"The Bomb" Traditional Cache
Prime Reviewer: No response from owner. If you wish to repair/replace the cache sometime in the future, just contact us (by email), and assuming it meets the current guidelines, we'll be happy to unarchive it.
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(micro)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
On Oct. 15, 1962, reconnaissance photos showed Soviet missiles under construction in Cuba, kick-starting the Cuban Missile Crisis and the fallout shelter-building boom.
Eleven days later, with tension from the crisis growing, the Houston Post published an eight-page booklet about fallout protection. But some in Houston had been thinking about it long before.
The first Houston “air-raid shelter site” was at L&C Cafeteria, 820 Main St. Designated as a shelter in December 1953, it could hold 1,000 people.
In September 1961, the federal community fallout shelter program began. Local governments, such as the city’s Civil Defense Department, found facilities above and below ground suitable as fallout shelters, and the U.S. Defense Department’s Office of Civil Defense stocked them with water, food, radiation kits and other supplies.
At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the city had six or seven stocked fallout shelters, then CD director Floyd Miller told the Post. Eight months later, it had 114 buildings prepared. There were possible fallout shelters in 292 buildings that could accommodate 475,000 people, a little more than half the city’s population.
By 1968, the government’s focus had shifted to public shelters, and the city had 464 fallout shelters. The largest was in the basement of the Foley’s at 1110 Main, which could hold nearly 39,000 people. There were also shelters under City Hall and underground where the Hobby Center is today.
“The official government policy has turned away from the use of family fallout shelters and evacuation routes because they would be almost no help in case of a nuclear attack,” the Post wrote. “Also, the public showed a total lack of interest.
“The fatal flaw in the program is that few persons know the location of the (public) shelters.”
Two years later, the Houston and Harris County Civil Defense Corps published its Plan for Survival handbook.
“SAVE THIS Community Shelter Plan … IT MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE!” warns the busy, type-filled cover. The handbook includes maps of the county and numbers that correspond to the shelters listed at the side.
De-emphasis on de shelters
By the late ’70s, the federal government returned to the ’50s’ philosophy of evacuations.
Local officials were skeptical.
“We try to evacuate this city each morning and evening,” John Caswell, then the city’s CD administrative officer, told the Post in 1979. “We call it rush hour. You know how effective that is.”
Over time, the fear of a nuclear strike simmered down. By the time the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989 and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics fell in 1991, the government had de-emphasized the shelters.
The city’s Civil Defense Department became the Office of Emergency Management. President Bill Clinton abolished the federal Civil Defense Department in the early 1990s, and the supplies were given away or destroyed.
These fallout shelters are on the property that used to belong to the U.S. Army Ordnence Depot.
This property has now been sold off to different companys but the shelters are still here. Drgndaddy showed me this area, he said back in high school (late 90's) they used to drag race on this road because it was always empty and secluded.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Zntargvp