If you'd put this thing in the ground you're more likely to go swimming instead of having a dry fallout shelter."Ī narrow hallway now leads to a storage room and a place to store a bottle or two of wine. "The reason I built above ground is because the water table in Wilson is only 4 to 5 feet in the ground. It's filled with sand and concrete on top." As a veteran of the second World War, Hackney knew what radioactive fallout could do. "The inside wall is block and this is brick facing. He was one of 200,000 across the country who wanted to outlive Armageddon. John Hackney was one of the first to build a personal fallout shelter in Wilson County. Others were equally creative but with fewer frills. Some went underground, such as a family who built an elaborate escape from radiation in a old Arkansas cave. But some families were even more prepared. In the early 1960s many families had a 125-page civil defense manual that taught us about everything from gamma rays to gieger counters. The only place you'll find these yellow and black Triangles now is on the State Supreme Court building. Even the basement of the state Capitol Building was stocked with food and medical supplies. And 30 years ago you didn't have to look far to find them.įallout shelter signs hung on almost every old building along the Raleigh's Fayetteville Street Mall. Take over several state and federal office buildings and turning them into fallout shelters. Where on earth will we go in case there's a nuclear attack? Those of us who lived through the Cold War remember it as a frightening time. Russian nuclear missiles were pointed right at eastern North Carolina and we knew it wouldn't take long to strike from Cuba. As Americans, we were confident in our military.
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