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Monday, January 3, 2011

Charlotte Station Ready For An Attack

End of the world? Tune into WBT-AM

Oh, great.

There's a new doomsday bunker in Charlotte, according to Mark Washburn at thesunnews.com.

It's just a precaution, if you're the optimistic type. End of the world stuff, if you're not.

First,  a history lesson:

In 1963, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, federal engineers dug a bomb-proof shelter beneath the 1929 transmitter building for WBT-AM (1110) in south Charlotte.

There, 16 feet beneath the soil, workers installed a radio studio and outfitted it with a radiation suit, Geiger counter and barrels of water. Station lore holds that a shotgun or two also went into the refuge, just in case.

It was one of several such installations at major radio stations across the country, and their mission was grim. It would be the place that survivors of a nuclear holocaust would get emergency information.

That was the Cold War era. Things change. This is the age of terrorism.

A new shelter rises.

In July, federal contractors returned to the WBT-AM transmitter in the 9200 block of Nation's Ford Road.

Read more here.

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