
The Weirdness of 50s Bomb Shelters - wglb
http://allday.com/post/1192-the-weirdness-of-50s-bomb-shelters
======
wtbob
I really don't care for the snide tone of the article. Bomb shelters weren't
weird; they weren't irrational. Recall that WWII had involved mass area
bombing of civilian targets; many Europeans and Brits were alive in the 50s
due to their nations' bomb shelter programs (I don't know about Japan or the
Soviets, so I can't say there).

A nuke isn't some magical death-and-destruction device: it's just a really
powerful bomb, which releases some really nasty pollutants. It's a difference
of degree, not of kind: other bombs are weaker and still releases less nasty
pollutants.

Sure, no home bomb shelter could survive a direct hit; but home shelters
weren't made to resist direct hits: they were made to resist blast waves from
hits on nearby cities; they were made to resist nearby conventional hits.

What made them less useful investments was a factor of several things.
Precision targeting made area bombing less likely. Improved air defenses made
large-scale WWII-style bombing raids less likely. It might also be the case
that larger bombs made the risk-reward ratio different.

While cleaning out my grandparents' home a few months ago I came across a
government civil defense pamphlet my grandfathers' firm had republished. It
was full of good, scientifically-accurate, well-founded advice. It wasn't
alarmist; it was up-to-date for the time when it was published.

It certainly wasn't weird to be prepared for something which at the time was
likely to happen.

~~~
fennecfoxen
In related news, even the much-maligned "Duck and Cover" is full of good
advice (which is coincidentally also useful against large meteors).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover_(film)#Accuracy_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover_\(film\)#Accuracy_and_usefulness)

------
kulkarnic
The rational reason we don't build nuclear shelters anymore is because they're
no longer effective. As weapon yields increased, it's become apparent that a
concrete, underground hideout is not going to save you.

The irrational reason is that it's been 60+ years since atomic weapons were
deployed, and we are confident the danger has passed. But really, there's
plenty of weapons out there: [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/map-
nuclear-bomb...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/map-nuclear-
bombs-power-weapons)

~~~
waynecochran
An underground hideout was never going to save you if you were near enough to
the blast -- I always thought it was more of a way to protect yourself from
nuclear fallout -- wouldn't that still be a valid reason to build a shelter?

~~~
Someone
You don't need reinforced shelters against fallout; above-ground buildings
will do fine, as long as they can be made reasonably airtight (as additional
protection, one could provide for material to replace broken windows)

Also, I think most shelters would be far enough from blast areas to provide
some protection.

Eizo Nomura (who, amazingly, doesn't have a Wikipedia page) was 170 meter from
ground zero in Hiroshima, and survived
([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#The_bombing))

Akiko Takakura was above ground at less than 300m and lived for 60 years.

Even though later bombs were much more powerful that makes it likely that
shelters at the edge of the blast radius can save lives.

Not all of them, but any program to protect civilians is a statistics game.

All the construction in SF isn't 100% effective against earthquakes, either.

~~~
hga
Per Cresson Kerney, who's nuclear war survival stuff was actually tested
against reality (vs. the deathtraps like at least one of those early shelter
plans in the OP which was dreamed up by D.C. bureaucrats) says air tightness
concerns are entirely overblown, so to speak ^_^. As I recall, the heavy stuff
that falls out early is too big to be a concern of that sort, the light stuff
decays to safe (enough) levels before enough of it drops and becomes an issue.
We have a lot of data on this thanks to those eeeevil above ground tests.

What you need is plenty of mass between sources of radiation, i.e. fallout
particles where they settle, and from "skyshine". In a sufficiently bad
situation, which would be pretty common, a simple ditch where you made sure
the fallout kept out and didn't accumulate on, say, the tarp you were using
for that, you'd still get zapped by gamma rays that bounce off atoms in the
air and come down into the ditch.

So the most basic expedient fallout shelter is a ditch with hollow core
interior doors over it or the like, and foot of dirt on top, which through
arching holds most of its weight.

An above-ground building is iffy, because you want, say, 3 feet of dirt all
around you, and either a foot on top or if the roof is high enough that's not
as much of an issue. Middle stories of a tall building could suffice.

------
IgorPartola
I was born in the 1980s in Ukraine, so I have both an experience to share and
questions to ask. Questions first: how common was it to build your own shelter
in the US? Was it something that most people did? Most people talked about?
Were the people who built them considered as irrational as people who build
"zombie apocalypse" shelters today? Were they stocked with guns the same way
that today's shelters are?

Experience: I grew up in Kharkiv, a city with roughly a 1m population, and the
second largest city in Ukraine. Most people lived in large apartment complexes
that were organized into planned neighborhoods. Imagine four buildings
surrounding a common area that was laid out as a small park. Inside this
common area that my building was surrounding were three bomb shelters. We
called them "old", "weird", and "new" based on their outside appearance. The
entrances were fairly small: just a triangle structure with a door and a
staircase going down. We never went too deep into them when they were open
(the authorities would periodically close them up), but at one point I
remember using an iron bar to break the chain on one of them and leading a few
of my friends down into it. I really wish we had good flashlights, rope, etc.
(we were all around 11 or 12). We went down two levels and looked at these
huge rooms. Some of them looked to be set up for bunk beds and it looked like
the beds were at some point taken out. I did wander into a random room without
a flashlight and almost took a step into a darker area before realizing that
it was an opening with a step ladder down to the lower level. I would have
been badly hurt had I taken the step before checking. This naturally scared me
enough to get out of there in a hurry. The next week this particular shelter
was closed up with a better chain so we didn't get to go in again.

Edit: I tried to find some pictures of what it looked like. Surely someone has
taken some photos at one point, but sadly I cannot find anything that
resembled the bomb shelters I explored as a child. I do have a strange
fascination with the Cold War, so now I really wish I could go back and take
some pictures/explore things as an adult.

~~~
Ueland
Norwegian here: While building their house, my grandparents had (by law) to
build the basement solid enough to be used as a bomb shelter, this was in the
fifties i believe. I now live in an apartment block from early sixties and
every block here (with around 24 apartments) has their own bomb shelter in the
basement.

Even some of our subway stations are (rather large) bomb shelters. In my home
village, both some of the schools and sport facilities all had their own bomb
shelters which also had facilities for keeping gas out.

I do believe that is no longer required to build new bomb shelters but all
existing ones has to be maintained and be ready to be used within a specified
timeframe.

------
stephancoral
Photo number 9 isn't simply a bomb shelter, its a decommissioned ATLAS F
missile base - [http://www.silohome.com/](http://www.silohome.com/)

The Las Vegas shelter is awesome, almost like an art installation.

~~~
freshyill
When I got to that image, that's when I completely gave up on it. This article
was complete spam, and devoid of any real content.

Somebody spent five minutes googling "bomb shelter" and then posted a few
photos with some asinine remarks.

------
wglb
This was particularly memorable for me as during that time, my dad, a wheat
farmer, during the winter would construct shelters for folks in town. None
were quite so elaborate as the more extreme ones shown in the article.

A little later, the county was dotted with the Minuteman missle sites and
control centers. One silo was on a friends farm. He said it was sobering to
think that the several-foot thick concrete lid would blow the better part of a
hundred yards away just before launch.

~~~
arethuza
I'd have thought it would be even more sobering to think about what would be
arriving 20 to 30 minutes after the missiles blasted off.

NB The novel "Arc Light" includes one thread where the crew from a a Minuteman
control center surviving an attack and spending weeks underground then having
to make an escape through the devastated landscape:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light_%28novel%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light_%28novel%29)

~~~
hga
Even that nasty a situation is survivable with sufficient strength shelters,
luck to avoid a random direct hit, and enough food and water/water supply to
wait out the longer period required before evacuating the indeed "devastated
landscape".

What I find weird is the attitude that it's better to die than survive with
most all of your loved ones and friends, albeit at a reduced quality of life
for a long time. A rather ultimate materialistic attitude, or perhaps it's as
Dean Ing put it in _Systemic Shock_ :

 _The American public had by turns ignored and ridiculed its cassandras: city
planners, ecologists, demographers, socialists, immigrants, who had all warned
against our increasing tendency to crowd into our cities. Social stress,
failure of essential services, and warfare were only a few of the spectres we
had granted only a passing glance. We had always found some solution to our
problems, though: often at the last moment. Firmly anchored in most Americans
was the tacit certainty that, even to the problem of nuclear war against
population centers, there must be a uniquely American solution; we would find
it.

The solution was sudden death. A hundred million Americans found it._

~~~
VLM
"What I find weird is the attitude"

Its a manifestation of binary thinking. Well, either we "must" have no nuclear
attack, or it "must" be post apocalyptic. Not allowed to be just one shipping
container in LA or one maintenance accident at a missile field.

A good analogy is often heard for bicycle helmets. I'll either be squashed
underneath the wheels of a bus or I won't get into an accident, either way the
helmet doesn't matter so I won't wear one. Even if slipping on gravel and
hitting your head on the curb is about 100x more likely than either of the
binary options.

~~~
wtbob
Well, with bicycle helmets in particular the odds of the particular type of
injury they are effective against are very low, while wearing the helmet
itself is risky (cars drive closer to people wearing bike helmets), and the
helmet costs money, and it looks bad. My judgement is that the helmet's cost
outweighs its benefit in most circumstances, just like walking helmets (yes,
they exist!).

~~~
brianlweiner
Do you have a citation for "the odds of a particular type of injury [helmets]
are effective against are very low"?

Studies seem to suggest that helmets reduce the risk of a head injury by as
much as 85%. In 2012 for nearly 2/3 of bicycle accident fatalities the rider
was not wearing a helmet. This used to be an even higher percentage but
fortunately the # of fatalities has decliend signficantly in the last 20
years.

[http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/pedestrians-and-
bicyclists...](http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/pedestrians-and-
bicyclists/fatalityfacts/bicycles)

~~~
wtbob
Check out [http://www.cyclehelmets.org/](http://www.cyclehelmets.org/)

> In 2012 for nearly 2/3 of bicycle accident fatalities the rider was not
> wearing a helmet.

That's irrelevant, since it indicates nothing about what fraction of those 2/3
would have survived if they'd been wearing helmets (as an example, if someone
is hit my a truck at 50 mph, it really doesn't matter if he's wearing a helmet
or not). Also, what fraction of cyclists wear helmets? I'd be surprised were
it so much as 1/3; if it's less, then that would indicate that helmet-wearers
are more likely to die than non-helmet-wearers (due to risk-tolerance on the
part of both cyclists and drivers, c.f. [http://www.cnet.com/news/brain-
surgeon-theres-no-point-weari...](http://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-
theres-no-point-wearing-cycle-helmets/)).

There are three types of head strike injury: those with so little force that
no death or severe injury would occur, with or without a helmet; those with
sufficient force to inflict death or serious injury without a helmet, but
which a helmet would prevent; and those with so much force that a lightweight
foam-and-plastic helmet wouldn't help.

> This used to be an even higher percentage but fortunately the # of
> fatalities has decliend signficantly in the last 20 years.

It looks to me from that IIHS graph that it merely reflects the fact that more
people are wearing helmets now than previously.

------
trhway
basements in Donetsk (Ukraine) today many people use as shelters, for example
-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jY15tgcE7c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jY15tgcE7c)

A lot of the buildings there are typical USSR-style 5-9 stories concrete block
apartment buildings with basements made out of concrete blocks of between
0.3-0.5m thickness.

The modern, high precision weaponry, isn't available in Ukrainian army,
instead it is mostly "classic" low precision "area attack" USSR stuff, like
artillery guns and multiple unguided rocket launchers. When the city is
shelled from a system like this
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-27_Uragan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-27_Uragan))
using cluster munition, such basement shelters work great.

([http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia/photo-
gallery/2014/7...](http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia/photo-
gallery/2014/7/photos-donetsk-enduresshelling.html) \- starting 2nd photo -
the buildings itself ok if no direct hit with basements having very good
chance to be ok even in case of direct hit into the building)

~~~
masklinn
> The modern, high precision weaponry, isn't available in Ukrainian army

Even if it were, it's expensive and it requires point & aim so it's not drop &
forget and you're bombing a very small surface.

You're not going to use it against random civilians when shelling a city
center, that's a waste of money, time, airspace, efficiency, everything anyone
can care about.

~~~
trhway
in some cases when mapping the hits (especially when there is whole salvo), it
is sometimes pretty clear that Ukrainians were targeting some specific target,
and the civilian buildings would just happen to be either in the flightpath on
the downward trajectory or just pretty close (again, it is an USSR tech - so
1000ft(300m) is pretty close when unguided missile is launched from 15-20km
away) and we're talking about pretty populated city.

~~~
masklinn
Misses I can believe no problem, but then precision ammunition would probably
have turned it into a hit, not into a civilian building eating a bunker
buster.

------
ZanyProgrammer
The balance of forces was such that it was very conceivable that most of the
US could remain unscathed in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
The strategic disparity was simply too huge. Therefore, shelters made tons of
sense.

------
PhantomGremlin
In image 4 and 6 the woman is wearing heels. In image 6 the man is wearing a
white shirt and tie. Did they just arrive from work, or are they simply intent
on keeping up appearances while in the middle of a nuclear war?

In image 7 some of the glass jars are so precariously placed that they are
actually hanging over the edge of the shelf.

Overall, I agree with someone else's assessment here. They said:

    
    
       Somebody spent five minutes googling
       "bomb shelter" and then posted a few
       photos with some asinine remarks.
       https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8811872

------
waynecochran
This seems appropriate for bomb shelters and Christmas -- Weird Al's
"Christmas at Ground Zero:"
[http://youtu.be/t039p6xqutU](http://youtu.be/t039p6xqutU)

------
anovikov
Even if shelters had absolutely no protection from blast they would anyway did
most of the job they were intended to do: protect from fallout. Just a few
days of shelter time will cut number of casualties in half.

Also today's nuclear weapons are in general, weaker than those of 1950s,
especially late 1950s. Weirdly, this means that shelters give somewhat LESS
protection because fallout is less of a factor than blast and prompt radiation
(you probably can't get in a shelter in time to avoid prompt radiation).

------
nsxwolf
Where are these shelters now? Were people really building a lot of these? It
seems they could be all over the country in mid-century communities
everywhere. I look at a lot of real estate listings but I can't say I've ever
seen one mentioned.

------
taivare
I saw one of those manual-hand-cranked blower's at a flea market , it was old
and I couldn't figure out what the hell it was used for now I know it came out
of a 50's bomb shelter, the guy selling it didn't know what it was either.

------
teddyh
Relevant short story by Philip K. Dick, written in 1955: _Foster, You 're
Dead!_

[http://www.american-
buddha.com/dick.phildickreader.17.htm](http://www.american-
buddha.com/dick.phildickreader.17.htm)

~~~
hga
Maybe.

Hmmm, in general, very much not a "Maker" attitude. Think about how much fun
it would be to recast it into that sort of upbeat "survival in style" ethos.
Low power micro-controllers and ARM devices would be even more popular! One
form of bragging rights would go to the teens who fashion the lowest power
dissipation 1080p shelter media system ^_^.

I see from Dick's Wikipedia personal life section that he is almost certainly
a city boy through and through, which would explain a lot of this story.

As for particulars, ignoring the arms-race part of it, really good basic
fallout shelters are _ridiculously_ low tech, the sort of thing people in
flyover country are supremely competent to make without any fuss---and most of
us don't get caught up in the next year model craziness (E.g. my parents
bought a very high end Mercedes in ~1990 ... and sold it this year; they are,
of course, members of the Silent Generation).

If you need blast protection, then the doors and vents require more serious
stuff that's best produced in a factory to standard designs.

As for the new sophisticated threat from the Soviets in that story, no, I
think not. Very much not in their style.

~~~
teddyh
> _very much not a "Maker" attitude_

At the bottom of the page is a link labeled "Go to Next Page", which leads to
_Pay for the Printer_ , written by Philip K. Dick the year after, 1956. Read
that and see if you change your mind about PKD.

------
ck2
Congress built themselves a massive, posh nuclear shelter with taxpayer money
but when it was revealed by newspapers in the 1990s they closed it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Greek_Island](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Greek_Island)

Wanna bet they built another secret one with taxpayer money?

Basically if there is nuclear war, congress should die first because it was
their job to prevent that from happening in the first place. We certainly
should not want them to survive their failures.

~~~
hga
Eh, it was obsolete by sometime in the 60s, e.g. when the SS-9 got accurate
enough to take it out. In the '50s and '60s we _had_ a real Civil Defense
program, I still have my mother's Civil Defense Block Mother sign from the end
of that, when I was in 2nd grade. It was only later that CD -> FEMA and
"crisis relocation" replaced sheltering, since it was cheaper. During the same
decade we gave up on missile defenses....

