"That was how they sold it, as 'Oh, we'll do this dual use.'" "It was a Washington State Patrol Department of Licensing Office for years" for issuing driver's licenses, Williams said, from the day it was dedicated by dignitaries (and demonstrated against by anti-war activists) in March 1963, until sometime in the 1970s. Williams also says that in order for the Seattle fallout shelter to get built in the first place, skeptical highway authorities had to be convinced that the facility could also serve some transportation-related purpose in addition to just sitting there, waiting to be used in the event of nuclear war.
Nuclear bombs were getting so big with Soviet submarines, the attacks were going to come really quick,” and shelters wouldn’t be much use. “By the time it got built, I think people realized it wasn’t really a great idea.
“The only one that was ever built is the one here in Washington state,” Williams said. The Seattle “Community Fallout Shelter” was a prototype for what would’ve likely been dozens of similar shelters all along the freeway that was then being built through Washington, and for hundreds of similar shelters along interstate highways all over the country. Williams says that the I-5 fallout shelter was designed in 1959 by a local engineering firm to house between 200 and 300 people from the community, as well as those traveling along the freeway who were caught out far from home when the bad news came. It’s basically a big circular room with two bathrooms and a very small storage area where canned food could be handed out, and a utility room that had a generator and a water pump and the air filters.” “It was designed really for people to hole up in for two weeks after a nuclear attack until the fallout had decayed enough to make it theoretically safe to come back outside,” Williams said.
Street parking is often available right in front of the shelter entrance, convenient now for the curious, and convenient 50 years ago for those seeking to survive a man-made doomsday. The shelter interior isn’t open to the public, but the entrance courtyard and the landscaped area around the shelter is easily accessible to casual visitors and Cold War history buffs.
A concrete culvert off to the left of this main entrance is the escape hatch from the shelter’s emergency exit tunnel. Below and just west of the underpass along Weedin Place, a landscaped concrete pathway leads from the sidewalk to a distinctive high and slightly curved concrete wall, with a metal door and grate. An odd-looking concrete box that’s visible from I-5 is the shelter’s air vent and is the only indication to freeway drivers that this isn’t a typical overpass.
0 kommentar(er)
