Bulletin of the National Speleological Society - ISSN 0146-9517
Volume 25 Part 1: 15-22 - January 1963

A publication of the National Speleological Society

The Survey and Improvement of Natural Caverns for Use as Fallout Shelters in North Alabama
Thomas E. Baily, Illustrations by J.R. McClain

Abstract

During the National Fallout Shelter Survey recently completed, a significant amount of shielded space was found to exist in natural caverns. In the nine county area of North Alabama potential shelter space for 25 percent of the population was found to exist in caves. Conditions such as remote locations, difficult access to shelter rooms, ventilation, filtration of air, stream flow into entrances, infiltration of surface water, dampness, rough floors, tec., indicate that improvement will be required before the average cave could be put to use as a shelter. In nearly all cases there appears to be a feasible and logical solution to each of these improvement problems. A test shelter program in which improvements would be designed, constructed and opoerated in a selected cave would be the next logical step in studying this important problem.

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