Fallout shelters are one of the weirdest reactions to the Cold War from my ‘didn’t live through it’ perspective. Just like with duck and cover, it doesn’t strike me as super helpful in the event of a nuclear attack. Depending on how close you were to the blast, you would be vaporized in seconds, before you even knew to run to your shelter. I can see the value for people who were farther from the drop site but even so, it’s so. creepy.

I was born a few years before the Berlin Wall fell so I really have no concept of what it was like to live through this period. It seems so bizarre and terrifying to me to have a society collectively plan to build underground shelters just in case. Especially since this took place in the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons against another nation.