Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
D131642-14
Date(s)
- 1961-07-14 (Creation)
Extent
Name of creator
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
View of open bomb shelter as Mr. and Mrs. Frederick C. Pneuman descend the ladder into its entryway on July 14, 1961. The entryway was shielded from the living area by a sand-filled baffle wall. Three feet of earth cover the roof; tall pipe is part of ventilation system. Fallout shelters were constructed in homeowner's yards in the 1960s as underground retreats for families in the event of a nuclear holocaust. Families kept emergency supplies, as well as books and toys, in the underground room where they would remain until it was safe to return to the outside. This underground shelter was a test model built by the Douglas Fir Plywood Association and designed by Frederick Pneuman, a structural engineer on DFPA's applied research staff. It was buried in the Pneuman's Fircrest yard. DPFA indicated that the shelter was easy to build with panels fabricated at a shop and assembled on site. Shelter was built of full sheets of fir plywood and 8' lengths of 2 x 8 pressure-treated lumber. (TNT 9-3-61, A-6)
Bombproof construction; Civil defense--Fircrest; Atomic bombs; Nuclear fallout;