Random information gathering. Feel free to answer if you're not on my friends list, if you stumble upon this post at some point in the distant future, or repost if you happen to share my curiosity
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I grew up outside New York City-about 60 miles or so from it...a bit west from the (never operational) Shoream nuclear power plant, across the water from the Groton sub base. I was born in 1975, and we did have, in addition to fire drills, the duck and cover drills in elementary school. I don't recall them in junior high or high school though. And no civil defense sirens. However, the firehouse that I grew up near (about half a mile away) would sound their siren at noon each day.
Andrew never did duck and cover drills. He grew up in northern Ontario and is two years older than I am. And no sirens either.
I have no idea how duck and cover or civil defense sirens are handled in the schools around here-my kids aren't school aged yet. I do know that my community doesn't have tornado sirens, so I would imagine the same would go for the general sort of civil defense sirens. This was an issue a few years ago-we actually have a fair number of tornadoes here in Florida, and there was serious damage and loss of life a few years back because there was little or no warning available to the communities. Some of the municipalities have since installed sirens, ours hasn't. And we probably ought to replace our weather radio-the kids got a hold of it and wrecked it.
I don't know what our local schools do, either. silkensteel says they do lockdown drills, which may be the new version of duck'n'cover for non-earthquake-prone locales.
When I was a kid in public schools in the 80's, in L.A., it was well known that "duck & cover" was going to do bupkis for nuclear war, at least in the L.A. area. My peers all hoped we'd be at ground zero and not in the "survivable as nuclear zombies" zone. Duck & cover was for earthquakes, and there were fire evacuation drills.
It was patently obvious to most kids (I was in public school in the 80's as well) that it would do nothing in the event of nuclear war. Which didn't make them stop doing it.
Andrew never did duck and cover drills. He grew up in northern Ontario and is two years older than I am. And no sirens either.
I have no idea how duck and cover or civil defense sirens are handled in the schools around here-my kids aren't school aged yet. I do know that my community doesn't have tornado sirens, so I would imagine the same would go for the general sort of civil defense sirens. This was an issue a few years ago-we actually have a fair number of tornadoes here in Florida, and there was serious damage and loss of life a few years back because there was little or no warning available to the communities. Some of the municipalities have since installed sirens, ours hasn't. And we probably ought to replace our weather radio-the kids got a hold of it and wrecked it.
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