It's Curie City editor Alexandra Solomon.

During this pandemic, we've all grown accustomed to feeling a sense of uncertainty and anxiety about illness.

But during the Cold War, particularly in the 1950s and 60s,

Americans were really worried about another kind of global threat. Nuclear war.

Five, four, three, two, one. Thousands of tons of Earth particles are drawn upward into the ascending mushroom cloud

where radioactive products of the nuclear explosion contaminate them.

Eventually they settle to Earth, and this is called radioactive fallout.

Instead of getting vaccines, social distancing, and masking up to stave off

impending danger, back then, people found comfort another way. And that gets us to something

Kyle Bolliard noticed. He teaches in the northwest suburbs, and when he used to drive to work,

he passed a strange sign. It's on the side of the sturdy brick building owned by the Regional Wastewater Treatment Authority.

So we're here right now at Howard and McCormick where this sign is.

And I, you know, I pass this building every single day.

And at some point along the way, I just kind of noticed it.

It's a pretty small sign.

It's kind of rusted a little bit.

It says fallout shelter on floors one

in basement. Fallout shelter as in nuclear fallout, like after an atomic bomb blast. You know

the symbol on the sign, three yellow triangles pointing down inside a circle. That sign got Kyle thinking.

I was wondering if there were any nuclear fallout or nuclear

blast shelters left in the city of Chicago or anywhere in the suburban area.

Kyle's talking about underground bunkers built during the Cold War when the nation was worried

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