Inside the bunker stored secret for 50 years and constructed to shelter Congress after a nuclear strike | EUROtoday

Buried over 700 toes beneath a sprawling and opulent resort within the hills of West Virginia lies an unlimited bunker, designed to carry and defend each single member of Congress within the occasion of nuclear armageddon.

The underground stronghold lies on the grounds of the 11,000-acre property on the Greenbrier, within the distant Allegheny Mountains, and comprises all the required amenities for federal lawmakers to proceed to hold out their duties ought to the worst occur – all from behind 25-ton blast doorways.

Built in the course of the top of the Cold War, when fears of nuclear disaster reached fever pitch, the bunker’s existence was widespread data to residents, lots of whom labored on the Greenbrier in different capacities, regardless of being a tightly stored authorities secret.

Its existence was formally revealed to the world in 1992 in an exposé written by journalist Ted Gup and printed within the Washington Post, ending greater than 5 a long time of thriller and hypothesis.

Today, the dystopian facility has been the topic of a number of books and documentaries, and is even open to the general public for excursions.

Building the Bunker

The Greenbrier, positioned round 5 hours’ drive south-west of Washington D.C., was utilized by the federal authorities in the course of the later years of the Second World War as an internment facility for Japanese, Italian and German diplomats.

In 1942, all the resort was bought by the U.S. Army, and it was transformed right into a 2,200-bed army hospital.

In 1949, ten years earlier than floor was damaged on the bunker, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson met on the Greenbrier with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretaries of the Army, Air Force and Navy for what a historical past of the resort known as a “top-secret discussion of postwar military strategy,” according to Gup’s article.

Construction on the bunker – code-named Project Greek Island – began in 1959, a year after being authorized by Congress, when fear of a Soviet nuclear attack was at the forefront of the minds of both politicians and ordinary citizens.

Two-and-a-half years and around 50,000 tonnes of concrete later, the project was completed – as John F Kennedy Jr and Nikita Khrushchev squared off over the Cuban Missile Crisis and the country scrambled to build its own backyard bomb shelters.

One Nation Underground

According to Gup, the bunker was “custom-designed to meet the needs of a Congress-in-hiding, complete with a chamber for the Senate, a chamber for the House and a massive hall for joint sessions.”

Two separate auditoriums, fitted with green corduroy-covered chairs and a red carpet leading to the stage, were designed to hold congressional sessions. The larger of the two has a capacity of around 470, enough to accommodate the 435-member House of Representatives. The smaller auditorium holds around 130, enough to serve as a temporary Senate chamber. A separate Exhibit Hall was meant for use in joint sessions of Congress.

Elsewhere, a television studio stands, which legislators would have used to address what remained of the country, should nuclear warheads have touched down on U.S. soil. There is also a radio and communications room as well as specially soundproofed phone booths, fitted with cryptographic machines.

As well as working facilities, lawmakers who would have been rushed to the bunker needed somewhere to stay – potentially for the long haul.

The subterranean hideout boasts more than 1,000 bunk beds, a 400-seat cafeteria, a full kitchen, and numerous offices. Workers reported seeing over 100 urinals being transported into the construction site, which also held showers, storage rooms and enormous water tanks.

There was also a huge trash incinerator that could serve, morbidly, as a crematorium.

“Once the blast doors were sealed, no one could enter or leave until the crisis had passed,” Gup noted.

The Doors

Standing in the way of congressional members and nuclear evaporation are four enormous doors, each weighing between 18 and 30 tonnes.

The blast doors were built by Mosler Safe Co., an Ohio-based manufacturer renowned for its vaults and safes, which was contracted by the government during the period to build multiple relocation centers and bunkers.

Two of the four doors – known as “GH 1” and “GH 3” – were big enough to drive vehicles through, according to Gup’s report. GH 1 measured 12 feet 3 inches wide and 15 feet high and weighed more than 28 tons. GH 3, which weighed more than 20 tons. Both doors were 19.5 inches thick and hung with two hinges that weighed 1.5 tons by themselves, according to Mosler order reports.

The two other doors were much smaller, with one, a hatch-like door, measuring 3 feet by 3.5 feet, and a “personnel door” which was 7 feet wide by 8 feet high.

Mosler claimed its doors could survive the impact of an atomic bomb blast, having conducted successful tests on a vault door at the government’s Nevada Test Site in 1957.

The doors were moved from Mosler’s plant in Hamilton, Ohio, to West Virginia by train, though they were so big that they could not be laid in an ordinary freight car. They had to be transported either standing, tilted at an angle or in a special car that was low enough for them not to collide with tunnels or other obstacles along the way.

A Regrettable Revelation

“The Greenbrier was different in that it relied more on the element of secrecy than on any mountain of rock to shield it from incoming bombs,” Gup wrote in his article, which was published in The Post’s magazine on May 31, 1992.

“Yet despite the discretion of the resort staff, the existence of some kind of hidden government installation there was widely known.”

It was perhaps for this reason that the piece angered not just government officials, but the locals themselves, who considered it a “point of pride” to have a secret that the rest of the country did not know about, according to lifelong Greenbrier resident Trish Parker.

“When someone who they considered an outsider came in and revealed it, they felt very betrayed,” Parker told Smithsonian Magazine.

Even though they knew of the bunker’s existence, many were still surprised to learn of its real purpose and that it was large enough to hold 1,100 of the country’s most important and high-profile people.

Gup’s exposé also revealed that of all the employees at Greenbrier, it was the seven-man strong team at “Forsythe Associates” – ostensibly in charge of repairing the resort’s electrical equipment – that oversaw the upkeep of the vault.

In a press release launched on the time, Congressional leaders expressed “regret” at The Post’s determination to publish Gup’s items.

“It was always clear that if the secret of the facility’s location were to be compromised, the effectiveness and security of the program would be jeopardized, if not terminated,” the assertion learn.

Tours and Pricing

The Greenbrier bunker was declassified shortly after its existence was made public, and the vault has featured in a lot of articles and documentaries. Tours have run since 1995, each common and personal.

Nowadays, common admission costs for adults are $52 per individual, whereas youth admission (from ages 10 to 17) is $24.

For personal excursions, which may accommodate as much as 25 visitors, costs fluctuate relying on time. Before 5:00 p.m.. a big personal tour prices $1,205.20, rising to $1,766 earlier than 6.30 p.m. and going as much as $1,815 earlier than 8 p.m.

Bunker excursions depart from the Trellis Lobby close to the foyer bar, with visitors suggested to permit ample time for parking, arrive quarter-hour earlier than their allotted time, and put on snug footwear.

The bunker shall be closed to the general public from March 9 to 12, 2026, in accordance with the official web site.