Elaborate civil defenses, the thinking went, could aggravate tensions by stoking Soviet fears of an American first strike. The late 1960s, a new mindset began taking hold. The federal government even put out designs.
In the early Cold War, thousands of Americans built fallout shelters in back yards and basements. Switzerland has mandated them in new housing. The idea of family fallout shelters is not new or uniquely American. "People start calling at 5:30 a.m., and I don't go to bed until 11:30 at night," she said. Nuclear engineer Sharon Packer says sales have also quadrupled - to more than four a month - at her company, Utah Shelter Systems in Heber, Utah. Walton McCarthy, president of shelter builder Radius Defense and Engineering in Northwood, N.H., says he is making almost four times as many of his egg-shaped, fiberglass underground shelters since Sept. Jane Orient, of Tucson, Ariz., who promotes home shelters as head of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. "They're treating me less like a crazy woman than they did before," says Dr. Gone are the days when defense experts scoffed and neighbors shook their heads and chuckled. Some corporations are giving the shelters to top executives as a perk, one dealer said. 11įearing nuclear terrorism, Americans are building home fallout shelters in numbers unseen since the peak of the Cold War, sometimes even mortgaging homes to cover costs, say shelter makers and designers. Sales of home security buildings quadruple since Sept.
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