Mount Weather

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The facility on an official FEMA photo

Mount Weather (officially Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center ) is a federal agency of the United States of America . It is located near Bluemont , Virginia . The facility is an operations and training center for the American disaster relief organization FEMA . The agency reported its 2006 workforce in Mount Weather as 673 civilian employees. The United States Department of Homeland Security , the highest authority of FEMA, operates its own fire department on the premises, the Mount Weather Fire & Rescue Company 21 .

In addition, it is believed that there is a nuclear bunker below the site , which is intended to house high-ranking members of the government in the event of a nuclear war . In this respect, the facility would be an important part of the Continuity of Operations Plan , the federal government's emergency plan for the continuation of official business and for military counter-attack capability.

history

The name of Mount Weather comes from its original use as a meteorological observation point or weather station, which was used by the National Weather Bureau as the Mount Weather Observatory . Weather balloons and kites have been launched from there since the late 1890s. During the First World War , Mount Weather was an artillery training ground . In 1936 the site was handed over to the Bureau of Mines , which had an approximately 100-meter-long tunnel bored under the ridge to test new techniques. Due to the favorable geological conditions, the Bureau of Mines began to build new tunnels in 1954 , which were then completed by the Army Corps of Engineers under the code name "Operation High Point". In the same year, high-ranking officers from Washington decided at short notice, either during an exercise or an alarm case, that the Mount Weather tunnels, which were not even watertight, were suitable for important tasks. By July 1958, around 90 relocation sites for the US government and other agencies between 30 and 300 miles around Washington were determined, including Mount Weather.

The Army Corps of Engineers built the underground "Area B" complex from 1958 to 1959 for an estimated (inflation-adjusted) $ 1 billion. The entrance to this bunker should be secured by a trap gate, which is 3.5 meters high, 7 meters wide, weighs 34 tons and is 1.5 meters thick. It should take 10 to 15 minutes to open or close. The underground facility houses a hospital , a crematorium , restaurant, relaxation and sleeping areas, a power plant, and radio and television studios, which are part of a national disaster system. Some of the side tunnels house 20 office buildings that are up to three stories high, with a computer center for simulating and managing crises called the Contingency Impact Analysis System (CIAS) or Resource Interruption Monitoring System (RIMS). Information about the capacity of the entire complex varies between 200 and 2000 people for 30 days, in any case there are private sleeping quarters for the President of the United States and his government, of which representatives should stay in Washington as well as in other places even in the event of a crisis. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the facility was believed to have been partially used by the US government. On September 9, 1965, during the great power outage in the northeastern United States, as well as during the riots and anti-war demonstrations in 1967 and 1968, the capacity of the plant is said to have been fully used.

On December 1, 1974, a Boeing 727 crashed in the fog on Mount Weather, killing all 92 aircraft occupants. It was through this event that the Mount Weather Complex became known to the American public for the first time. The Washington Post reported on it and quoted a spokesman for the Department of Defense who was not allowed to provide any information about the purpose of the government facility. According to a statement by a Senate Committee on Constitutional Rights in 1975, the United States House of Representatives had almost no knowledge of Mount Weather, such as budgets. Retired Air Force General Leslie W. Bray testified before the Senate committee, "I am prohibited from describing the exact role and potential we have at Mount Weather or any other location." Nonetheless, General Bray turned the committee over a list of Mount Weather responsibilities: Military, Government, Communications, Transportation, Energy, Agriculture, Crafts, Commerce, Labor, Finance, Medicine and Education, Health, Population Policy, Housing, and Storage. In March 1976, Progressive Magazine published an article entitled "The Mysterious Mountain" by Richard Pollock, which used the results of the Senate Committee mentioned and interviews with former employees of the Mount Weather facilities. His report and a 1991 Time Magazine article by Ted Gup entitled "Doomsday Hideaway" provide some interesting and compelling details about the Mount Weather Complex.

Today's function of Mount Weather

Vice President Dick Cheney allegedly took refuge in the Mount Weather Complex immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks , a (according to the Guardian, 2006) perfectly “safe and secret place”, although this is also Site R (Raven Rock) could have acted. In any case, shortly thereafter, Mount Weather's personnel and supplies were greatly increased. Today 673 civilian employees are said to work in the Mount Weather complex alone. In addition, a similar government facility called Greenbrier Resort is said to have been shut down and largely taken over in its function by Mount Weather.

Receptions

  • In the movie Thirteen Days , Mount Weather is mentioned as a fallback facility in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
  • In the final episode of the X-Files series ("The Truth"), former FBI agent Fox Mulder invades the Mount Weather complex, which is controlled by a shadow government of the United States. There he finds evidence of a government conspiracy and the date of a planned alien invasion before he is arrested and tried.
  • In the fourth season of drama series 24 , much of the American government is evacuated to Mount Weather during a nuclear threat (though this is only mentioned in passing).
  • In the television series The 100 , Mount Weather is a central location, it represents a supply warehouse and base where some people survived the post-apocalypse .

See also

Web links

References

  1. ↑ Details of the TWA 514 crash at Aviation Safety Network
  2. ↑ Ted Gup: Doomsday Hideaway. In: Time Magazine. December 9, 1991, pp. 26-29.
  3. ↑ More facts and pictures about Mount Weather at GlobalSecurity.org (English).

Coordinates: 39 ° 3 '47 "  N , 77 ° 53' 20"  W.