That sign to the right used to be a regular sight when I was a kid. It signified that the building that sported it was certified as a safe place to be in the event of nuclear fallout.
I don't remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I know that there were quite a few people that I knew who were convinced that, even though we dodged that particular bullet, that nuclear war was inevitable sooner or later.
It was easy to believe. NATO and the eastern blocs were cranking out ridiculous numbers of atomic weapons. Test detonations were being performed several times a year. The news would report atomic clouds drifting over the western parts of the country after a Russian test.
It was scary for a kid.
I don't remember any of our neighbors in Miami, Oklahoma with bomb shelters. On the other hand, this little town, located in tornado alley, DID have numerous basements that the owners no doubt also thought about as refuges against air-borne fallout.
I used to cringe when the Emergency Broadcast System would perform their frequent tests over the television. That sound it made was the same one you heard in fictional movies and TV shows when it would be announced that nukes had been launched, run for your shelters!
The Day After was the ultimate look at life after a nuclear war. It wasn't shown until 1983, when the Iron Curtain was getting close to collapsing. But it did show the futility of hiding in a shelter and coming out to a destroyed society. The survivors were the unlucky ones.
Today, fallout shelter signs are rarely seen, and the few that survive frequently date back to the 60's. I don't miss them.
Comments (5)
The one place I remember seeing the sign was on the outside of our local schools. This also brough memories of safety drills in school We had fire drills and another type (though I cannot recall what they called them) that was to prepare us for an attack. I recall being herded to an area where we all sat on the floor with knees crossed, put our heads down between our knees and our hand clasped behind our heads. Like that would have done any good.
Posted by DUANE DOWNER | October 16, 2007 1:42 PM
Posted on October 16, 2007 13:42
I remember the "Duck And Cover" drills... then when I grew up, worked with different government agencies, I found information that detailed the real reason for the kids all ducking under their desks and covering their heads, or going out into a hallway and curling up... it was so that, in case a bomb actually went off nearby, they would not have their heads at window level and actually see the shockwave and the quickly traveling death coming at them that was going to level the building and kill them. Less panic if they didn't know what hit them until they got hit. Our government... gotta love 'em.
Posted by Hank M | March 18, 2009 9:01 AM
Posted on March 18, 2009 09:01
The duck and cover drills were more around my mothers school days. I don't remember that we did those in school! But I do remember that 11:03am siren blast every month that scared the living you know what out of you. My dad had just gotten out of the Navy when the Cuban crisis started. I do remember the air raid shelter signs, especially in the city (DC). My fire station was a shelter and we even had a large civil defense siren that was also used to alert home responders. Your right, you don't see these signs much anymore! Nobody in suburban Maryland had a real bom shelter that I remember. And I also got scared when they did those ERB alerts ion the radio or TV. The movie The Day after and Testament were indeed scaring movies for their time! I am one who lived under the Soviet threat! It wads scary times in the sixties and even into the 70s. My grandmother remembers the blackout drills, but this was during WWII. Back to our fire station, it still has some old civil defense items in storage. Cans of food and supplied in large white sealed cans. Our station no longer uses the siren anymore. It was funny though, when that thing would blow, the nesting birds would fly out of the horns in panic! I guess in the midwest, sirens are used still for weather emergencies.
Posted by Rivers End | May 26, 2009 12:06 AM
Posted on May 26, 2009 00:06
Well, if you were born in 59, you just barely missed the old Duck and Cover routine they once did in schools. I know a person 6 years older who did them. I do recall, thanks to this post, how the siren would go off at 12 noon every Sat. We had to make sure it worked, right?
Well, as I see Duck and Cover, it was useless as to its stated purpose but maybe more useful for its real intentions. It was there to make us think a danger was real and therefore, a healthy investment, by means of increased tax revenue, was a good thing, a justified thing. We have to keep up with the Commies, right? So on to Viet Nam, boys. We got to prevent that nasty ole domino effect. I guess Communism was as such everyone was going to go over to them if given half a chance and our system had so little to offer. Who this insanity anyway? Did we have no faith in what we had? . . . Oh yeah, I did forget that JFK incident at Dealy Plaza. But still!
I don’t think Communism was ever a threat or competition. But we sure do guts ourselves a mighty fine military now. Of course, we are broke too, after giving away all our jobs. But Nesbit said we could all live off of data since we had become an information society. Is he still allowed to roam the streets? Anyone know?
Then there was the Y2K scare. And then there was the buy plastic sheets and duck tape suggestion to prevent chemical attacks which could be evidence that too many drugs from that war on drugs was being distributed throughout offices all over Washington DC. Maybe I should have gone in ta politics, huh?
But that there cold war sure was a lot a fun, huh? It may have been cold but we sure got burned. Wait, to quote Spock, does that constitute a joke? You decide.
Posted by Scott Irv | May 26, 2009 1:16 AM
Posted on May 26, 2009 01:16
i live in a public housing project and i remember seeing them. but you r right, you rarely see them anymore.
Posted by vera | February 1, 2010 9:06 AM
Posted on February 1, 2010 09:06