Let’s remember when construction on a fallout shelter under I-5 began in Ravenna, on this day in 1962 (May 15)
In 1962, threat of nuclear attack was on pretty much everyone’s mind, and Washington state was more proactive than most.
On May 15, 1962, the State of Washington holds groundbreaking ceremonies for a fallout shelter in Seattle at NE 68th Street and approximately Weedin Place in the Seattle Freeway (now Interstate 5) construction site. The shelter, to be nestled beneath an overpass, is designed to house up to 300 people in the event of thermonuclear attack. It features a squad room, a radio dispatch room, a clerical area for the Washington State Patrol, beds, a medical center and sick bay, toilet facilities, decontamination showers, and a recreation area.
The Seattle Times identified the structure as “the nation’s first fallout shelter to be built into a freeway” (May 15, 1962). A January 4, 1961, press releases stated, “The Ravenna highway fill shelter will be the first of its type in the United States providing an example for public officials to integrate shelter into highway construction and the more complete utilization of rights-of-way. Constructed on state-owned property, the shelter was federally financed.
Can you hide out there now? Not exactly.
By the late 1970s, the shelter was being used as a District Records Storage Center facility for the Washington Department of Highways. The emergency escape tunnel was blocked and the communications equipment removed. It now (2010) sits vacant.
Read the whole thing here:
There’s some good stuff here, too:
