Robert Blakeley, Whose Fallout Shelter Sign Symbolized the Cold War, Dies at 95

[Ken Burch]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/robert-blakeley-whose-fallout-shelter-sign-symbolized-the-cold-war-dies-at-95/ar-AAu8O2l?ocid=spartanntp

You can still see Robert W. Blakeley’s ominous signs on old public buildings, rusted metal relics of an age when nuclear war was a clear and present danger. They marked the way to the fallout shelters where millions of Americans were to take refuge from the deadly radioactivity of thermonuclear explosions.
A half-century ago, the bright orange-yellow and black placards were ubiquitous on courthouses, town halls, schools and other shelters packed with canned goods and water supplies to sustain anywhere from 50 to thousands of people for days or weeks. To many, they represented hope for survival amid the destruction of cities. To others, they symbolized the insanity of war and the folly of defenses against nuclear attack.
But to Mr. Blakeley, the 1.4 million fallout shelter signs he produced for the Army Corps of Engineers in 1961 were just a routine job, soon forgotten as he moved on to other tasks, never dreaming his utilitarian creation would become America’s most visible symbols of the Cold War.

Mr. Blakeley died on Wednesday at 95 at Brookdale Southside, a senior living community in Jacksonville, Fla., his daughter, Dorothy Carver, said.

Please share your "duck and cover" memories here.

[denbot]

1. A true icon of my life time..

Duck, cover, kiss your ass good bye..

[Ken Burch]

2. We did those drills in school until I was in third grade, I think(1969)

Never could figure out why they thought having us crouch under our desks would make any difference if the school was nuked.

[Demtexan]

3. There was a fall out shelter downtown at Woolsworth.

I always wondered what it would look like.

That sign was above the door.

[Ken Burch]

4. There are tunnels between the Oregon state capital building and other government offices

Those were designated as fallout shelters too.

[Demtexan]

5. There are a bunch of tunnels under downtown Houston.

Miles of them.

All kinds of shops and stores.

[Ken Burch]

6. That does not surprise me.

n/t.

[Demtexan]

8. I walked them in summer.

Really easy to get lost.

[whistler162]

7. Lived to see his signs go out of use

and then back into use ??????????