The author of this 1979 bestseller, Cresson Kearny, died last month in Colorado at 89. Kearny's book was published by The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where he worked. Updated in 1987, it had sold over 600,000 copies by the mid-1990s.
Kearny allowed anyone to publish his book without obligation to pay royalties. He even put it online here. It contains instructions on how to build and furnish fallout shelters, complete with a do-it-yourself fallout meter, his own invention, which can be made of materials commonly found in the home.
The manual offers designs for six basic types of shelter, suitable for environmental conditions in different parts of the U.S. Designed to be built in a trench or above ground by untrained people in 48 hours or less, the shelters are made of wood, dirt, and other materials found around the house. They've been tested extensively at Oak Ridge and improved upon over several decades.
Sounds like a great book for kids - of all ages - who want to build a clubhouse or hideout or retreat. I'm gonna get a copy.
Article comments
1 - Anita Campbell
Average Americans built fallout shelters under their homes back in the 1960's. Apparently it was not all that uncommon for average families to hire contractors to dig out and build underground fallout shelters in quiet suburban neighborhoods.
I was once in a house that had its own bomb shelter. It was on a nice street of homes, with oak trees out front. There were several other homes in the neighborhood that had bomb shelters as well.
You went down to the home's basement, and opened a door which led to a very narrow circular stairway down to the bomb shelter underneath the basement.
The shelter was outfitted with a ventilation system and shelves kept stocked with supplies. The ventilation outlet arising out of the ground in the backyard was disguised by landscaping and a wooden bench.
Around 1980 the family started using it as a wine cellar, a task it performed admirably, keeping wine at an excellent drinking temperature.
When the house was eventually sold, the bomb shelter was advertised as a wine cellar.
Oh, and I understand that the children of the home used the bomb shelter as a place to hide out.