wake of any non-fictional release of waste at San Onofre or anywhere else, this truth will become even more obvious.

Similarly, nobody really believes that Southern California (or any major metropolitan area) can be evacuated. As the book explains: “The entire population – millions of people – needed to be evacuated immediately, but of course this was impossible, and local police, sheriff, and emergency services had no plan to do so.” No plan. That's the reality.

Without being judgemental, Gloss describes many people who abandon work and civic responsibilities to take care of their families. The book's fictional narrator acknowledges that he is one of the lucky ones and that people without money or family outside the evacuation zone did things to survive that were -- technically, at least -- illegal. For example he describes people staying in their homes (or the homes of those who had permanently evacuated) in defiance of evacuation orders. Worse, they would then take abandoned, radioactively contaminated guns and ammunition, and sell contaminated valuables on the black market in order to purchase essential supplies -- often also contaminated.

After the fictional disaster, the federal government explicitly limits the evacuation zone based mostly on a lack of adequate resources even for the too-small area they designate as officially contaminated.

Stark and terrifying as it is, the timeline of the book stops within a few months after the disaster. The problems of future cancers and other diseases, contaminated food, spreading danger zones, etc. are discussed, but only briefly. And maybe that's a good thing: What Gloss does present is sobering enough.

If you suppose nuclear power can serve man -- so-called "Small" Modular Nuclear Reactors, current reactors, future versions, whatever -- give this book a read and explain why anyone would choose risking this versus cheaper renewables.

Sharon and Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA

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