SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Following alleged nuclear scares from Russia and the war in Ukraine, searches for bomb shelters are trending on google. A trends graph shows a spike in bomb shelter searches beginning at the end of February when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Sacramento has a long history of wartime threats from other nations. In fact, that’s why there are bomb shelters all over below the city including one below Capitol Books on K street.
Co-owner Ross Rojak showed ABC10 a small door behind bookshelves that led to a Concrete room.
“It might be tight quarters, but it is really sold,” says Rojak.
A bookstore bomb shelter may seem a little odd or out of place but below the city of Sacramento, it’s not. City historian Marcia Eyman has a copy of a 1960’s era map that gives directions to more than 130 bomb shelters locations in Sacramento.
“They are here because of the cold war and they utilized buildings that were already here,” says Eyman.
During the peak of the Cold War the government started the Civil Defense program, which was created to warn people about incoming bomb attacks and taught them to get them below ground to safe places because Sacramento was surrounded by military bases and the capital was believed to be a target.
“If you were going to eliminate and have a critical impact on the U.S., the capital of California is a big deal. We were the 4th largest economy in the world,” says Eyman.
Unfortunately, many of the Cold War era defense systems in Sacramento are no longer working including air raid sirens. As for the bomb shelters, Marcia says they probably won’t save you from a nuclear blast.
“No, not the ones from the 1950s. We know more now about radiation than we did back then and the likelihood anyone would have survived is pretty slim,” Marcia says.
The good news is, Eyman believes Sacramento might be less of a target because there are fewer military forces in the area than there were during the Cold War.
