Mines As Fallout Shelters

Back in the day, we never knew when the Russkies would start lobbing nukes at us because we had dishwashers, station wagons, and televisions, and they had to wash dishes by hand, drive Volgas and Zils, and listen to The Trotsky Hour on the radio.

We brought the USSR to its knees, but now we have North Korea and the Jihad Gang trying to get their hands on nukes so they can destroy our American Way of Life, just because.

Now, there's only one way to escape a nuke and that is run and hide. Run hard, run fast, and hide deep. And let's face it, we're just not in shape to run that hard and fast any more, so we need hiding places close by. And they gotta be deep- your closet just isn't gonna cut the mustard when they drop the Big One.

Your Government recognized this need back in the 1960's, and in 1969 they apparently remembered that Nevada is just chock full of deep holes perfect for hiding in. So they chose a few and mapped them just in case we needed 'em. It was part of the National Fallout Shelter Updating Survey, part of the Nevada West Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Civil Defense Department or Bureau or whatever they were.

If you think the idea of hiding in a mine sounds heavenly, you'd be right. From Mine Utilization in Crisis: A Planning Manual"...

This document provides guidance to planners on the use of underground mines as fallout shelters. The guidance is based on the assumptions that only locally available materials, equipment and manpower will be available and that 72 hours will be available for accomplishing the required upgrading of the habitability of the mines.

Wow, a whole 72 hours! You could create quite a palace in 72 hours!

Guidance is provided for installing or upgrading the lighting, ventilation, water supply, and sanitary systems in the mines. The guidance for lighting and ventilation improvements is based on previously conducted experimental studies, and the guidance in water and sanitation is based on information from existing literature concerning such emergency systems and minimum human requirements.

I stumbled on this list when I was cruising through the Nevada Bureau of Mines site. You have to remember, though, that 1969 was over 45 years ago, and a lot can happen to even a mine in 40 years. Some of them- like Rawhide- are probably gone now. Still, it's an interesting resource.

Some of the maps are available, although if you want them you'll have to go look for them yourself, since I don't want to encourage anyone who doesn't know what they're doing to go into a mine that was last surveyed about forty years ago. Anyway, here's a list of the mines the gummint was considering using for fallout shelters: