You mean the Fallout Shelter Gun shop off 801?

 

You mean the Fallout Shelter Gun shop off 801?

No this was a building that was either on Main St/29/70 or on 150. It was a bit imposing, perhaps because it was either close to the road or tall, cant remember.

 

When I was a kid, almost every government building, post office etc was a fallout shelter, as were multiple schools and churches. Everywhere you looked the little fallout shelter signs were posted on various buildings. Sometime in the early 70's there was a big news story about how these things were set up in the late 50's-early 60's then left there. In many cases, supplies were inadequate and the little survival crackers were invariably moldy or infested with bugs and rodents. I suppose it is a good thing that, by the Grace of God, we never actually needed them.
We were taught to duck under our desks at school in case of nuclear attack. Even as a young kid I had enough common sense to wonder who the heck thought that would protect you from a nuclear blast!

Funny thing is, nowadays with all manner of nuclear material, bombs, missles etc just "missing" from the former USSR and with rogue terrorist states like Iran and N. Korea developing nuclear capability, it would seem that the risk is higher now than ever before of a nuclear attack. The M.A.D. (mutual assured destruction) technique of avoiding a nuclear attack worked against the former Soviets but will only work against an enemy that realistically fears it's own destruction. When you are facing mad men who will blow themselves up just to get a few of us, or fancys themselves as some sort of god, well then, all bets are off.

Anyway, you still occasionally see one of those old signs on buildings that has never been removed.

 

Right I can clearly remember the shadows of the letters on the wall in the Mall pointing to the fallout shelter in the mall. But I havent seen a sign on a building like that in a ***** age, thought it was highly unusual to see.

 

There used to be a gun shop on 150 about 1/4 mile west of Jake Alexander, on the left named the "Fallout Shelter". It's been closed for a couple of years but the signs are still up. That's all I can think of in that area.....

 

There used to be a gun shop on 150 about 1/4 mile west of Jake Alexander, on the left named the "Fallout Shelter". It's been closed for a couple of years but the signs are still up. That's all I can think of in that area.....

Thats PMS?

 

officially designated and stocked fallout shelters were decommissioned back in the early 90's so while the signs may be up, the shelter is probably not stocked with what it would have had back in the day.

I remember that my school as a kid was a fallout shelter and it had all these cardboard drums full of water, food, and other post apocalypse needs.

I have also read that they were just placebos: there was minimal, if any, protection against radiation or other post bomb effects. You had to be in a place like Cheyenne Mountain or the Greenbriar to have a significant chance for survival.

 

I remember the cold war, "duck and cover", and the rush for everyone to have their own fallout shelter in the back yard. Even Popular Science and Popular Mechanics ran articles on how to build and stock one. "Save you from a near miss". "When it's safe to come out in a couple of weeks." Homemade, hand cranked air circulators. Battery radios (as if there'd be anything left to listen to).
"Doctor Strangelove", "Atomic Cafe". To paraphrase Ron White, "Hit something hard, I won't wanna live through this."

How naive we were...

 

There are several fallout shelters around Raleigh. One government building near Cameron Village has a huge underground complex. Even Cameron Village has the old nightlife village underneath that was called the Fallout Shelter. Some buildings still have the old signs, but many have been removed.

 

Thats PMS?

Mikey you embarass me..... You're right, but it's embarassing just the same.... The Fallout Shelter is the shop off 601 that Flipper owns..... Mike owned PMS on 150...... See what happens when you get old????? My advice is........ just don't get old!!!!!!

 

You mean the Fallout Shelter Gun shop off 801?

Thats PMS?

Mikey you embarass me..... You're right, but it's embarassing just the same.... The Fallout Shelter is the shop off 601 that Flipper owns..... Mike owned PMS on 150...... See what happens when you get old????? My advice is........ just don't get old!!!!!!

The Fallout Shelter is on Cool Springs Rd., off of 801. All PMS did was push 'Glunks' and act condescending if you weren't interested in what THEY had. Both shop's pricing is/was HIGH. IMO

 

Hanes Middle in winston has one, although its not stocked but it is lined with lead and all the good stuff. Atleast it was there when I went there, but thats been some time. Our shop teacher took us down to show it to us, pretty cool.

 

Some of the building in town Salisbury still have the fallout shelter signs on the side. Flipper's gun shop used to be in a falout shelter in his back yard, then he moved it to the new shop.

 

Some time in the late 60's early 70's the government decided the population was to large and stopped plans to protect it's citizens and only look out for themselves at The Greenbrier.

Were on our own.

.

 

I grew up 15 miles from Seymour-Johnson AFB- huge wing of B-52s were stationed there at the time so that put us near ground zero for one of them Russian a-bombs. I remember well the "Civil Defense" sirens in town, the duck & cover stuff in school. We were assurred that there were enough rations stored in the Fallout Shelter (post office) to get us through any pesky nuclear strike.

One rich guy in town built his own fallout shelter. Later in life, as a teen, that fallout shelter made a great place for us guys to take our girls and "smooch".

 

officially designated and stocked fallout shelters were decommissioned back in the early 90's so while the signs may be up, the shelter is probably not stocked with what it would have had back in the day.

I remember that my school as a kid was a fallout shelter and it had all these cardboard drums full of water, food, and other post apocalypse needs.

I have also read that they were just placebos: there was minimal, if any, protection against radiation or other post bomb effects. You had to be in a place like Cheyenne Mountain or the Greenbriar to have a significant chance for survival.

Don't confuse "fallout shelter" with "hardened blast shelter". Blast protection needed for target areas when CEP was measured in fractions of miles - 1/2 or 1/4. Cheyenne mountain was intended to resist warheads targeted against it.

Your local fallout shelters were not intended to resist the blast effects; concept was that in a large-scale exchange, most of the country would be outside the blast radius but downwind of all that nasty radioactive fallout. Protection from fallout requires air filtration and mass.

Basements of tall buildings would be ideal, as long as you have some sort of air circulation and filtration. Fallout is just dust. (lethal dust, but dust.)

Food, water, air circulation and filtration. Some arrangements for waste disposal; 2 weeks after blasts, fallout would be 1% of initial levels. Unless you were downwind of some hellacious strikes or within the blast radius, that would get you to the point you could start coming out for short trips or GOOD to a non-contaminated area.

Just some historical perspective.......

CB