However, we could, under some conditions, expect that a hit from, say, half megaton at three to four miles would do tremendous physical damage to the city but the resulting blast pressures (2 to 3 p.s.i.) would probably be acceptable and we could expect, under these conditions, a high survival probability within the subway system.'Ĭhief among concerns was providing adequate ventilation within the TTC's subway tunnels while filtering out the sort of material likely to cause harm. 'It is admitted that under a direct hit, shelters are not very useful. Jeffrey, the supervising engineer from the Foundation of Canada Engineering Corporation Limited who authored the report. 'While a direct attack on the city appears (under present weapons systems) open to some doubt, this may not be so in the next few years,' wrote A. To that end, a 1961 city-commissioned study studied whether Toronto could realistically survive huddled in tunnels beneath the streets.

The subway system, then just the Yonge line and a few rough tunnels beneath University Avenue, was an ideal candidate for mass shelter during an attack. The City of Toronto took broad measures to develop a plan to shield its citizens in the event of an attack, building a command centre and scouting existing structures that could double as bunkers.

In the foreword, Diefenbaker calmly told Canadians toxic debris from a nuclear explosion could spread thousands of miles from the epicentre, warning the 'risk would be widespread' if such an attack took place. Diefenbaker issued a special pamphlet detailing how the average homeowner could build a bunker in their basement, Ă la the movie Blast From The Past. Nuclear fallout - radioactive shrapnel from a nuclear blast - was enough of a concern that the the government under prime minister John G. If there was one thing that terrified practically everybody in the 1960s and 70s, it was the threat of an atomic bomb being dropped on a major city.

Nuclear fallout shelters in detroit