View Fallout Shelters in the District of Columbia in a larger map

The Cold War must have been a scary time for Washington. Ground zero for any potential nuclear attack by the Soviets, the city didn’t have much protection — but there sure were a lot of fallout shelters. Those shelters wouldn’t protect you from a direct nuclear strike, but would (supposedly) be a place to gather to get away from dangerous radioactive fallout until it was safe to go back outside. Signs marking fallout shelter locations were once on buildings all over this city, and many others around the country. You may have seen them on your local school, library, or government building.

For the most part, those signs are forgotten or lost today. But a group of interested folks in the city are tracking where these relics were and still are with their website, District Fallout, and an accompanying Flickr account. They also built a web map where you can see the status of fallout shelter signs in some areas of D.C. — the yellow markers are existing signs, red are missing signs and blue is unknown. Looks like you’d be fairly safe if you lived in Adams Morgan or Columbia Heights back in those days. It’s just a partial list so far, but they’re working to add the full list.