The government promised to build nuclear bomb shelters after The Cuban Missile Crisis. I think they built one.
All the civil defense shelters have long since closed. There used to be one in a nearby cave and people would get their pictures taken by the wall of MREs. As a kid, I wondered how it’d be much protection since there was a huge natural opening right above.
We did have some National programs, here is an example.
“While the U.S. government did not provide bomb shelters for the public, unlike Switzerland and the Soviet Union, it did implement a fallout shelter program during the Cold War.
This program involved designating thousands of spaces—such as parking garages or the basements of public buildings—across the country as fallout shelters while stocking them with supplies. New York City alone was home to around 18,000 of these.
“They would not be able to take a direct hit,” Garrett said. “But you could shelter in them for the 14 days that would be necessary after a nuclear attack until the radiation levels fall to a point where it’s relatively safe to emerge from the bunker.”