Gimme Shelter

Reno’s Fallout Shelters Were Mothballed At The End Of The Cold War. Should They Be Reopened To Handle Other Disasters?

By D. Brian Burghart

The door to the sanctuary is painted off-white, similar to the other service doors on the east side of Park Lane Mall. There is a darker rectangle above the door where a sign has been removed.

The missing sign probably was black and yellow and featured the words “FALLOUT SHELTER.”

In Washoe County, more than 200 public and private fallout shelters have sat idle for more than 30 years. Many have been turned into storage rooms. One at Reno High School became a classroom. Most are remnants of those Cold War years, left like Smithsonian exhibits, with packaged supplies still untouched after all these years, waiting for some new boogieman to reheat Cold War fears.

Well, Y2K’s a-comin’, and while nobody is planning on a full-scale retreat into those old fallout shelters, some folks are wondering why the United States abandoned its policy of civil preparedness and permanently mothballed all those fallout shelters.

Government officials are quick to say that fallout shelters are a dangerous place to be—especially in times of disaster.

When a friend mentioned that the fallout shelter below Park Lane Mall still contained some Cold War supplies, we decided to see just what condition the shelter was in—and whether, in the event of a major catastrophe, it could be a harbor in the storm.

“Survival Supplies”
Beyond the nondescript door on the back side of Park Lane is a staircase that leads down to a room that hearkens to the age when noon whistles blew, school children had bomb drills and fears of nuclear holocaust were rampant.

In those days of the Red Scare, during the ’50s and early ’60s, the fallout shelter signs were ubiquitous. The theory was that in the event of nuclear attack, citizens could retreat to these basement hideaways, which would be stocked with the materials needed to survive underground—for weeks if necessary. Their effectiveness obviously was never put to the test. Since then, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet empire collapsed, which put national fears of communist invasions mostly to rest. Fallout shelters now occupy a peculiar space between being relegated to the past and taking up space in the present.

At the base of the steps to the fallout shelter below Park Lane Mall, at about eye level, one of the familiar tri-foil fallout shelter signs hangs on the concrete wall. My guide says there used to be electricity, and there are plastic utility lights on extension cords hanging around, but now the shelter is dark as Hades and just about as creepy. There is a humid odor of mildew, and, after the 90-plus degree temperatures outside, a cavelike coolness.

My guide goes in search of flashlights and returns with two 99-cent lights that look like Star Trek phasers and cast little more illumination than candles.

Some of the shelter has been converted into storage for businesses that occupy the mall, but as we shuffle deeper into the abyss, the room opens up into a cavernous space. The walls and floor are concrete, and plumbing and electric fixtures hang from the ceiling.

The payoff to our little spelunking trip is along the far wall, where 117 olive-drab 17.5-gallon water canisters with electric-yellow lettering sit. Some look as pristine as the day in 1968 when they were last maintained. Others are leaky and corroded.

Atop the rows of water canisters are about 20 cardboard-colored tubes, each about 16-inches in diameter and 2 feet tall. They are labeled, “Survival Supplies, furnished by Office of Civil Defense, Department of Defense, SK IV Sanitation Kit.” Each contains enough supplies for 50 people, including a can opener, sanitary napkins, gloves, tie wire, siphon spout, cups and lids, an instruction sheet, a toilet seat, toilet tissue, and commode chemicals.

When last documented, there were 211 public fallout shelters in Washoe County and enough spaces for 350,139 people. Some of the shelters are in abandoned mines, some in public-owned buildings and others, like this one, in private businesses. But there are even more than that, as government-fueled hysteria convinced some homeowners to build their own.

Nuclear Family
“You don’t bring up happy memories,” says one former Reno resident who now lives in Salinas, Calif., but who doesn’t want to be identified because of the embarrassment she and her husband suffered as a result of building a bomb shelter. “It was not fun to work on a Doomsday project and pour money into a big hole in the ground.”

“We referred to ours as the detached basement,” says husband Ward (not his real name). “It was a pain in the butt, actually.”

The couple built their bomb shelter on Sunrise Drive in Reno. June said that while she can’t remember exactly when it was built, it was after the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962), but before John F. Kennedy’s assassination (November 1963).

Ward says that it was government propaganda that scared them into building the shelter.

“The federal and county government were very involved there in Reno, trying to tell you how to build it and stock it, but they weren’t there with any money to help you pay for it,” he says. “We got a bank loan to pay for it.”

“To this day,” says June, “I regret the money we spent on it. But if you wanted to protect your family, you felt like you had to do it.”

At the time, the couple had three daughters about junior-high age.

“You do what you think is right, but I still feel like a total fool,” June says. “It’s a part of our past. If someone told me to do it today, I’d tell them to stick it up their nose.”

June could not recall exactly how much it cost to build the shelter, although she thinks they spent around $2,000, “which in those days was quite a bit of money, about the cost of a new car,” to build and stock the shelter. Adjusted for inflation, that $2,000 becomes about $11,000 in 1999.

She remembers the shelter being about 12 feet by 15 feet with bunk beds at one end and lots of shelves. Ward said that they contacted the Mormon church to get information on how to stock the shelter.

The couple couldn’t recall any of their friends building shelters, although they could remember some businesses that were trying to cash in on the fear generated by the Cold War.

“There were businesses selling big metal cylinders that people would bury,” Ward says. “They’d use scare tactics in their ads. I remember one guy, I don’t remember if it was in Reno, who buried a whole school bus. The idea was you could bury anything, as long as you covered it in three feet of dirt.”

June suggests that while she wouldn’t define the nation’s anxiety at the Cold War as hysteria, it was a time she would not like to return to.

“People were very frightened,” she says. “I would describe it as uneasiness and helplessness. And there wasn’t anything you could do about it.”

Shelter From The Storm
These days, sales of private fallout shelters on the Internet are soaring. The American Civil Defense Association, www.tacda.org, sells the Hive, a little polyethylene number with a half-life of 200 years and a five-year limited warranty for $1,749 plus shipping.

But the shelters maintained by federal and local governments have become footnotes in history books, according to Press Clewe of Washoe County Emergency Management.

Fallout shelters were administered by the U.S. Federal Civil Defense Administration, which operated from 1951 in various forms until 1979, when its functions were pulled into the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Clewe, who is responsible for keeping track of the fallout shelters in Washoe County, says the shelters are beyond obsolete. For the most part, they’ve had stocked materials removed and are the last place you’d want to go in the event of an emergency.

“These facilities are in secure areas of buildings and generally not visible by the average public,” Clewe says. “We do not advertise them in any fashion as places people evacuate to in a flood or earthquake. We would never send anybody there.”

Clewe is a little concerned about discussing fallout shelters, especially in the context of emergency management.

“I don’t want the public to think that these facilities exist for their use now, or that they can go in and look at them or even be so presumptuous as to say, ‘Well, that’s where I’m going, so I’m going to store some stuff there,’” he says.

The nuclear war survival material that still sits in the Park Lane fallout shelter is the exception, according to Clewe.

“When we were moving out of the Cold War and moving into an all-hazards environment—‘all-hazards’ meaning, earthquake, severe storms, severe weather, flooding, volcanic fallout, hazardous material spills, things of that nature—rather than strictly focus on war, we made a concerted effort to remove all the food, all the ventilation kits and the sanitation kits to about the 90 percent level. We destroyed the food because it was sour and unusable.”

The leaky water canisters in the shelter beneath Park Lane are not altogether unusual, he says, but the water contained in them could be toxic and should be thrown away. People are advised not to consume the water, although it may be suitable for watering flowers.

“The water that was put up was stored in very early technology plastic that since then has broken and contaminated the water because it was inside another liner that wasn’t sanitized,” Clewe says.

Some critics claim that the federal government has mothballed the fallout shelters because there is no way to survive a nuclear war, but Clewe says that’s not the case.

“I think there’s been a conscious movement away from war planning into all-hazards preparedness,” he says. “I think it’s been a conscious effort that Congress has dictated through budget and through policy.”

Clewe isn’t particularly worried about Y2K, although he says that every family should be prepared at all times with enough food, water and other supplies to survive at least 72 hours.

“It’s extremely important that everybody prepare themselves for any event,” he says. “I don’t think there is a substantial risk from a Y2K event. We’ve had several briefings from power company officials and national experts. We’re expecting that there will be lots of little glitches, maybe traffic signals that won’t work exactly as they’re supposed to. So what? The world’s not going to come to an end.”

The Best Defense
Robert Duncan, surplus manager for Twin City Surplus, isn’t quite so sure that Y2K is nothing to worry about. Many of his customers are preparing for the worst. Twin City Surplus even sells the empty water cylinders and nuclear preparation equipment like that we found in the fallout shelter in Park Lane Mall.

Twin City Surplus charges $20-$50 for the sanitation kits. The store even has Class C medical kits, which were packed in 1967 for around $70. Duncan says those types of things are mainly for collectors, although there are many people who are preparing for major problems on Jan. 1, 2000.

“You’ve got the casual Y2K preparedness type who’s maybe got a food supply, who just wants to be a little bit more self-sufficient,” he says. “We’ve also got a doctor who’s organized his entire block. They got together and made a list. Some guys are responsible for water storage, others for food, a generator etc. Some of these people are really paranoid, although I don’t know if they don’t have a reason to be.”

Duncan says not keeping up fallout shelters is an example of government waste.

“Most of the fallout shelters are gone, and I think getting rid of them was a big mistake,” he says. “The world is too uncertain a place for us to throw away our contingencies.”

There are two sides to every coin, and Duncan echoes Clewe’s suggestion that the philosophy of national civil defense has changed, although he sees a different motive and result.

“The government shifted the emphasis from survivability to inflicting the most damage possible on the enemy; kill the most people, and to heck with your own citizens,” Duncan says.

A Guide To Surviving Nuclear War

The Family Guide for Emergency Health Care was published by the Office of Civil Defense in 1961 to help families prepare for nuclear survival. The 60-page booklet features some fun quotes for those who live by the Boy Scout motto:

Be prepared.

1. A nuclear attack against the United States could start a multitude of health problems.

2. The continued presence of a dead body in a small shelter for several days would have grave effects on the emotions and sensibilities if not the physical health of the other occupants. If there continues to be too much radiation hazard to permit leaving the shelter and digging a grave, it might be best simply to put the covered body outside the shelter.

3. A pregnant woman should be especially careful to protect herself from radiation exposure.

4. It is well to keep in mind that any radiation received, other than that received for medical diagnosis and treatment, is harmful because the body can never repair all the damage.

5. Shelter living would be crowded. Neither the crowding nor lack of privacy prove to be as serious a discomfort factor in shelter living as people expect them to be.

6. There may be ill members of the family to care for following a nuclear attack. Some cases

will occur in the normal course of events, and others will be brought on by the anxieties, difficulties and crowding of shelter living.

7. Emotional problems may increase in a time of disaster, particularly under conditions of confined living.

8. Panic, if uncontrolled, is contagious.

9. The presence of a seriously ill or injured person in a shelter may be greatly upsetting to other members of the group quartered there.

10. A cup of warm soup or tea is a physical help you might offer.