My House as a Teenager Had a Fallout Shelter

[CC27]

MineralMan (151,086 posts)

My House as a Teenager Had a Fallout Shelter

That's how old I am. The Cuban Missile Crisis stimulated my father into building a fallout shelter under our house in Southern California. I was 16 years old, and got recruited into mixing concrete for the project. It was a secret, and was built mostly at night.

It had all the necessary equipment from a hand-cranked ventilation system to a very large water storage tank. After it was built, it got stocked with non-perishable food, and other necessities. Nobody knew it was there, an there was no visible entrance.

I was not impressed, despite having mixed multiple yards of concrete. My sister was even less impressed, since she was not allowed to mention it to her boyfriend, the guy she ended up married to for 60 years. She insisted that she would not enter it if he couldn't.

About five years later, all the food was removed and it remained empty and useless from that time on. Of course, it was useless from the beginning, but that's what some people did in the face of the chance of a nuclear war.

Later, after I had moved away, they sold that house. My understanding is that the new owners were never told about the shelter, nor shown the hidden trap door that was its entrance. Strange times, those were. We're living in strange times once again...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221084105

Your point rockhead?

[SVPete]

... Strange times, those were. We're living in strange times once again...

  MM really thinks Iran has the capability to attack the US?

[CollectivismMustDie]

I wonder if rockhead drives around without a jack and spare tire...

[ADsOutburst]

Strange times, those were. We're living in strange times once again...

True, but probably not for the reasons you think.

[FlippyDoo]

When my house was a teenager it wasn't thinking much about fallout shelters. It was more concerned with getting the attention of the female houses.

[Zathras]

Let  me guess. The plans were sold to his father by a salesman wearing a brown fedora and trench coat who worked for Vault-Tech.

[BannedFromDU]

[CollectivismMustDie]

Love it! Hi-5

[zeitgeist]

Ok who else remembers "Bert" the turtle"

If you click on the link you can find and play the 'film'.  @1951

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover_(film)

We were in a first strike zone as a kid between a SAC base and Nuclear Sub base.

Trust me, ducking under the desk would have done absolutely no good at ground zero and even as kids we all knew it.

[DefiantSix]

Let  me guess. The plans were sold to his father by a salesman wearing a brown fedora and trench coat who worked for Vault-Tech.

I would guess that daddy ordered the plans out of the back of a Popular Mechanics...

[Airwolf]

Ok who else remembers "Bert" the turtle"

If you click on the link you can find and play the 'film'.  @1951

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover_(film)

We were in a first strike zone as a kid between a SAC base and Nuclear Sub base.

Trust me, ducking under the desk would have done absolutely no good at ground zero and even as kids we all knew it.

I live and have lived all of my live outside of the military barely 20 miles from Offutt AFB. The former SAC HQ and now HQ for STRATCOM, One of the top ten targets on the Russian list of must hit. If MM thinks he was in any danger then he has no idea what it is like to live under the threat of a first strike.

[DLR Pyro]

the plot of the DUmmie's yarn sounds vaguely familiar to an Episode of the Happy Days where Howard Cunningham wanted to divert the family's vacation savings they were going to use to visit Carlsbad Caverns and instead build a bomb shelter because of the red menace.  Howard was insistent that the shelter was only for family and that Potsie, Ralph Malph and even the Fonz wasn't going to be allowed into it if the bomb was dropped. As a result Ritchie lost his friends and the family convinced Pa Cunningham to abandon his plans for a shelter.



https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0596156/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

[BannedFromDU]

the plot of the DUmmie's yarn sounds vaguely familiar to an Episode of the Happy Days where Howard Cunningham wanted to divert the family's vacation savings they were going to use to visit Carlsbad Caverns and instead build a bomb shelter because of the red menace.  Howard was insistent that the shelter was only for family and that Potsie, Ralph Malph and even the Fonz wasn't going to be allowed into it if the bomb was dropped. As a result Ritchie lost his friends and the family convinced Pa Cunningham to abandon his plans for a shelter.



https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0596156/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

     Your thirdhand account of a plot from a sitcom from 50 years ago is more entertaining than rockhead's blather.

[FlippyDoo]

I live and have lived all of my live outside of the military barely 20 miles from Offutt AFB. The former SAC HQ and now HQ for STRATCOM, One of the top ten targets on the Russian list of must hit. If MM thinks he was in any danger then he has no idea what it is like to live under the threat of a first strike.

Some of my friends and I talked about it when we were in high school in the 80s. We had an Army base to the north of us, a Naval base to the south of us, and an Air Force base to west of us. In our youthful minds, we figured that if the crap ever hit the fan that we probably wouldn't be around long enough to worry much about it so we just as well get on with life while we had it.

[SVPete]

Where I grew up was about 25 miles from Mather and McClellan AFBs, 35 miles from Travis AFB, and maybe 45 miles from Mare Island and the mothball fleet in Suisun Bay. AFAIK, my parents didn't give much thought to nuclear risk. Maybe they figured it was far above their paygrade and anything they might "do" would make a slight color difference in how toasty we'd be.

MM was just using his supposed family history as an irrelevant intro to, "We're living in strange times once again...".

[Muddling 2]

Let  me guess. The plans were sold to his father by a salesman wearing a brown fedora and trench coat who worked for Vault-Tech.

"Prepare for the Future!"

 

[FlaGator]

Paranoia apparently run strong in MM's family

[beefeater]

For once the Old Coot is likely telling the truth. I'll be turning 78 next month and remember those days.

From a Gemini chat;

The 1960s marked the height of the Cold War "prepping" culture, where the threat of nuclear conflict moved from abstract military strategy to a domestic reality. This era transformed the American basement and the radio dial into frontlines of national security.

### CONELRAD and the Transition to EBS

By the early 1960s, the **CONELRAD** (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) system was the primary method for emergency communication.

* **The "640-1240" Rule:** All AM radios manufactured between 1953 and 1963 featured small "CD" (Civil Defense) triangles at the 640 and 1240 kHz frequencies. In an emergency, all other stations would go silent to prevent enemy bombers from using radio signals as navigational beacons.
* **The Shift:** In 1963, CONELRAD was replaced by the **Emergency Broadcast System (EBS)**. This update allowed stations to stay on their assigned frequencies, providing better audio quality and more reliable regional information while still giving the President nearly instant access to the airwaves.

### The Fallout Shelter Crusade

The early 60s, particularly around the **Berlin Crisis (1961)** and the **Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)**, saw a massive push for private and public shelters.

* **Public Shelters:** The government launched a nationwide effort to identify and stock existing buildings (schools, courthouses, subways) as fallout shelters. These were marked by the iconic yellow-and-black trefoil signs.
* **The "Backyard" Trend:** President Kennedy famously encouraged families to build their own shelters. Companies marketed DIY kits and pre-fabricated steel "cocoons" that could be buried in the backyard or integrated into a basement.
* **Social Ethics:** The trend sparked a bizarre national debate over "shelter ethics"—whether it was morally acceptable to use force to keep neighbors out of a private shelter if space and supplies were limited.

### Civil Defense Supplies

A standard 1960s shelter was a study in utilitarian preservation. The government-issued supplies typically included:

| Item | Purpose |
| --- | --- |
| **Survival Crackers** | Dense, bland biscuits designed to provide basic calories for 14 days. |
| **Water Barrels** | Large metal drums meant to be filled and sealed; later reused as chemical toilets. |
| **Dosimeters** | Pen-like devices used to measure the cumulative radiation exposure of the occupants. |
| **Sanitation Kits** | Minimalist supplies, as plumbing was expected to fail or become contaminated. |

---

### Popular Media and "Duck and Cover"

While the 1950s gave us "Bert the Turtle," the 1960s took a more somber tone. Civil Defense films became more technical, focusing on the "Total Overpressure" of blasts and the specifics of radioactive decay. This era also produced some of the most enduring media critiques of the system, most notably Stanley Kubrick’s *Dr. Strangelove* (1964).

[SVPete]

MM's tale about his family is quite plausible. Family fall-out shelters were a thing, briefly, ca. 1960, +/- a few years. I remember seeing signs in town directing people to the town's public fall-out shelter. Being close to 3 large AFBs, they probably would have been meaningless.

MM is of an age where he could have watched Rocky and Bullwinkle when their cartoons were first released.

I'm a bit less aged, so my family watched The Flintstones on Friday nights. IIRC there was a naming contest for when Fred captured Dino and took him home to be a pet.

[BannedFromDU]

For once the Old Coot is likely telling the truth. I'll be turning 78 next month and remember those days.

From a Gemini chat;

     The fact that you can get that from an AI chat is more proof that he didn't have one, and even if he did, would gives a flying **** at the moon anyway. When they have nothing else, they start carping about nuclear war again.