This week in the archives: Fallout shelters, first TV broadcast, no nukes

“R.H. Harmon, civil defense director for Watauga County, announced this week that the firm of Six Associations Inc. — architects and engineers of Asheville — are making a survey to locate and mark public fallout shelter space in Boone, Blowing Rock, (the) college campus and other areas in the county, including the schools,” stated an article in the Jan. 18, 1962, edition of the Watauga Democrat.

“Similar surveys are being conducted throughout the country in a nationwide effort to locate and mark existing facilities which will provide adequate protection against radioactive fallout. Preliminary estimates indicate that suitable shelter will be found for approximately one-fourth of the country’s population or 50 million people.

The article also stated that Harmon had said that Six Associations Inc. were under contract to the district Army Engineer to do the field work for the fallout shelter survey for Watauga, Ashe and Avery counties. To qualify before obtaining the government contract, several members of the firm received intensive specialized training in structural analysis of fallout shelters at a school sponsored by the Department of Defense.

The initial job for Six Associates Inc. was to fill out a form describing the structural components of each building which appears to offer a substantial degree of protection from radioactive fallout for at least 50 people, the article stated. The completed forms were to be processed and sent to the data processing center of the Bureau of Census. A film optical sensing device would read the forms and transfer the data to magnetic tape in a language understood by a high-speed electronic computer.

“The minimum standard of protection which a building must have to be considered a fallout shelter is prescribed as 20, Harmon said. This means that a person in the shelter area would receive only one-twentieth as much radiation as he would remaining outside.

“Congress earmarked $93 million of the $207 million supplement Civil Defense appropriation made last August to pay for this nationwide survey,” according to the article.

Jan. 18, 1979

“They came from Knoxville, Tenn., Columbia, S.C., Atlanta and Baltimore to do the first live regional TV broadcast from Boone,” stated an article in the Jan. 18, 1979, edition of the Watauga Democrat.

“With the ASU-Furman Southern Conference headliner set Saturday afternoon, the first of the NBC-TVS broadcast crew to arrive were guys named Bob and Pete, who drove the trucks up from Lenoir early Friday morning, apparently just missing icy roads,” the article stated.

The article went into detail about the process to set up the live broadcast and everyone involved with it.

“Live, remote broadcasts from gymnasiums, football stadiums and golf courses are always done from the truck. Smart play-by-play and color-commentators always find time during the action to praise the cameramen and the guys in the truck for their great shots,” according to the article.

The announcers for the game were play-by-play man Bill O’Donnell and color commentator Larry Conley. O’Donnell spent 16 years as a radio announcer for the Baltimore Orioles, eventually being inducted into their hall of fame.

Jan. 17, 1986

“No Nukes: Watauga Off Repository List,” read the top story in the Jan. 17, 1986, Watauga Democrat.

The Associated Press story revealed that Watauga County was no longer being considered as a national facility for storing highly radioactive nuclear waste after being among 53 sites in North Carolina to initially be considered.

In a corresponding story, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League vowed to keep fighting against the selection of the two North Carolina sites that remained under consideration.

“The Ashe County-based group worked long and hard to keep the area off selection lists,” the article stated.

“The citizens and state government have a right to demand safe site selection,” said Janet Hoyle, of BREDL, in the article. “I’m still idealistic enough to hope that citizen involvement can actually improve the selection process.”

Another local group noted as actively opposing the nuclear waste site was the Blue Ridge chapter of the Sierra Club, at that time chaired by Harvard Ayers.

“Anti-Alcohol Rally Scheduled Sunday At County Courthouse,” read another headline.

The kickoff rally for “anti-alcohol forces in Boone” was to begin fundraising activities to oppose a referendum on the sale of alcoholic beverages to be held March 18 of that year.