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Underground School Built As Fallout Shelter
- Abu Elementary in Artesia, New Mexico was built entirely underground in 1962 to double as a nuclear fallout shelter and school.
- The school included decontamination showers, a morgue, 1,800-pound steel doors, a generator, and its own water well.
Students Treated It Like Any School
- Former students and staff often treated Abu as a normal school and didn't know about its shelter features.
- People described entering the school like ants going into an anthill and kids voted the mascot the Abu Gophers.
Shelter Debate Reflected National Identity
- The fallout shelter debate revealed deeper tensions about American identity and the ethics of survival.
- Opponents feared shelters would militarize society or leave survivors to a bleak postwar world, while proponents framed shelters as sensible precautions.