Slide No. 56: The slide now on the screen shows a preliminary design of a shelter which may be incorporated in the fill of a highway overpass. Construction drawings and specifications for this shelter have not yet been completed. It may be designed for fallout protection or any reasonable degree of blast protection. There has been a great deal of public interest expressed in combining shelter construction with the new highway construction program. While we feel that this capability may be somewhat exaggerated in the public mind, we do see the possibility of blending these two programs to a limited extent. Slide No. 57: This slide shows, perhaps in a somewhat crude manner, how a subway could be converted so as to be available for use as a fallout shelter. Rooms would be constructed adjacent to the subway to house ventilating equipment, power generating equipment, sanitary SUBWAY-TUNNEL SHELTER facilities, food, bedding, and other related equipment. The tables and bunks shown in the drawing would be removed from storage and erected after occupancy of the shelter in an emergency. In addition to what I have shown you here, our agency is engaged in contracting for the design of numerous other prototype shelter designs, including a multistory underground garage shelter, an elementary school incorporating dual-purpose underground shelter space functionally integrated with the aboveground school space, a prototype dome shelter and other types. In each case there will be several designs, one for fallout only, another for an improvable fallout type, and also designs for 30 pounds per square inch blast overpressure and perhaps 50 to 100 pounds per square inch overpressure. We also have numerous research projects underway, in the process of negotiation, or planned to obtain fundamental engineering data requisite to the design of economical shelters. I have here a book of sketches and narratives pertaining to the shelters which I have just described which I will be glad to leave with the committee, if you so desire. Models of some of these shelters are on display in the back of the room for your inspection. Now, there is an additional study we have had undertaken in regard to shelter designs that I particularly wish to acquaint you with, since it is a rather bold and interesting concept. This study involves the design of shelters in the deep rock strata under our cities for the total city population. Under many of our cities there exists at some level, ranging from several hundred to a thousand feet or more down, a rock stratum suitable for this purpose. The firm of Guy B. Panero Consulting Engineers, New York City, has been conducting this study for us for several of our big cities, with emphasis being placed on a rather complete design for the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. These shelters are designed to be constructed 800 feet below the surface in solid rock to accommodate the total population of Manhattan Island. Ramp entrances would be provided throughout the city in such numbers that the total population could be within the first blast door in about 25 minutes. Slide No. 58: The slide now on the screen shows the island of Manhattan lifted into the air to expose the proposed layout of shelters deep in the rock underneath. Studies show that this plan is entirely feasible and practicable, except possibly in certain limited areas where rock faults may make construction difficult or impractical. The blank space in the shelter layout on the screen is one of these areas where there are rock faults. Slide No. 59: The next slide shows a cutaway portion of the island of Manhattan with the shelter layout at the 800-foot level in the rock. Construction would not be by excavation from the surface, however, except at several points to start the project. It would, instead, be from the inside out, with the rock carried by conveyor belts to the East River or Hudson River and loaded directly on barges for transporting to sea for dumping. Normal rock-excavating methods would be used, the excavated spaces being sufficiently large to accommodate power shovels and other necessary equipment of this type. Slide No. 60: This slide is an artist's concept of an interior view of one of these shelters. As you may know, precedence exist for large-scale construction at this level under cities in the form of the |