A recent article from the NewsMax.com website showed that a town in Alabama is beginning the process of reopening its fall-out shelter, a building once only used during the Cold War when a nuclear attack was greatly feared. So why reopen the shelter fifteen years after the federal governemnt stopped funding such causes?
Fear, perhaps. But in an unceratin world, where tensions remain high with countries like Syria and Iran, and an ever-fumbling Russia, the truth that our country could be attacked again is a real threat. So the question I pose today is this:
“What would you do if your city was attacked by a nuclear or biological weapon?”
Would you know where to go? Do you have a plan in place? I fear that for most seniors, that answer would be a resounding NO. Here is an excerpt from the article found at NewsMax.com:
Alabama City Reopening Fallout Shelters
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.
So what should you do? A good place to start would be the Ready.gov website where it gives practical advice for seniors, families, children, and businesses so that they can be prepared in the event of an attack or disaster.
As a veteran of the U.S. Armed forces, I can honestly say that the worst plan is having no plan. At the very least, think it through. Have a plan, and when something does come up, you won’t be left in the dark all alone. And for caregivers, be sure that there is a plan in place, first and foremost, for yourself and your family. Then help those who need it if you can.
Be prepared!
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