I really don't care for the snide tone of the article. Bomb shelters weren't weird; they weren't irrational. Recall that WWII had involved mass area bombing o

I really don't care for the snide tone of the article. Bomb shelters weren't weird; they weren't irrational. Recall that WWII had involved mass area bombing of civilian targets; many Europeans and Brits were alive in the 50s due to their nations' bomb shelter programs (I don't know about Japan or the Soviets, so I can't say there). A nuke isn't some magical death-and-destruction device: it's just a really powerful bomb, which releases some really nasty pollutants. It's a difference of degree, not of kind: other bombs are weaker and still releases less nasty pollutants. Sure, no home bomb shelter could survive a direct hit; but home shelters weren't made to resist direct hits: they were made to resist blast waves from hits on nearby cities; they were made to resist nearby conventional hits. What made them less useful investments was a factor of several things. Precision targeting made area bombing less likely. Improved air defenses made large-scale WWII-style bombing raids less likely. It might also be the case that larger bombs made the risk-reward ratio different. While cleaning out my grandparents' home a few months ago I came across a government civil defense pamphlet my grandfathers' firm had republished. It was full of good, scientifically-accurate, well-founded advice. It wasn't alarmist; it was up-to-date for the time when it was published. It certainly wasn't weird to be prepared for something which at the time was likely to happen.