Long Island's Hidden Past: Abandoned nuclear fallout shelter

An abandoned school nuclear fallout shelter was discovered right underneath the feet of kindergarten students in Copiague.

News 12 Staff

Feb 7, 2019, 9:00 AM

Updated 2,145 days ago

Share:

Long Island's Hidden Past: Abandoned nuclear fallout shelter
An abandoned school nuclear fallout shelter was discovered right underneath the feet of kindergarten students in Copiague.
It was hidden for decades, sealed up behind a cinder block and cement wall.
Mary Cascone, the Town of Babylon historian, says a Cold War time capsule was stumbled upon underneath the Great Neck Road Elementary School in Copiague. Maintenance workers needed to replace pipes in the school's basement, but mysteriously, one of the pipes went right through the cinder block wall.
"Taking down that cement block, they discovered a room," says Cascone. "It was always here, but people were just unaware of it."
But the most shocking: the room had been set up as a fallout shelter, filled with rows of chairs, drums of water and stacks of boxes. The boxes contained tins of biscuits, medical supplies, sanitation kits and instructions on how to survive in a fallout bunker after a nuclear attack.

The Cold War bunker serves as a reminder of what could have been.
Fallout shelters were found in town's across Long Island during the early 1960s. At one point, there were 65 bunkers just in the Town of Babylon.
Listen to the Hidden Past Long Island podcast for a full interview with historian Mary Cascone: