Amid Tensions, Fallout Shelters Get Another Look

BOSTON, MA - DECEMBER 21: Barrels of drinking water from the Office of Civil Defense are stored in the basement of a school designated as a fallout shelter in South Boston on Dec. 21, 2017. The barrels and other items were stashed there in the event of a nuclear attack. And they are still there, more than 50 years later, in a dark, concrete crawl space in the basement of the school. All are labeled survival supplies, 1962, the era of Dr. Strangelove, duck and cover, and mutually assured destruction, when the Kennedy administration designated the school as a nuclear fallout shelter. Now, as Americans confront the possibility of nuclear war with North Korea, the idea of sheltering from a lethal downpour of radiation no longer seems like a remote concept from a filmstrip in a bygone era. (Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)