On the Construction of Nuclear Shelters

During the Cold War, humanity lived with an atomic sword of Damocles hanging over its head. The fear of nuclear attacks obsessed governments and the population at large, especially those in countries involved in the conflict. Many families believed their country would be attacked with atomic bombs and decided to build shelters in their homes to stay safe until radioactivity levels outside dropped.

Nearly 200,000 families added to their homes a safe, solid room, reinforced with thick concrete walls, in which water, food, furniture, and all kinds of supplies were stored to keep occupants alive for at least two weeks.

The Atomic Terror

The atomic bombs the United States detonated over Nagasaki and Hiroshima changed humanity's perception of war. While a conventional war was seen as something atrocious, especially for the civilian population who had to endure real bomb showers over their homes, a nuclear war was something completely different. No longer was it enough to be lucky and dodge a TNT load falling from the sky; after a terrible nuclear explosion, radioactive remnants turned the air, water, and food into a deadly trap. In the middle of the last century, the United States government — and we can assume that of the former USSR as well — built, more or less secretly, a series of large nuclear shelters.

President Kennedy developed a program to build these structures, which were mainly intended to protect top government officials and allow military commands to keep functioning even in the midst of a nuclear war. Some of these buildings were marked with a yellow and black sign identifying them, but many remained secret to avoid an avalanche of citizens seeking shelter when things got rough.

Essentially, these shelters were practically armored sites, often underground, with thick walls designed to prevent radiation from 'frying' their occupants. They were built in some cities and also under some mountains. Stocked with provisions, these places constituted a relatively safe spot to wait a few days or weeks until the worst had passed. Some of them, the best built, might even have survived a nearby nuclear impact.

Home Nuclear Shelters

A historian from the University of California, Nicholas Cull, has said that "the decade of the 1950s was a time of unprecedented prosperity in the United States, but also of unparalleled anxiety. The fear of a nuclear attack led many Americans to build their own underground nuclear shelters; they stocked up on food, water, medicine, and clothing. Many of them were built and maintained in secret. Some historians assure that the number of home shelters exceeded 200,000."

There was never a federal aid program or anything similar to support the construction of these shelters. However, several state and local governments promoted civil defense committees that encouraged their creation. As often happens, the demand for information from those interested in building their own safe place at home led some companies or individuals to seek ways to make extra money from the panic of the civilian population.

In 1962, for example, a small book called "Fallout Shelter Handbook" became very popular, written by Chuck West. The cover shows an image of the 'typical American family' — all white, pretty, and cheerful — living comfortably in their shelter after a nuclear attack. While the mother, dressed in a dress and apron, prepares dinner, the father enjoys reading a magazine smoking a pipe.

Not only is the 'politically correct' image of the family an absolute illusion. It is quite difficult to imagine that after your city was bombed by the enemy and 90% of your neighbors, relatives, and friends have turned into vapor, someone would have the presence of mind to put on an apron to cook or read a magazine placidly sitting in an armchair. Some of the images on its pages are even comical. For example, you can see a lady exercising on a stationary bike while at the same time generating electricity for the shelter.

The home shelters were actually quite simple, and there were — roughly speaking — two basic models. The first was an extra room in the home. As described in the pages of the "Fallout Shelter Handbook", it sufficed to build four reinforced concrete walls inside your dwelling, fill it with a lot of water, food, medicine, furniture, and — if the budget allowed — an electric generator that would let you use a radio to listen to the news. The site had to be large enough for the family to be comfortable for weeks. However, judging by the drawings, if forced to lock themselves in such cramped places, they would probably have killed each other by the second day, victims of panic and claustrophobia.

The second model was underground. If you had space in the yard, you could try to bury yourself like a rat by your own means. Sometimes a piece of sheet metal pipe served as the main body of the shelter. Surrounding the tube with concrete and putting enough earth on top, it was possible that you would come out well from a nuclear detonation that happened, for example, 100 kilometers from your home. If the impact occurred relatively close, the shelter would become a nice cylindrical tomb.

Obviously, the book was one more piece of a large machinery aimed at minimizing the risks of a nuclear war. The idea was to avoid panic, and to leave floating the idea that if you took certain precautions, nothing would happen. A good example of this is the phrase every American who lived in that era should know: "Duck and Cover" ("Duck and Cover" means "Agacharse y Cubrirse"). As seen in the image, the government distributed pamphlets explaining how even furniture was good protection against a nuclear bomb.

The girl hiding under the desk, in case the attack had occurred, would have turned into vapor regardless of how strong the furniture was. And with the shelters, at least most of them, something similar would have happened. Despite the confidence these places inspired, the truth is that the nuclear explosion would surely have buried its inhabitants under tons of debris, or sealed their exits so that they possibly could not get out again.

Today the nuclear threat seems to have diminished enough that almost no one goes crazy digging to build an anti-atomic shelter. Fortunately, most shelters have been 'recycled' and turned into wine cellars, basements, or even game rooms. In many cases, current residents who bought the houses from their previous owners are unaware why such strange rooms were built, always windowless and with concrete walls. They are nothing more than a kind of 'concrete dinosaurs', extinct at the end of the Cold War.