![]() Every time she would hear a plane - she was part of the civil defense - she’d grab her binoculars and recorded what she saw.”Īirplanes brought suspicion because it was a way to drop bombs on cities and towns. “A woman a mile down from us always had her binoculars. ![]() “Someone was always a designated spotter in town,” Merkle said, as he reflected on memories of the era. He remembers the school drills and the threat of nuclear or atomic catastrophe lurking in the news almost daily. ![]() A secondary sign stuck to the lower half of the sign usually denoted where the shelter was located, typically “In Basement.”ĭonald Merkle of Sturgis was a young teen during the Cold War era. The signs noted the capacity of the designated shelter area. The metal, mustard-yellow and silver-colored signs were designed in 1961 and hung on any public building that could offer underground protection against a nuclear event, including schools, hospitals, fire departments, post offices and churches. Those who are old enough to remember the escalating Cold War crisis in the 1950s and 1960s, and the threat of nuclear attacks, remember handbooks mailed to homes by the Office of Civil Defense, the drills of hiding underneath school desks and knowing the location of the nearest nuclear fallout shelter. They are reminders of a bygone era, when the threat of nuclear catastrophe was on people’s minds almost daily.
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