The Dark Legacy of Nuclear Testing in Nevada

For years, the Nevada desert was a testing ground for the United States government’s nuclear weapons program. Families and lovers would drive to vantage points for the spectacle, then drive home as ash wafted down on their communities.

Las Vegas Strip cocktail waitresses, who clocked out in the early morning when the blasts would occur, wore sunscreen and sunglasses, believing it would protect them from whatever mysterious dangers followed the booms in the desert. And the government never warned them otherwise.

But a short time later, residents and then their descendants paid the price. “It’s gone into our DNA,” said the late Michelle Thomas, a woman who lived in St. George and later became a global activist against nuclear testing.

“I’ve lost count of the friends I’ve buried. My government lied to me… I remember how they had scientists all dressed in HAZMAT suits stopping traffic out of Snow Canyon so they could run Geiger counters over the vehicles. People would ask if it was dangerous, and those scientists would lie and say, ‘No … these are just standard tests.’

“They knew better, they knew it was poison, but they let people go out there to be exposed so they could measure how much of it fell on them.”