Alabama City Reopening Nuke Fallout Shelters
Pastor Dale Morgan
Alabama City Reopening Nuke Fallout Shelters*
Wary of Nuclear Terrorism, Alabama City Reopens Fallout Shelters
By JAY REEVES
The Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE, Ala.
In an age of al-Qaida, sleeper cells and the threat of nuclear
terrorism, Huntsville is dusting off its Cold War manual to create the
nation's most ambitious fallout-shelter plan, featuring an abandoned
mine big enough for 20,000 people to take cover underground.
Others would hunker down in college dorms, churches, libraries and
research halls that planners hope will bring the community's shelter
capacity to 300,000, or space for every man, woman and child in
Huntsville and the surrounding county.
Emergency planners in Huntsville an out-of-the-way city best known as
the home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center say the idea makes sense
because radioactive fallout could be scattered for hundreds of miles if
terrorists detonated a nuclear bomb.
"If Huntsville is in the blast zone, there's not much we can do. But if
it's just fallout ... shelters would absorb 90 percent of the
radiation," said longtime emergency management planner Kirk Paradise,
whose Cold War expertise with fallout shelters led local leaders to
renew Huntsville's program.
Huntsville's project, developed using $70,000 from a Homeland Security
grant, goes against the grain because the United States essentially
scrapped its national plan for fallout shelters after the collapse of
the Soviet Union. Congress cut off funding and the government published
its last list of approved shelters at the end of 1992.
After Sept. 11, Homeland Security created a metropolitan protection
program that includes nuclear-attack preparation and mass shelters. But
no other city has taken the idea as far as Huntsville has, officials said.
Many cities advise residents to stay at home and seal up a room with
plastic and duct tape during a biological, chemical or nuclear attack.
Huntsville does too, in certain cases.
Local officials agree the "shelter-in-place" method would be best for a
"dirty bomb" that scattered nuclear contamination through conventional
explosives. But they say full-fledged shelters would be needed to
protect from the fallout of a nuclear bomb.
Program leaders recently briefed members of Congress, including Rep.
Charlie Dent, R-Pa., who called the shelter plan an example of the
"all-hazards" approach needed for emergency preparedness.
"Al-Qaida, we know, is interested in a nuclear capability. It's our
nation's fear that a nuclear weapon could get into terrorists' hands,"
Dent said.
As fallout shelters go, the Three Caves Quarry just outside downtown
offers the kind of protection that would make Dr. Strangelove proud,
with space for an arena-size crowd of some 20,000 people.
Last mined in the early '50s, the limestone quarry is dug 300 yards into
the side of the mountain, with ceilings as high as 60 feet and 10 acres
of floor space covered with jagged rocks. Jet-black in places with a
year-round temperature of about 60 degrees, it has a colony of bats
living in its highest reaches and baby stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
"It would be a little trying, but it's better than the alternative,"
said Andy Prewett, a manager with The Land Trust of Huntsville and North
Alabama, a nonprofit preservation group that owns the mine and is making
it available for free.
In all, the Huntsville-Madison County Emergency Management Agency has
identified 105 places that can be used as fallout shelters for about
210,000 people. They are still looking for about 50 more shelters that
would hold an additional 100,000 people.
While officials have yet to launch a campaign to inform people of the
shelters, a local access TV channel showed a video about the program,
which also is explained on a county Web site.
If a bomb went off tomorrow, Paradise said, officials would tell people
where to find shelter through emergency alerts on TV and radio stations.
"We're pretty much ready to go because we have a list of shelters," he said.
Most of the shelters would offer more comfort than the abandoned mine,
such as buildings at the University of Alabama in Huntsville that would
house 37,643. A single research hall could hold more than 8,100.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Alexandra Kirin said of Huntsville's
wide-ranging plan: "We're not aware of any other cities that are doing
that."
Plans call for staying inside for as long as two weeks after a bomb
blast, though shelters might be needed for only a few hours in a less
dire emergency.
Unlike the fallout shelters set up during the Cold War, the new ones
will not be stocked with water, food or other supplies. For survivors of
a nuclear attack, it would be strictly "BYOE" bring your own everything.
Just throw down a sleeping bag on the courthouse floor or move some of
the rocks on the mine floor and make yourself at home.
"We do not guarantee them comfort, just protection," said Paradise, who
is coordinating the shelter plans for the local emergency management agency.
Convenience store owner Tandi Prince said she cannot imagine living in
the cavern after a bombing.
"That would probably not be very fun," she said.