Brooklyn Bridge Houses '50s Survival Stash

[Ryan Ruck]

From a time when we actually took national defense and security seriously…

Brooklyn Bridge Houses '50s Survival Stash

Workers inspecting the structural foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge uncovered a Cold War-era trove of basic provisions that were stockpiled amid fears of a nuclear attack.

The stash, discovered in a vault under an entrance ramp, includes water drums, canisters of calorie-packed crackers, paper blankets, medical supplies and drugs that were used to treat shock.

The estimated 352,000 Civil Defense All-Purpose Survival Crackers are apparently still intact, said Joseph Vaccaro, a supervisor at the city Transportation Department. The metal water drums, each labeled "reuse as a commode," did not fare as well, they're now empty.

"We find stuff all the time, but what's sort of eerie about this is that this is a bridge that thousands of people go over each day," Transportation commissioner Iris Weinshall said Monday. "They walk over it, cars go over it, and this stuff was just sitting there."

Fallout shelters were common during the 1950's, but most were dismantled.

"The crackers got moldy a very long time ago," said John Lewis Gaddis, a historian at Yale and a scholar of the Cold War. "It's kind of unusual to find one fully intact, one that is rediscovered, almost in an archaeological sense."

Many of the cardboard boxes discovered last week in the bridge vault were ink-stamped with two especially significant years in cold-war history: 1957, when the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite, and 1962, when the Cuban missile crisis seemed to bring the world to the precipice of nuclear destruction.

Some boxes bear labels from the Office of Civil Defense, a unit of the Pentagon that coordinated domestic preparedness in the early 1960's.

The provisions were probably comforting but would likely have been useless in the case of a nuclear attack, said Graham Allison, a former assistant secretary of defense who teaches at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

"At least people would think they were doing something, even if it didn't have any effect," he said.

[Ryan Ruck]

Just as an aside, when the article claims that the water drums are now empty, the truth is that they were likely empty all along.

You see, the water drums were designed to be stored empty with a plastic liner inside. Then, during times of increased international tension, the Civil Defense volunteers would fill the water drums and prep the shelters.

If these water drums were to be stored with water, they would have completely rusted away long ago.

By the way, it figures that Graham Allison would make a comment like "The provisions were probably comforting but would likely have been useless in the case of a nuclear attack. At least people would think they were doing something, even if it didn't have any effect."

He was, after all, Assistant SecDef under Slick Willie.

Yeah, all those CD personnel were just trying to keep busy because it made them feel better. It had nothing to do with preparing according to the new knowledge about nuclear weapons that was constantly being learned since we were right in the middle of testing them. He's the same type of moron that scoffs at Duck and Cover because it is "useless to try to survive a nuclear blast".

[American Patriot]

On a side note, we restocked our own "shelter". it's not really a shelter, just a basement pantry. We have enough beans and rice to last awhile again.

Suggestion, do not purchase "survival foods". Buy stuff in larger quantities than normal a few times, the normal foods you eat every day, and keep a set stock on the shelves at ALL times. Do not let your supplies run low (as I have recently).

Instead of the survival foods touted on the internet for example, more of whatever you NORMALLY eat would be better, since you NORMALLY eat it. Right? Just for a few weeks worth of shopping purchase a bit more than normal each time until you stock things up, like extra canned food, perhaps some dried foods.

We keep tubs of beans, rice, noodles, flour, cornmeal, sugar, extra canned foods, cearals, and then we purchase canned meat. Specifically, hams in a can, "Treat" (like Spam, only better in my opinion), we keep vegtable oil (for fats), then things like crackers and snacks. Also, if you went through the shelves you will find several containers of TANG, and other freeze dried fruit-juice drinks.

Water is problematic, but I keep about 200 gallons of water stored and circulate it through the system every few months. I usually use it, draining into the hot tub, or into the washer, then refilling the tanks.

You always have water in your house, if the water goes off. Turn OFF the supply outside if things are damaged and you have a hot water tank of fresh water. Anywhere from 25 to 75 gallons depending on the size of the tank (I have a 50 right now). You also have the back tanks of your toilet, which the water is generally drinkable. I keep extra one-gallon jugs on the shelves at all times too, and we use/rotate that as well.

My kids are starting to do the same thing at their own homes now.