Published 2024-10-07
tag(s): #pic
I always had a fascination with nuclear power and the atomic age in general.
It all started when I was about 9 or 10 years old, tops. My mom got a bunch of used books, one
of them was a schoolbook for 7th grade primary school (12yo in Argentina). I read it all at
different times, but the sections I re-read the most where the ones about
science[1].
The book described in detail how a-bombs worked, and how reactors contained the reaction. It
covered a bit the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not with a lot of detail.
Being curious as I was (am?), I did seek more information about the bombings[2], to my impressionable pre-teen mind, the horrors were just too much. I recall catching on TV some scenes of "When the wind blows"[3] and crying an awful lot.
But all these things also had an air of being removed from my existence. Even if an atomic winter would kill us down in Argentina too, by the end of the 80s and early 90s this was not the constant fear it had been.
Imagine the excitement in my first visit to the US in 2012, when I saw my first "fallout
shelter" sign, less discolored than the one in the picture.
It was like movies coming to life! Not unlike a lot of other experiences in that trip, to be
honest.
Since then, I saw a bunch of others, even a few blocks from where I live now in Jersey City. I never stop being impressed at them, though. Most of those shelters are probably out of commission and converted to storage or something more useful. But the idea that at some point people kept in mind these hiding places, should the worst come to happen...