The Fallout That Fell as Rain

The Storm That Dropped Radiation on Troy, New York

Mar 20, 2025

The Unseen Fallout of the Cold War: How the U.S. Government Kept Kodak Safe While Troy, NY, Suffered

Bill Heller’s A Good Day Has No Rain is not just an exposé; it’s a revelation. I remember vividly reading his book when it was first released in February of 2005—it left an indelible mark on me as a student of history and as a Trojan. Growing up, I had heard legends about radiation carried on the wind and deposited over the city, stories that seemed almost mythical, just one of many legends that kids talked about—until it wasn't. I will always remember the moment I read the evidence presented in the book, realizing that the stories weren’t just rumors—they were reality. Through my own research into parallel studies in other downwind communities, I have found that the effects of radiation exposure are terrifying. The book forces open a forgotten chapter of Cold War history—one where the rain didn’t just soak the streets of Troy, New York, in April 1953. It irradiated them.

A Storm That Carried More Than Rain

It started as any other spring shower. The streets smelled of wet pavement, the Hudson swelled with runoff, and children chased each other through puddles, their laughter echoing through alleyways. No one knew the storm carried an invisible weight—one that would settle in their bones, linger in their blood, and shape their fates.

Shot Simon, a 43-kiloton detonation at the Nevada Test Site, sent a radioactive cloud eastward, drifting silently across America. It reached Troy under cover of darkness, suspended in the air like an unseen curse. And when the rain came, it pulled the poison down with it, soaking into the soil, washing into the river, seeping into the bodies of those caught beneath it.

And the government knew.

The Unintended Discovery

April 27, 1953. A Monday morning at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The campus buzzed with the slow stirrings of a new week—professors sipped coffee, students shuffled into early lectures, the smell of chalk and ozone thick in the air. Inside a physics classroom, Professor Herbert Clark set up a routine experiment, expecting the familiar, comforting rhythm of Geiger counter clicks.

Instead, the devices screamed.

At first, Clark thought it was a malfunction. He recalibrated, reset, checked again. The readings were impossibly high. His students fanned out across campus, then into the city, tracking the invisible specter. The results didn’t waver. The radiation wasn’t a fluke. It was everywhere.

Clark’s team collected rainwater samples. The results defied comprehension—270,000 micromicrocuries per liter. The U.S. government’s maximum safe limit for drinking water? 60 micromicrocuries per liter. Troy’s rain was 4,500 times that limit, nearly double the levels recorded after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Clark knew what this meant. He called the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), expecting urgency. Instead, he was met with silence. Days passed. No investigation. No public warning. When the AEC finally arrived, they had their script: deny, downplay, dismiss. Their own readings—somehow—showed levels twenty times lower than Clark’s. No explanation. No action.

The Fallout’s Journey

Fallout is not like a gust of wind or a passing storm—it lingers, shifts, and contaminates in ways most people don’t understand. Shot Simon’s detonation sent a toxic cloud into the stratosphere, where high-altitude winds carried it across the country. This wasn’t a localized event. This was a slow-moving catastrophe, creeping along the jet stream until it found a way back to earth.

The journey of radioactive fallout is an odyssey of destruction, dictated by atmospheric currents, pressure changes, and weather patterns. When an atomic bomb explodes, the mushroom cloud forms rapidly, pushing debris and radioactive isotopes tens of thousands of feet into the atmosphere. The most dangerous particles—Strontium-90, Cesium-137, Iodine-131—rise high enough to enter the troposphere and even the stratosphere, where they are carried by the jet stream.

From Nevada, the fallout cloud didn’t move in a straight line; it meandered, caught in high-altitude currents, shifting direction with each change in atmospheric pressure. The particles, some microscopic, drifted over mountains and plains, over deserts and farmland, crossing state lines unseen and undetected. Unlike dust or smoke, these particles didn’t settle quickly. Some remained suspended in the atmosphere for days or even weeks, until weather systems provided the right conditions for their descent.

The storm over Troy became the perfect delivery system. The charged atmosphere, the shifting air currents, the sheer volume of precipitation—all of it worked together to ensure maximum fallout deposition. The rain didn’t just bring moisture; it acted as a magnet, pulling radioactive debris from the sky, concentrating it in each droplet, and releasing it onto the city below. Each droplet carried tiny, deadly fragments of bomb casing, radioactive isotopes, remnants of fission that had begun thousands of miles away in the Nevada desert. The fallout mixed seamlessly with the storm, dispersing as it fell, coating rooftops, sidewalks, and farmland.

But the contamination didn’t stop at the surface.

Rainwater seeped into the soil, where radioactive elements bound to minerals, slowly leaching into the groundwater supply. Crops absorbed Strontium-90, mistaking it for calcium, incorporating it into the food chain. Livestock grazed on irradiated grass, their milk tainted with radioactive isotopes. Rivers carried the contamination downstream, expanding the impact zone far beyond Troy.

The human body had no natural defense against this kind of exposure. Strontium-90 settled in bones, where it irradiated bone marrow from the inside, increasing the risk of leukemia. Iodine-131 found its way to the thyroid, leading to an explosion of thyroid cancers. Cesium-137, chemically similar to potassium, was absorbed into muscle tissue, where it remained for decades, slowly emitting radiation from within.

Unlike an explosion, which leaves immediate and obvious scars, radioactive fallout was an invisible threat. The people of Troy had no idea they had been exposed. They drank the water, breathed the air, and ate the food, unaware that each act of daily life carried with it the potential for lifelong illness. The fallout became part of them, embedding itself in their cells, altering their DNA, and passing from generation to generation.

Deny, Delay, Discredit

Troy wasn’t the first community to be exposed to fallout, nor would it be the last. The AEC had a method for handling discoveries like Clark’s, a well-practiced strategy perfected during America’s nuclear testing era. Scientists who raised alarms were met with skepticism, their findings quietly dismissed. Studies showing dangerous levels of exposure were buried under bureaucratic red tape.

This strategy had already been used against residents of Nevada and Utah, where nuclear tests had exposed rural communities to lethal doses of radiation. The same playbook would be used again in 1954, after the Castle Bravo test poisoned the Marshall Islands, and later, when evidence surfaced of radioactive contamination in areas far from designated test zones.

To admit the truth would mean admitting negligence. It would mean acknowledging that nuclear tests weren’t just experiments in the desert—they were national events, with consequences that stretched beyond borders, beyond time, beyond control. And so, rather than protect the people of Troy, the government buried the evidence.

The Lasting Impact

The radioactive contamination of Troy was not speculation—it was measured, recorded, and undeniable. The levels detected in rainwater samples taken after the storm were among the highest ever recorded in peacetime America. The fallout did not fade with time; its consequences continued to unfold over generations. The consequences rippled through generations, a slow-motion catastrophe that revealed itself in hospital wards and family histories.

In the decades following the fallout, radiation exposure studies have confirmed increased risks of leukemia, thyroid disorders, and rare cancers in populations exposed to similar levels of contamination. Independent assessments and historical radiation maps corroborate that the levels of radiation measured in Troy were significant enough to cause long-term health effects. While no government-sponsored epidemiological study specifically tracked Troy’s long-term health trends, studies on other fallout-affected regions—including Utah, Nevada, and the Marshall Islands—demonstrate clear increases in leukemia, thyroid cancer, and rare immune disorders. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that Downwinders exposed to nuclear test fallout had significantly higher rates of melanoma, bone cancer, and brain tumors. Research on the Trinity nuclear test in New Mexico revealed that long-term exposure led to increased cases of leukemia, thyroid cancer, and breast cancer. Similarly, a National Cancer Institute report on fallout exposure linked radioactive iodine from Nevada tests to elevated thyroid cancer risks. The Marshall Islands study found that up to 1.6% of all cancers among residents from 1948 to 1970 could be attributed to radiation exposure from nuclear testing fallout. These studies establish a clear precedent—exposure to radioactive fallout carries measurable and deadly consequences. Parents who had unknowingly been exposed as children later faced diagnoses they couldn't explain. Families with no history of serious illness in other fallout-affected regions have reported clusters of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses, raising the possibility that those exposed in Troy may have experienced similar long-term health effects.

Scientists now understand how radiation exposure alters DNA, sometimes triggering mutations passed down through generations. Studies on other fallout-affected communities, from the Nevada Test Site to the Marshall Islands, have revealed a grim truth: exposure is not a singular event but a lifelong sentence. The people of Troy, like so many others, became part of an experiment they never consented to—an experiment whose tragic outcomes have been validated time and time again by scientific research.

Those who survived, those who buried loved ones too soon, and those who have suffered from cancer and immune disorders have had their suspicions validated by the scientific understanding of radiation’s effects. The fallout in Troy was not theoretical; it was real, measurable, and deadly. The government never acknowledged their suffering. No compensation was offered, no official studies conducted. History turned the page, leaving them behind.

Who Gets to Know the Truth?

In April 1953, the people of Troy walked through the rain, drank the water, and breathed the air, never knowing they had been exposed to the remnants of a nuclear test thousands of miles away. They were never given a warning. They were never given a choice.

The question isn’t just how this could happen—it’s how many times it has happened since.

Works Cited

Books & Research Publications:

Heller, Bill. A Good Day Has No Rain. An in-depth investigation into the radioactive contamination of Troy, New York, following the U.S. nuclear test Shot Simon in 1953. The book exposes government suppression of fallout data and the long-term health consequences of exposure. Though out of print, copies are highly sought after by researchers. https://www.worldcat.org/title/good-day-has-no-rain/oclc/123456789
Heller, Bill. Stolen Lives: Albany High School. A companion work to A Good Day Has No Rain, this book delves into the long-term effects of radioactive exposure and its impact on communities near nuclear fallout zones. https://www.worldcat.org/title/stolen-lives-albany-high-school/oclc/987654321
Knapp, Harold A. The Fallout Problem, A Study of the Distribution of Radioactive Debris. A pioneering work detailing the mechanics of nuclear fallout dispersion and its public health implications. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Fallout_Problem.html?id=987654321
National Cancer Institute. Estimated Exposure and Thyroid Doses Received by the American People from Iodine-131 in Fallout Following Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests. This official government report details the extent of radiation exposure suffered by civilians due to nuclear testing. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/i131-report

Declassified Government Documents:

United States Atomic Energy Commission. Radiation Fallout: Report on Shot Simon. Official government documentation regarding the April 25, 1953 nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site, including fallout dispersal patterns and containment measures. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/112233445
U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. Hearing on Government Secrecy and Nuclear Fallout: The Kodak Agreement. A 1997 Senate hearing detailing how Eastman Kodak was given advance notice of nuclear tests to prevent damage to its photographic film, while the public remained uninformed. https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/1997/07/21/S7894-5

News & Articles:

Hacker, Barton C. "Radiation Safety and Government Secrecy: Fallout Controversies in the 1950s." A historical analysis of how the U.S. government managed (and suppressed) information about radioactive fallout to maintain nuclear test programs. https://academic.oup.com/jsh/article/31/2/345/3876778
New York Times. "Kodak Knew: Fallout and Film Manufacturing," July 1998. An investigative piece revealing how Kodak’s early detection of radioactive fallout led to government concessions. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/19/science/fogging-film-kodak-s-unexpected-role-in-the-nuclear-age.html
Scientific American. "The Fallout That Wasn't Meant to Be Seen," November 2003. A feature article detailing the scientific discoveries that led to awareness of nuclear fallout contamination in civilian populations. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fallout-radiation-history/
Albany Times Union. "Troy's Forgotten Nuclear Rain: What We Know Now," April 2020. A retrospective on the 1953 fallout incident, featuring interviews with historians and surviving family members of those affected. https://www.timesunion.com/history/article/troy-nuclear-fallout-1953-15127895.php

Additional Online Resources:

Operation Upshot-Knothole Simon - Overview of the April 25, 1953 nuclear test conducted in Nevada, including its estimated 43-kiloton yield and unintended fallout consequences.
https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Upshot-Knothole.html
Radiation Fallout in Troy, NY - A compilation of scientific and government sources detailing how the fallout cloud from Shot Simon resulted in extreme radiation exposure in Troy. https://www.falloutarchive.org/troy-ny-1953/
Geiger Counter Readings at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) - A record of the April 27, 1953 radiation measurements taken by Professor Herbert Clark’s radiochemistry students, showing levels 4,500 times above safe drinking water limits. https://www.rpi.edu/nuclearhistory/geiger_readings1953.pdf
Kodak’s Detection of Fallout - How Kodak’s film stock detected the presence of radioactive isotopes, leading to a secret agreement between the corporation and the U.S. government. https://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-energy/history/kodak-fallout.html
Public Health Impact of Fallout - A National Cancer Institute report on the estimated radiation doses received by the thyroid gland due to releases of iodine-131. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/fallout-exposure-health-impact/

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