Cold War Detroit Information

[M CD M]

On a recent trip to DFD HQ, I was given a bunch of civil defense binders.
All of them are mostly from the late 1980's. But one of the binders was one of the "Holy Grails" i've been after. It the master list of Fallout Shelters for Detroit and Wayne county.
I have been mapping these locations on a google map.
I'm on page 6 out of 24 pages in plotting these locations.
Majority of the black and yellow signs are gone. But I'd thought I'd share
with the forum.

Here's the link to the Detroit ones i've done so far, The rest of wayne county will be on a different map.

CLICK HERE FOR THE MAP

[dodgemain]

Nice work. I'm sure some of our history mavens will be chimeing in.

[Ray1936]

Fun project, McdM! I know the sign is still out front at 1300 Beaubien, the DPD HQ.

For what it's worth, here's a sign in my garage that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of a fallout shelter sign! It came from the Nevada Test Site, about 60 miles up the road from here.

[Retroit]

I'm amazed that there were so many.

• How many were there altogether?
• Are the occupant capacities listed, and would all of them together have been able to accommodate the entire population?
• How many of them would have offered any real protection in the event of a nuclear bombing? Is there any categorization/classification for level of protection?

Thanks for sharing!

[M CD M]

I'm amazed that there were so many.

• How many were there altogether?
• Are the occupant capacities listed, and would all of them together have been able to accommodate the entire population?
• How many of them would have offered any real protection in the event of a nuclear bombing? Is there any categorization/classification for level of protection?

Thanks for sharing!

The map is just for the address's I have.
The other part of the binder is in two parts.
One part is for RAC [[Reception and care facility)
The other is for NFS [[National Facility Survey),
Both list capacity's.
RAC is for the injured, so how many people can fit in a space to be properly cared for.
NFS is listed as PF CAT [[protection factor - category) for spaces and RBP SPACES [[relative blast protection).

But here's the kicker.

Midland School in Highland Park has signs on the inside[[and outside) that show a capacity of 90 [[inside sign only shows numbers).
But my list shows a capacity of 327. So I assume that it means that above staff and students, they can have 90 more people inside.


The PF cat list as 0 [[no protection) 1 [[low protection) 2-3 [[good protection) and 4+ [[nest protection), midland is in the 2-3 cat. And a 0 for RBP.


I've been thru Lincoln park and only found the Police Dept and the old Post office to have signs. I must of missed that school.
Hoover school in LP has 777 PF 0 spaces, 1065 PF 1 spaces, total Basement 1065, But it also has 1278 RBP spaces.

[cman710]

I noticed a few weekends ago that the old Highland Park Police Headquarters off Woodward still has a fallout shelter sign near its front entrance. I would not be surprised if the old City Hall and Fire Department Headquarters also contained shelters, but I did not notice any remaining signs.

[M CD M]

Highland Park Court building had a sign, I have a photo of it. But someone took it down. The FD building was a EOC [[Emergency Operations Center) and was only for personal [[ no basement, and only has a PF of 1, So probably no signs). The Police Dept, Fire station 3 and City Hall are on the list as well. I never saw a sign on City hall, But I did on Mcgregor Library .

[lpg]

I noticed that the sign is still in front of my old elementary school. Hoover Elementary in Lincoln Park.

[Lowell]

Great idea M CD M. Thanks. I always wonder if a few of them still have old rusting buckets of emergency provisions, blankets and such in some forgotten room.

[Khartoum]

Great work M CD M

[MikeM]

The Algonac site for the Nike missiles was a few miles north of Algonac along Short Cut Rd, either side of McKinney. I don't think they had guns there.
The Warren gun site was at Hoover and Hupp, southwest corner.
The Hazel Park gun site was at Ryan and 10 Mile Roads, southwest corner.
The Ferndale gunsite was in Harding Park, south of 10 Mile, west of Hilton.
The Detroit site listed as 6301 West Jefferson is the same thing as Ft Wayne, and there were no guns sited there.
The Algonquin gun site was at the northwest corner of Southfield and Ford Roads [[se corner Faust & Kirkwood).
The Newport site was at the southwest corner of Telegraph and Newport Roads, although this was just a Nike site and not a gun site.

There were also gun sites in: Grosse Pointe Farms at the current location of Brownell Middle School; in Grosse Pointe Park at the foot of Three Mile Drive; in northwest Detroit, in Van Antwerp Park, northwest corner of Wyoming and St Martins; and in Ecorse at the southeast corner of Jefferson and Westfield.

[REL]

Great thread, thank you.

I volunteer to check the American Coney Island one!

[M CD M]

I volunteer to check the American Coney Island one!

Rel, Let me know

[lpg]

Wife and I visited the Detroit Historical Museum today. While standing at the reception desk, I noticed the CD sign that said Fallout Shelter through the window behind the desk. The sign faces Kirby.

[M CD M]

Cool, It's still there.
The museum is on the location master list.
It's one of about 50 places I want to go this summer.
Thanks for the info!

[takascar]

Clark School [[Bremen and Berkshire/Chatsworth) was marked as a fallout shelter. We got to go into the basement and see all of the cool boiler equipment about once a school year on air raid drills.

[Stosh]

I was reading an article about some guy that, when I-75 was being constructed, to install air raid shelters within the berms of the expressway. If I ever find it again I will let you know.

And the air raid standards weren't very good. Wood floors in the school...