Do you remember the civil defense horn that use to go off for practice when you were in elementary school?
Daisymae †SFECU† asked:
Do you remember civil defense drills? What did you do?
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Do you remember civil defense drills? What did you do?
We had to go and sit under the stairwell. I also remember a room full of can goods and medical supplies.
Don’t remember the bomb shelter salesman
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:20 am
Yes, that and “Duck and cover”. Like that would protect you from the bomb.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:50 am
No that is so funny because, I was in school in the 50,s & early 60,s and we lived pretty close to an atomic plant. but nothing was ever said to us, maybe because we were so closed they were afraid we would be scared to death>
March 5th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
All i can recall are wailing sirens being tested on a Friday lunch-time.
March 6th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Yeah, every Saturday at noon. I figured that all “they” had to do was attack on a Saturday at noon and no one would take it seriously.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Today’s earthquake drill is the 40s “duck and cover” drill for Red China’s nuclear bomb attack.
We had no horn that I ever heard.
Do you remember the bomb shelter salesmen?
March 11th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Yes, and duck and cover.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Yes, and the local bomb shelters. One of my classmates and her family lived in a bomb shelter as an experiment for about a month. I was terrified that we would be bombed from that point on. So I was never quite sure if the alert was real or just a test. I found every bomb shelter in my area, full of canned goods.
We still have a siren alert once a month, because of the proximity to a nuclear facility.
March 17th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Yes, I was actually a young teacher in those days and we had to go through the exercise of getting all the children into a central hall way first, and then to the basement. They had to do the drill with their hands over their heads in a crouched position against an interior wall. As teachers, we had to go through the bathrooms and stairwells to make sure they were empty. Our principal at the time always said we could lead the children into song or prayer to comfort them. I still remember that black & yellow sign that designated the basement of our school as a Civil Defense fallout shelter.
March 19th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Yes and the TV and radio interrupting service for a civil defense broadcasting test.
March 21st, 2009 at 2:32 am
I don’t remember the horn but I remember having to go to the basement of the school and lean against a wall with my arms over my head.
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:17 am
We would have to hide under our desk (I have no idea why they thought that was a safe place) Back then there should have been some sort of shelter near the schools on school grounds………Edit, One year I had a teacher who would shout DUCK ! whenever the bell came on. Poppy
March 25th, 2009 at 4:02 am
We had to go into the central hallway, sit on the floor hunched forward and clasp our hands on the back of our necks.
We also had to wear plastic blood tags fastened to our wrists with a chain. It told our blood type, in case of emergency. I snapped mine in half, playing softball. My Mom was so mad!
March 27th, 2009 at 12:46 am
We would go to the basement and sit in the hallway during these practice drills. At another school we would go into the hallway because there wasn’t a basement.
Do you remember the CD (Civil Defense) announcements on the TV and radio?
March 30th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I remember the ‘duck and cover’ drills. We had to get under our desks. Don’t know how that was supposed to protect us, but I guess as a child we never thought about that. The adults told us what to do and we believed that they knew best.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:47 am
I hated those! If we were inside we had to crawl under our desks which wasn’t too bad. But if we were outside we had to lay on the ground. It rains all the time here so the ground was always wet and muddy! We also had to wear dog tags with our name and address on them.
April 1st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
No I don’t rememeber my cousin does does.
April 2nd, 2009 at 8:08 am
Oh, yes! We lived right across the river from a SAC Base and the claxon, as it was called then, went off regularly. I don’t remember any drills, probably because if the base was bombed, we wouldn’t even be around to worry about it!! I remember the bomb shelters and the preparedness alerts on the radio, and later the TV. And I remember the fear!! I still live across the river from that base, but now it is a major airport, which is as much reason, if not more, to worry about it!!!
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I can remember the air raid sirens going every night.Getting on my bike and reporting to the warden as messenger boy,to take messages to fire stations and ambulances.wnen lines where down.this was no drill,this was real.I was 15 then.
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Yes, I remember the Air Raid siren.
And the duck & cover under our desks. As if that would do a lot of good. You mine as well kiss your asp. good by.
I also lived in San Francisco, so we would have our earthquake drills, again the duck & cover. I remember having to stand in the door jam, at home, during several of our quakes that we had.
There was one earthquake, air raid shelter in a parking lot in San Francisco, that I saw first hand. All it had in it was barrels of water, and crackers. Like we could live on that, if something did happen. I might add that several of the barrels were dented, and some of the crackers boxes, the use by date had expired. Lot of help there.