Posted on 09/27/2007 1:07:37 PM PDT by yorkie
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — In an age of al-Qaida, sleeper cells and the threat of nuclear terrorism, Huntsville is dusting off its Cold War manual to create the nation's most ambitious fallout-shelter plan, featuring an abandoned mine big enough for 20,000 people to take cover underground.
Others would hunker down in college dorms, churches, libraries and research halls that planners hope will bring the community's shelter capacity to 300,000, or space for every man, woman and child in Huntsville and the surrounding county.
Emergency planners in Huntsville — an out-of-the-way city best known as the home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center — say the idea makes sense because radioactive fallout could be scattered for hundreds of miles if terrorists detonated a nuclear bomb.
"If Huntsville is in the blast zone, there's not much we can do. But if it's just fallout ... shelters would absorb 90 percent of the radiation," said longtime emergency management planner Kirk Paradise, whose Cold War expertise with fallout shelters led local leaders to renew Huntsville's program.
Huntsville's project, developed using $70,000 from a Homeland Security grant, goes against the grain because the United States essentially scrapped its national plan for fallout shelters after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Congress cut off funding and the government published its last list of approved shelters at the end of 1992.
Smart. More cities should take their lead. As should individuals in their preparedness.
I know people that built fallout shelters in their back yards. I expect they are still there.
Wow! I live in Huntsville and this is news to me!
I wonder if each citizen will be assigned to a particular shelter.....
“Smart. More cities should take their lead. As should individuals in their preparedness.”
This is good news and more evidence of a little adult thinking, creeping back into American life.
My town is leading the way again.
I was wondering if they were going to use all of the caves here.
Used to be Civil Defense. Many large buildings were not only surveyed for occupancy rates, but were stocked with crackers, cheese, and water. Last one I toured was about 1971. Full of those little brown 17 gallon barrels.
Should be lots of unused bunkers out there left over from the Y2K disaster.
“I wonder if each citizen will be assigned to a particular shelter.....”
If at all possible, NEVER go to a public shelter. IMO, build one on your own property and tell no one except for those who will be sheltered.
There were also emergency medical depots outside major cities, stocked with medicine and surgical supplies.
According to a friend who helped close down the last local depot, the stockpiled medicines were primarily Thorazine and morphine.
I've been in that mine. Huge. Wouldn't want to be in there with 20,000 people though.
...shelters would absorb 90 percent of the radiation...
Huh? I thought shelters were supposed to PREVENT the absorption of radiation.
Who needs a mine, when you can have a Vault?
prolly face more of a threat from a test at MSFC or Redstone than from AlQ. Besides, AlQ would target the shelters. 20,000 in one blow! Pop a small device that spews some medical waste below a detector, drive the population into the shelters, and set off the real people-shreaders they’ve planted. Why do we think there were foreign types seen taking photos of NYFD responses to alarms (was it NY or NJ?). Obviously they are interested in inflicting secondary damage.
War...War never changes.
Check the sig
By the Clinton years, you were an extremist nutter.
The pendulum swings.
Now, I have to get back to work burrowing under the neighbors' garage...(just kidding, really).
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