I am sooooo going to get one of these:

They have them on eBay all the time. When I was a kid, all the big concrete buildings had these signs above the doorways and garageways. The idea was that back in the 50’s and 60’s, the Civil Defense office sent engineers and architects around to look for buildings that would be suitable as fallout shelters for the populace. (This was an economical alternative to building dedicated facilities.) Any place that was big enough and had enough concrete was designated a fallout shelter. One of these signs was slapped up on the side of it and it was stocked with water, sanitation supplies, food (of sorts) and sometimes even medical equipt. Naturally all that stuff has rotted away but there are intrepid urban archeologists who hunt this stuff down.

When I was in the NY public schools, every school was a fallout shelter….this was back in the 70’s and by then I remember that the garbage cans were actually old CD water storage barrels. Apparently the supplies had disintegrated to the point they were thrown out but the water barrels were still usable as garbage cans. I guarantee you, though, there are probably thousands of various pieces of old CD supplies still sitting in public garages, basements of city buildings, and in other places.

Fascinating stuff…one of the things Im going to do while Im back east is look at some of the buildings as I go by them and see if any still have the old fallout signs on them.