What’s up with the fallout shelter sign in downtown L.A.?
Fallout shelter signs adorned schools, churches and public buildings across the U.S. and were an outgrowth of Cold War concerns.
The sign in front of the Los Angeles County Superior Court building downtown is one of thousands administered federally by the Office of Civil Defense. The first mention of this version of the public fallout shelter sign in the L.A. Times came in December 1961, following the Department of Defense’s announcement that it was launching a $93-million program that would afford “a large segment of the population almost immediate protection” from radiation poisoning, also known as fallout, following a nuclear bomb.
