’50s atomic bomb fears put city on high alert
The atomic scare hit the Bay Area so hard and fast in 1950 and 1951, even the upscale shopping district of Union Square felt the impact.
“FOR YOUR FAMILY’S PROTECTION,” read a sign on top of a toolshed-size concreteand-steel bomb shelter across the street from the St. Francis Hotel. “ATOMIC BOMB SHELTER.”
As San Francisco leaders plan for the horrific possibility of a North Korea nuclear strike in 2017, they can do so knowing the city has been through this before. Fear of the spread of communism and the Korean War caused a wave of civil defense preparation in the Bay Area that would be hard to match.
San Francisco’s efforts were led by Mayor Elmer Robinson, who built upon the city’s civil defense plans from World War II. He made the city’s readiness for an atomic bomb attack a priority, spouting dire warnings and criticizing other government officials for not preparing enough.
Mobilization started after Robinson invited city leaders to a June 14, 1950, conference on civil defense, a weekend-long affair two weeks before the war officially started. The gathering included far-out theories — including the possibility of the Russians using a bomb to cause a 100-foot tidal wave that would cover the state in radioactive mist.
“The Mayors of ‘target cities’ of the Pacific Coast sat down
here yesterday to talk about what might be done in the event of an atomic attack,” J. Campbell Bruce reported on the front page of The Chronicle. “And from the talk of experts, if you are attacked with atomic weapons there’s nothing much you can do, for the simple reason most people won’t be around to do anything.”
At the same conference, a federal official criticized the city’s experts for fearmongering. But Robinson pushed forward, calling for thousands of volunteer civil defense workers, running constant citywide tests and eventually expanding his own executive powers.
“San Francisco’s air raid warning system flunked its first test yesterday,” The Chronicle reported in 1950. “So badly that Mayor Elmer E. Robinson announced he will invoke his emergency powers Tuesday to speed installation of bigger, better sirens.”
While California Gov. Earl Warren outlined a civil defense plan with a target completion date of 1953, Robinson demanded immediate results, leaning heavily on his civil defense director, retired Adm. A.G. Cook.
When San Franciscans ignored a Dec. 30, 1950, whistle siren warning from the top of the Ferry Building — Financial District workers thought it was a New Year’s celebration and threw confetti out their windows — Robinson dug up the city’s gas-powered sirens from World War II and installed them atop Bernal Heights and the St. Francis Hotel.
Union Square became the city’s first “official public shelter in case of enemy attack,” and The Chronicle took photos of Robinson and Cook installing “Air Raid Shelter” signs. Smiling passersby assembled at the parking garage during one of the regular 11 a.m. Friday drills.
San Francisco schools practiced duck-and-cover drills throughout 1951, instructing students to open the windows a crack so the blast force caused by the atomic bomb impact wouldn’t drop broken glass on any children.
Robinson ordered a city survey of the effects of an atomic bomb hitting downtown San Francisco. The Fire Department reported it would “work toward the center of the blast from all sides, extinguishing any fires as they went.”
It wasn’t long before fear led to new marketing opportunities. In March 1951, construction firm Barrett & Hilp put its bulky shelter on display in the middle of Union Square, offering free tours. Bomb shelters showed up at the Home Show at the Oakland Expo that summer, and in dozens of real estate listings.
“Architecturally designed for today’s modern living,” read one 1951 listing for a $26,000 house in the Westlake district just south of the city. “3 bedrooms, 2½ baths, social and bar, bomb shelter, other extras …”
Civil defense-related conspiracy theories appeared in The Chronicle letters page. In a late 1951 letter to the editor, Myrtle Raff of San Mateo predicted the siren tests themselves could mask an enemy assault.
“With the widely publicized time and date for the practice of air alerts, just when would the enemy planes plan their attacks on us?” Raff wrote. “You guessed it — on a Friday at 11 a.m. The American people believe it pays to advertise.”
More than 65 years later, the weekly sirens continue on Tuesdays at noon, followed by instructions. (“This is a test …”) They’re solar-powered now, run by the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management.
The warning system hasn’t been used for an actual civil defense-related emergency in all that time. But that fact never makes the threats seem any less real.