![]() Kennedy issued Executive Order 10952 it tasked the Secretary of Defense with developing a robust civil defense program, the core of which centered around a national system of public and private fallout shelters. On July 20, 1961, three months after the failed Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba, President John F. One year into the civil defense program, nearly 104 million shelter spaces were identified nationwide. It seemed humankind might just blow up the world. Over the next decade the United States and Soviet Union amassed war chests filled with thousands of nuclear warheads. The only thing that remained of Elugelab was a crater one mile wide and about 170 feet deep. The first hydrogen bomb was detonated on the island of Elugelab in the Marshall Islands in 1952. “That tells you something about the time.” ![]() designed it in the brutalist vein popular during that era, Thomas says. The Chase Fine Arts building opened in 1967. “We probably should have saved one for old time’s sake,” Thomas says. Today, the shelves of the former fallout shelter store electric cords, microphones, cables, lighting - items rendered largely useless during a nuclear attack. The bucket itself was a personal latrine. The interior was packed with military rations, plastic-wrapped hard candies - “the kind your grandma gave you”- and heaters to warm the food. The packs were cylindrical, about the size of an office garbage can, and stacked to the ceiling, Thomas says. Until about four years ago it was full of old survival kits, he says. Thomas twists the knob and the first thing one notices is the darkness. Thomas tracks further into the bowels of the basement to a room marked 001A. Racks of blue marching band costumes line the path to a chain-link fence. ![]() ![]() ![]() Thomas, ‘73, director of production services for Utah State University’s Caine College of Arts, heads down a flight of cement stairs and unlocks the basement door. Mid-sentence Thomas stops to point out the telltale yellow fallout sign drilled into the brickwork of the arts building. His keys jingle as he describes growing up in Hyrum during the height of the Cold War - a time when neighbors erected fallout shelters in the mountains and classmates performed duck and cover drills in school. LYNN THOMAS WALKS IN THE SPITTING RAIN TO THE DARYL CHASE FINE ARTS BUILDING. ![]()
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