The question of where people would go once an attack was over was never fully resolved, and there was not a clear plan to provide medical care for serious widespread injuries or radiation exposure. The buildings would not have been able to withstand direct attacks, and many locations were likely to be targeted with more than one bomb. Whether or not the government believed the public shelters would be effective in the event of an actual nuclear war is debatable, and there were several problems with the plan to shelter large numbers of people. You can view the full report listing all of Dallas’ designated shelters here. By 1966, over 300 official shelters were designated in the Dallas metroplex that could hold approximately 1 million people. That structure was meant to hold up to 30,000 people in an attack. The first public fallout shelter in Dallas was designated in September 1962 at the Southland Life Insurance building (now demolished). They were also to be stocked with food rations, drums of water, and basic medical kits.ĭallas, like most major cities, was included in the survey. The program would identify existing structures that could shelter thousands of people at a time during a nuclear attack and mark those structures with the now-familiar black and yellow “Fallout Shelter” signs. Instead, Kennedy announced the National Fallout Shelter Survey and Marking program in October 1961. The government also could not afford to build underground shelters for the majority of the population. That was all well and good if you were a high-ranking government official, but how would ordinary citizens protect themselves? While President Kennedy urged the general public to begin constructing fallout shelters in their own yards and homes, it was recognized early on that personal shelters were cost prohibitive for many families. downtown Dallas, where most assumed a bomb would be dropped in this region. It was designed to withstand a 20-megaton bomb if one were dropped 3 miles away – i.e. The Fair Park shelter could hold up to 30 government officials for up to two weeks, and it had its own water, electricity, radio, phone lines, and food storage. Underground concrete bunkers were thought to be the safest protection against a nuclear bomb and the radioactive fallout. Construction of the Fair Park fallout shelter began in May 1961 during a time when tensions between the United States and Russia were rising.
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