Despite laws mandating a shelter within a 30-minute walk of every Swiss home, the government won’t tell anyone exactly where their spot is until they need it. Otherwise, people would complain about having to hole up with someone they don’t like.
That is from Malia Wollan at the NYT, the short article is interesting throughout.
Well I suppose if they did not like it they could step outside.
The very next sentence in NYTimes reference says: “In a real bomb attack, you’ll forget all that,” Vuilleumier says. “You just want to live.”
Also says: “Some of Switzerland’s shelters contain everything needed to survive 14 days sealed inside, but most are intended as sanctuary for only up to two days. ”
The U.S. was really big on “civil defense” air raid shelters in 1950’s & 60’s… usually being in the basements of public buildings. Most were marked with small signs, but there were no rosters of potential occupants.
WWII European and Asian civilians had lots of experience with bomb shelters. No historical culture mention of shelter occupants not liking each other, but somehow that’s Tyler’s primary takeaway from this Swiss shelter overview.
(what was the Brit “culture” during London Blitz ?)
Sheesh. That line was highlighted because it was funny. SMFS was joking too.
what was funny about it ? (or even slightly noteworthy ?)
I found it amusing…but of course that’s just a matter of taste.
“what was funny about it ?”
That people would be concerned with something as trivial as to which of their neighbors was in the fallout shelter with them when there was an actual need to be in a fallout shelter in the first place.
even if cellar door is more deplorable than house of stone, then sly thoughts are whirlwinds and a church yard auction is a sight to see, where the eyes are blue and the chances are there’s a free bird, on a house of stones, a fallen card, now some say may seem dream about a mansion a dreams of resting on a house of stone, even if the the way trump throws a curve ball is deeply false George bush hurled a walk, say that the devil’s a sly one with many kind friends, riches and bountins down in the valley the shadow is gone the lighthouse cabin sits a house of stone soused and debouched.
Ummm, call me old fashioned but I live in Switzerland and my local commune makes it very, very clear where my appropriate shelter is… and they test the alarm sirens every year…
It is the NYT – obviously they have no clue about anything outside of their own bubble.
Which may be why Prof. Cowen so eagerly links to them.
The source for the article is “an engineer for the Federal Office for Civil Protection in Switzerland”.
Since I don’t read the NYT (truly a garbage media source over decades), fair enough. I also don’t do paywalls, including even bothering to get around them (which is generally trivial).
Yet oddly, someone apparently living in Switzerland disgrees with that source, and I would trust someone living there over just about anything the NYT would ever write.
Admittedly, Switzerland is not really run like other countries – the cantons have a lot of authority which would normally be in the hands of a federal government anywhere else. (Cantons are allowed to decide who becomes a Swiss citizen, not the Swiss federal government, for example.) So it is quite possible that different places have different policies within Switzerland itself. But I am not all that interested in making up reasons why the NYT might actually be somewhat accurate though sloppy.
Guess what, I also live in Switzerland, and the article is correct. We all hate our neighbors’ guts, so they don’t tell us our shelter locations until a disaster actually occurs.
Thanks for your faith in anonymous internet commenters, by the way. I appreciate it. It’s true that nearly all of us are more reliable than the NY Times (Dm being the unfortunate exception).
DM’s use of commune was kind of convincing, actually, as that is how the French speaking Swiss refer to their municipalities – Liste des communes de Suisse https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_communes_de_Suisse
But sure, it is entirely possible that somebody just spends a lot of time and effort to be a convincing fake, just because discrediting the NYT is such a passion. Though careful – once you go down the rabbit hole of assuming everyone in the entire world is lying, you will likely end up a Trump supporter, as he is clearly the only person whose words can be trusted on the Internet. After all, lots of people said Trump fired Comey because of Clinton – until Trump set them straight.
The funny thing is that Dm and Totally real person may be right at the same time. It all depends on the context.
In zones with old buildings the shelter location is in modern constructions such as the school gym or civic center. Since people learned about this in primary school, no one cares to explain. Curious expats can kindly ask to local authorities. In more recent apartment buildings it’s common to spot a heavy bunker door in the underground parking or the cellar. In the university, the bunker door is just in front of the library.
So, the end result is that, at best, the NYT is maybe half right.
Well, that is better than usual, all things considered.
“Fallout” shelters proliferated in America during the 1960s as a result of the Cuban missile crisis and anti-Soviet hysteria. My small southern town had weekly air raid drills, a very loud siren located not far from my school that would pierce your ears. During the drills, we were instructed to hide under our desks so the “fallout” wouldn’t fall on us. I suppose Cowen’s point here is to show how ridiculous government can be, “preening, posturing, and moralizing—about optics” rather than serious solutions to complex problems. “Fallout” shelters won’t save the planet in the event of a nuclear war and “climate diplomacy” won’t save the planet from global warming and rising seas. When did failure become so popular?
Tyler,
This is more fake news from the NYT.
I recently visited my friend who works in Switzerland and they literally showed her the bunker within two weeks of moving the Bern. They even gave her a little pamphlet explaining everything with directions haha.
Also, she explained that they ran through the security the township has in case of an attack, including pre installed devices to blow the bridges and lock access. Fascinating country as always.
The Swiss Army announced the removal of all explosives from bridges by November 2014.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/cold-war-defence_army-to-find-and-dispose-of-hidden-explosives/41120604
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Maybe the shelters are secret because they don’t exist. Oh sure, have a few real ones to show people so nobody suspects it’s a big fraud. Just build a few, then take the remaining money to build out the whole project and hide it in a secret Swiss bank account.
Actually, most shelters are in the basements of family homes. In a stable geopolitical situation, they are used as storage spaces or photo labs (as in the case of my father), even though that is technically against the law. Only in larger cities and rural villages with a majority of houses built before the 1960s were shelters designed as public facilities.Everyone knows where they are, as the communities paid for the public shelters with their tax money. Communicating the assigned shelter space to tenants living in buildings without shelters is part of the government’s contingency plan. Commenter Robert Lindwall is definitely closer to the truth than the NYT.