Army Corps Of Engineers

The Cold War era caused feelings of uncertainty and fear for the American government and its citizens. With Communist nations in various parts of the world, the U.S. feared nuclear attacks and wanted to ensure their protection from radiation if an attack occurred. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave responsibility for civil defense to the Secretary of Defense and a National Fallout Shelter Program was established.

The Secretary of Defense created the Office of Civil Defense and gained the assistance of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks. These three departments worked together to carry out civil defense tasks, mainly the fallout shelter survey. The goal of the survey was to identify structures (buildings, tunnels, mines, caves) that were able to reduce the dosage of radiation by a factor of 20, if a nuclear disaster were to occur. These buildings would be designated as public shelters. The national goal was to identify enough structures for 50 million Americans.

The Army Corps of Engineers created a Joint Civil Defense Support Group to conduct the survey. During the survey process, the Corps developed specialized computer processing techniques, developed scientific methods to evaluate potential shelters, and trained about 1,500 architect-engineers. Once a shelter was determined to be suitable as a fallout shelter, it was licensed, publicly posted, and stocked with federally-funded water, food, medical supplies, and radiation monitoring kits.

The fallout shelter program continued through the 1960s and was conducted at the division level by 1970. During 1972, the management of the program was passed to the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, which was absorbed into the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1979. The federal government stopped funding for the fallout shelter program in the mid-1980s and buildings listed as shelters may have been rebuilt or destroyed.

*Information compiled from www.hq.usace.army.mil/history/vignettes/vignette_35.htm and www.meadhunt.com/Mead__Hunt/history/fallout.htm.

From the guide to the National Fallout Shelter Survey Records, 1962-1984, 1984, (Sandusky Library)