They did finally admit to “venting” from some underground tests.
The reporters were left with the impression that it was like a puff of steam one would get from taking the lid off a pot of beans.
It was more like Old Faithful, only for hours or days on end.
This was LO-O-O-NG before underground tests. They hadn’t even considered “underground tests” because Nevada was so sparsly populated. They really didn’t ponder what the wind would do until the early 50’s. By then a lot of people were already irreversibly damaged.
I was born in 1944 in northern NV, but we moved to Alaska when I was six weeks old. We returned to the States (AK was still a territory, then) in 1949, and I believe the above-ground testing was going strong at the time.
The rest is my history.