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Blueprints For Survival: Bomb Shelters

The Cold War led to the construction of backyard bomb shelters across North America
2020-05-27
A how-to guide for constructing a bomb shelter.

My Dad constructed a bomb shelter in the back of our yard around 1962.

 It was a huge rectangular hole that we wanted to use as a fort. However, as it only had logs supporting the top, my Dad suggested we play elsewhere.

This legacy of the Cold War arrived as a pamphlet stating that should a nuclear war occur, the risk of radioactive fallout was very widespread and would endanger many of us, even though a long way from the explosion.

The shelter described in the pamphlet, although not affording protection against the blast and the subsequent fires, it was stated, provided good protection against the more widespread radiation danger. My Dad, who had endured WWII and a firebombed Wuerzburg, commenced building one in our backyard.

As a ten year old, there was a certain ominous threat over our heads during these days and it has probably affected our generation in ways we are still coping with.

What was happening to our peaceful Valley? Beyond, to the west, was Vietnam, to the east, the Berlin Wall, and, above, the Space Race.

My smalltown was really ceasing to feel like a haven from the tumultuous events happening around the globe. The radio, from time to time, would blast out warnings to take shelter and we all learned about the yellow triangular signs and when to hide.

As a kid, I was really interested in the comic book exploits of Superman and Doc Strange (Master of the Mystic Arts), not from being incinerated or dying of radiation sickness. Those things only happened in Europe and Russia, not in Canada.

I would look at my father’s scarred arms from when he served, and not really comprehend. It seemed like we had just got over the last war and now something even bigger threatened us.

The comic book heroes were invincible. They had fortresses and secret hiding places where no harm could assail them. We had the basement fallout shelter for after the explosion...great. We were advised to hide under a table. No cloak of invisibility to hide us, no special powers. We were to emerge after the bomb had gone off, perhaps weeks later, perhaps with no one alive but us to reconstruct society.

Fortunately, Khruschev backed down on Cuba. My Dad never completed that bomb shelter. He found my comic collection though, and destroyed all of them. Bad influence apparently.