Hiding in plain sight - the secret life of the Greenbrier Hotel

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The discussion centers around the rumored existence of a bomb shelter beneath the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, which many locals believe served as a government relocation center. Former mayor John Bowling asserts that the facility is common knowledge in the area, with anecdotes about its construction and purpose. Participants express curiosity about public bomb shelters, questioning whether the government ever assisted citizens in building their own shelters. Some share personal experiences with bomb shelters in schools and communities, often highlighting their inadequacies and lack of supplies. The conversation also touches on the historical context of air raid sirens and their varying purposes across different regions, with some participants noting that these sirens have become relics of the past, often unused or ineffective in modern emergencies. Overall, the thread reflects on the legacy of Cold War-era preparedness and the ongoing curiosity about hidden military installations.
  • #31
russ_watters said:
-Canada had one that stopped being serviced in the 1970s after advancements in nukes made them irrelevant.
Hmmm I wonder what that noise is that I hear from time to time... weird it sounds exactly like it. Lol. I know there was one that used to just be in the middle of the street but they got rid of it, heard stories, that was probably the only one in all of Canada then... This really brings a level of mystery to the noise then lol.
 
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  • #32
russ_watters said:
Why would we have air raid sirens? I don't know if we used to, but we don't anymore (at least anywhere that I've been not including a military base). The US has never had any air raid risk, only nuke risk, and nuke risk, and nuke risk isn't really something worth trying to protect against.
You have a point that the US probably never made an infrastructure for air-rade sirens. They are so much part of the infrastructure that I never investigated why they were installed in the first place. If I can believe the Wikipedia entries, the sirens in the Netherlands were build by a civil organization named "Bescherming Bevolking" (Protection Population) that was put in place during the Cold War, after 1952. The task of the BB was to protect the population from warfare, but also large scale disasters. In 1993 the sirens were replaced by a modern system.

Moonbear said:
When I moved to MI, and heard them going off during a thunderstorm, nothing struck me as odd about that. Only the next day did I learn they were used there when there were tornado warnings to tell you it was time to move to the basement and away from windows.
Indeed, in Detroit I also heard sirens go off when there was a heavy thunderstorm approaching with a possible tornado hazard (I was starting to doubt my memory). Other uses would be if there is a large fire and dangerous substances are released into the air: you would want people to go indoors asap.

I find it strange that the uses are so different in the States, as you've explained. Apparently there is no central organizing agency or they don't want to invest the money to get the whole system up to date. With the whole homeland security thing I would think that the government would have been keen to develop such an early warning system.
 
  • #33
We had public bomb shelters in the area [S. Cal] when I was a kid, but they were notoriously useless in the event of a nuclear attack.

You don't need much to protect yourself in the event of a nuclear attack. You need some solid armor, nice to have a layer of soil to absorb thermal radiation/gamma rays/neutrons, and the whole thing should be reasonably airtight to prevent damage to lungs from the blast wave. Battle tanks can withstand a thermonuclear explosion one mile away (though their armor is too thin to provide sufficient radiation protection). Five feet of concrete and five feet of soil should be enough to allow you to survive an atmospheric blast directly overhead.

But it's one thing to survive the blast and another to manage to live long enough after that. The area would be highly radioactive immediately after the explosion, you'd probably want to stay inside for a couple of weeks before venturing out. That means food & water for two weeks, something to do about air, preferably a CO2 scrubber ...