The Coast Star
  October 29, 2009

     The Cold War may have ended when the Soviet Union fell in 1991, but at InfoAge in Wall Township, the memory of the decades-long arms race is still alive with its Fallout Shelter Theater.

     The InfoAge campus holds three fallout shelters that were constructed around 1960, to be used in the event of a nuclear attack. Two of those shelters are located in the basement of the Marconi Hotel, and one has been restored by two Eagle Scouts to be used anew as a learning tool.

     Original "Fallout Shelter" signs still line the halls leading into the restored theater, which is open to guests on Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m., and by appointment for docent-escort­ed, shows.

      There, guests will find a space cleaned out by Eagle Scout Joe Reilly, now 19, of Wall Township, in 2008. He also constructed benches for visitors and secured a used television and DVD player for video presentations.

      Mr. Reilly will be attending Rutgers University this January, but he started his project just before his 18th birthday, when he was still in high school.

      "I wanted to do something really special and unique," he said, and he heard about the fallout shelter at InfoAge.

      He drew up a plan to con­struct a wall with a sliding door on it to provide access to a stor­age space, and also to construct shelving and benches. Then, he said, he received $500 from the American Legion and $500 from the Kiwanis Club for his project.

"We did a lot of cleaning and a lot of construction," Mr. Reilly said. "When we first went there, it was really dirty."

Mr. Reilly cleaned the space, built a wall to make the fallout shelter seem more secluded, and secured a used television and DVD player for future presenta­tions.

      Thanks to Eagle Scout Tim Troppoli, 17, of Freehold, visi­tors can view one of two video presentations he created, or browse around the room and see original fallout shelter supplies, with explanation cards nearby. He completed his project this past summer.

      T i m explained that he visited InfoAge several times before he started his project there.  "I had always found the Cold War to be an interesting period in history," he said.

     "I liked all the freedom [I] had with the project," he added, noting he was able to tell the story of American history by bringing in authentic artifacts from the Cold War era.

     One of the videos he made, Tim said, is about 15 minutes long, and is geared toward adults. It contains more "com­plex information about science and the political stripe of the time," Tim said.

      The second video is about half as long, and explains a bit about the Cold War to a younger audience, giving young viewers an idea of what it would have been like to live in a base­ment like the fallout shelter, Tim said.

      The supplies Tim found to stock the fallout shelter's shelves were mostly discovered on eBay or Craigslist, he said. They were all donated or purchased at a reduced price. Tim said he was excited he had the chance to preserve the artifacts, as they are becoming more and more rare. He found everything from canned crackers to Geiger coun­ters, which measure radioactivi­ty, to place in the shelter.

     Once the two Eagle Scouts completed their projects, the Fallout Shelter Theater was opened to the public.

     "The Fallout Shelter Theater is used to give groups of visitors a view back into the Cold War, when people were worried about being prepared for an atomic attack by the Soviet Union in the 1960s," said Fred Carl, InfoAge Science/History Center Director.

      The Fallout Shelter Theater was not always a theater for edu­cation. Though Camp Evans was never attacked with a nuclear weapon or radioactive material, the fallout shelter stood ready to protect the area's inhabitants.

      "Persons who took refuge in the basement," Mr. Carl explained, "were protected by a 10-inch concrete floor above them, with two, 8-inch concrete floors on the second floor and attic above. The side walls have a foot thick of solid concrete."

Once inside, those hiding from a nuclear disaster had access to rudimentary supplies.

      "The shelves were filled with cans of water, crackers and toilet kits," Mr. Carl said. "There were also radiation detectors, to determine if and when it was safe to leave the shelter after an attack."

      Mr. Carl further explained that the original fallout shelter procedure book is still in exis­tence, and resides in the Camp Evans archive.

      When docents guide visitors through the Fallout Shelter Theater at InfoAge, they describe a brief history of the Cold War and of fallout shel­ters.

      Fallout shelters came into vogue under President John F. Kennedy's administration, when President Kennedy felt Americans should have a way to protect themselves in the case of a Soviet nuclear attack and the resulting fallout. He provided federal funding in the amount of $207 million to find  buildings that could be used as fallout shelters.

      In the 1960s, the government provided estimates that a per­sonal fallout shelter would cost around $200, which equates to about $1,450 today, when adjusted for inflation. However, those shelters were very basic, and a prolonged stay in one could result in suffocation.

      Fallout shelter construction declined sharply after the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Americans began to believe that nuclear attacks would be less likely than before. Some existing shelters were removed, convert­ed into storage areas, or just fell into disrepair.

      Now, area residents have the chance to see what a real fallout shelter looked like, and learn about history at the same time, thanks to InfoAge's Fallout Shelter Theater and the two Eagle Scouts who made it all happen.