Nothing stops the United States Postal Service, not even nuclear fallout. Following the primary profitable nuclear weapons check performed by the Soviet Union in August of 1949, the U.S. authorities was pressured to organize for the worst. It was an all-hands-on-deck state of affairs involving each federal division and company, and the publish workplace was extra concerned than you would possibly assume. The Federal Civil Protection Act of 1950 pushed the USPS to arrange fallout shelters, function emergency transportation of wounded and deceased, and assist ameliorate the injury of nuclear assault. Your pleasant neighborhood mail supply particular person abruptly grew to become an officer of civil protection.
On the truck above you’ll see a small triangle insignia with the letters CD scribed inside. This decal was carried on hundreds of postal vehicles from 1956 till 1971. The decal said “This can be a unit of your civil protection” and every car carrying the decal was anticipated to function as emergency ambulance, rescue car, or mass transportation within the occasion of a Soviet assault. After 1964, this program even included the three-wheeled “Mailster” autos.
The U.S. Postal Service at the moment employs over 246,000 autos, among the many largest civilian fleets on this planet. That form of transportation powerhouse may very well be an unbelievable useful resource within the occasion of tragedy.
One of many many Chilly Struggle-era plans was to maneuver everybody in affected zones to refugee camps housed inside the Nationwide Parks, as they’d be much less more likely to be targets. When you had been transported to Yosemite or Yellowstone by mail truck and beneath the care of the Nationwide Park Service staff, USPS would problem a pre-printed emergency change of handle postcard permitting you to register a refugee quantity. Even when your complete life obtained toppled, the mailperson might nonetheless convey your payments.
In case you couldn’t make it to a nationwide park, survivors of Soviet aggression had been invited to their native Put up Workplace to behave as an impromptu fallout shelter.
In whole, within the early Nineteen Sixties the U.S. Authorities purchased and distributed about 165,000 tons of meals and provides, price about $122 million, to be used in fallout shelters all through the nation. By January 1969, 160 million fallout shelter areas had been ready, which the Division of Protection estimated would possibly save 18 to 30 million folks within the aftermath of a nuclear assault.
The buildings, usually giant and strong brick buildings, had been outfitted with rations, clear water, and Geiger counters. The federal government labored with Nabisco to develop high-calorie “survival biscuits,” which had been additionally stocked at publish places of work for many years. The massive 17.5 gallon clear water containers had been able to being transformed into bogs as they had been emptied.
This system wound down over the course of the Nineteen Seventies, however wasn’t fully deserted till the Nineteen Nineties, when the Chilly Struggle lastly got here to an official finish. The postal service has all the time been a serious a part of the nation’s emergency plans, as a result of it’s the one division that actually is aware of the place everybody within the nation lives.
