![]() The unusual doorway in the basement is the entrance to the stairs to the fallout shelter. Once in the basement, he pointed out the odd door that led to the discovery of the fallout shelter so many years before. The stairway leading to the basement is just off the kitchen. Courtesy Reinventing Civil Defense, a project at the Stevens Institute of TechnologyĬhris invited me into the house and took me through the kitchen to the basement stairs. “In school, they had nuclear drills hide under your desk, and she started talking about that.”Ī “Duck and Cover” drill in an elementary school. The shelter revived Cindy’s recollection of the “Duck and Cover” drills in which she participated in the early 1960s, according to Chris. Chris told me they haven’t removed or changed any of the features of the shelter in the 26 years they’ve lived here, though they added a couple of shelves for storage. When Chris and Cindy moved in, the shelter was empty other than an old gas mask-no civil defense food rations or water containers, no first aid kits or other supplies. Obviously, the fallout shelter didn’t discourage them from purchasing the house. ‘Holy s-!’ He’d never seen anything like it before.” Chris said, chuckling at the memory. “He goes over there and he opens it up and he starts swearing. As they toured the basement, Chris said the realtor spotted a door that looked out of place. Chris and Cindy Weber had no inkling about the bomb shelter when they stepped into the house with their realtor in 1996. No matter how closely you look, it’s impossible to tell the modest, well-kept bungalow at 725 Ridge St. But 18 or so feet underground is an intact Cold War-era fallout shelter. ![]() Nothing unusual about the Colonial at 725 Ridge St. However, at least one endures, in nearly pristine condition tucked in a quiet residential part of St. There is no easy way to determine how many home fallout shelters were built in Minnesota and how many remain. ![]() The Family Fallout Shelter brochure, produced by the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization in 1959, gave instructions on building and stocking home shelters. “Such a program will provide Federal funds for identifying fallout shelter capacity in existing, structures, and it will include, where appropriate, incorporation of shelter in Federal buildings, new requirements for shelter in buildings constructed with Federal assistance, and matching grants and other incentives for constructing shelter in State and local and private buildings.” President Kennedy introduced the plan in a speech delivered before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: Civil defense efforts turned toward dedicated group fallout (bomb) shelters-in schools and private buildings-bolstered by a $200 million appropriation from the Kennedy administration for construction of public facilities. Officials scrapped the evacuation plans after realizing Soviet ICBMs would reach targets in the US far too quickly to move millions of people out of cities. It’s hard to understand the palpable fear among US citizens after the Soviets’ successful 1957 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch. Civil defense leaders based this plan on the belief that ground observers and military radar would detect Soviet planes in time for people to evacuate. The government created evacuation plans for the residents of major US cities, who in the event of a Soviet attack, would evacuate. Tensions between the US and Soviet Union grew from, among other things, the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948 and the 1950 start of the Korean war.įears of nuclear war escalated in the early ’50s after successful tests of the exponentially more powerful hydrogen bomb by both the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War, according to most historians, started in 1945 following the end of World War II. Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the author’s blog, Saint Paul by Bike.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |