Target...Austin, Texas (1960)

[@riceboy1701e]

@13:25 "In the basement of the Perry Brooks Building, Carolyn Gilbert has regained her composure and is assisting the shelter manager in itemizing the supply of food, drinks and beer..." Yep, that is the most important thing in a Texas fallout shelter: beer.

[@WhitefolksT]

Steveweisers 🐍🖕🏻💀🖕🏻🐍🍺🍻🍺🍻🍺🍻🍺🍻🍺

[@joeaugustine9629]

I like the fact that they have beer in the basement of the Perry-Brooks building 😂

[@HuplesCat]

Caroline Gilbert. The first Karin in America!

[@briankistner4331]

6:58 Gotta love the office girl taking a powder...... "Gotta make my face pretty, there's an A-bomb on the way!"

[@Ea-Nasir_Copper_Co]

“At City Hall the Council is listening to the complaints of a group of citizens while praying for the sweet release of death. Little do they know their prayers are about to be answered.”

[@danielmorse4213]

Lol.

[@kestrel929]

Today the citizens are praying for the opposite

[@rah62]

7:55 Clarence Phillips decides to flee to safety... and gets in a Corvair.

[@turbo1438]

I thought that was hilarious as well!

[@thomthumbe]

I used to overhaul the engines in those things. Piece of junk!

[@mariekatherine5238]

Yeah, that wasn’t lost on me, either! My grandmother owned a Corvair and fortunately had it wrecked by a neighbor boy who came home drunk and t-boned it while it was parked at the curb. She bought a Falcon which she drove into the early 1970s.

[@PlasmaCoolantLeak]

"Unsafe At Any Enemy Attack."

[@DMBall]

That explains the vomiting and diarrhea.

[@tamagoMMA]

I love how beer was part of the fallout shelter inventory.. that's Austin for ya!

[@dayaninikhaton]

Sealed liquid container and easily absorbed calories, plus morale booster.

[@kellyvaters1689]

More likely, it would have been gathered along with any other food and supplies from nearby restaurants and the hotel to supplement anything already in the basement (not sure if the government shelter supply program was in place this early.)

[@elizabethbrooks3202]

This is funny now, but I'm 75 years old and can remember how afraid we were of a nuclear attack. My sister went to civil defense classes and learned to identify planes so she could call the information in to Waco. She would get dressed, put on her makeup and meet friends Sunday afternoons. They would sit in a pickup truck, talk and watch for planes. But we lived in a farming community of 600 in northeast Texas, probably pretty safe from Russia. But our little school showed us films about what to do after the big flash of the bomb: Get under our desks and cover our heads with our arms.

[@mariekatherine5238]

Elizabeth Brooks Yes, those schoolroom civil defense drills were next to useless. My father was in the Navy stationed in the Pacific. He knew very well the results of a nuclear blast and the fallout to follow. He frankly told us the futility of “duck and cover.” I recall in second grade refusing to duck and cover beneath my desk. I told the teacher I wanted to die in a dignified position, not with my behind sticking out, and what my father had said. She gave me two days of detention anyway! There was a fallout shelter in the school basement, but the pupils never saw it, only the signs pointing down the stairs to a locked door.

[@lukestrawwalker]

@@mariekatherine5238 Funny I taught my kid to "duck and cover" even though she was born in 2004 and attended school in a suburban area just outside Houston. duck and cover won't protect you from a low yield nuclear weapon at 1-2 miles, or a high yield weapon at 5-8 miles, true enough, BUT, the odds of you being that close to one going off is relatively low because of simple geometry. The amount of area in the rings outside the bomb's "instantly lethal" zone increase exponentially with distance, and outside that instant kill zone the greatest danger is blast and heat, which is quite capable of killing unprotected people. BUT with proper precautions you can increase your chances of survival enormously. Plus it's not just effective for relatively distant nuclear explosions-- large terrorist or man-made accidental explosions can kill or cripple as well, even non-nuclear ones. For instance, the largest explosion before the nuclear age, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in WWI. A munitions ship blew up with a force of about 3 kilotons of TNT. It pretty much wiped the city off the map. Thing is, there were literally THOUSANDS of people permanently maimed or killed that would have survived mostly unscathed with some simple proper precautions. Sure the dozens of people who'd gathered on the beach to watch the burning ship were killed nearly instantly in the blast regardless, as were many in nearby structures instantly flattened by the explosion, like a hero railroad telegrapher who stayed at his post to warn a large train coming in with hundreds of people aboard to stop outside the city, saving those people's lives, who would have been killed had they arrived at his station right off the docks where he himself was killed. BUT there were literally THOUSANDS of people who SAW the explosion, the massive fireball rolling up into the sky, and who RUSHED TO THEIR WINDOWS to gawk at the unfolding spectacle, who stood there staring as precious seconds and up to a minute ticked by, until the shock wave arrived and blew their windows in on them, spraying them with razor-sharp glass into their eyes and faces and bodies, permanently blinding many, killing others with fatal wounds like severed jugular veins and arteries, puncture wounds to the chest, lungs, and heart, and severe lacerations and sometimes impact trauma from collapsed roofs or walls hitting them with thrown debris. Had they 'ducked and covered" in an inside hallway or room, or otherwise sought shelter in those seconds to a minute or so between when the blast went off and the shock wave arrived, the death and injury toll would have been FAR FAR less. The injuries sustained would have mostly been minor rather than severe or life-threatening (or fatal). i read a story once of a survivor from Hiroshima who, in the days following the blast, relocated to stay with family, in the city of Nagasaki. They were sitting at the table and he was telling them about the bombing when suddenly there was the same bright yellowish flash... he rushed his family down the hatch in the floor to their underground air raid shelter, and jumped in himself and pulled the hatch down shut just as the blast leveled their house. They all survived unscathed. I'd say "duck and cover" worked pretty well for them. When the US inevitably is hit again with a large terrorist weapon, be it non nuclear or a nuclear weapon, or ends up in a nuclear war of some sort, there's going to be a lot of people dead, burned, blind, and dying who COULD have survived unscathed or nearly so had they simply taken that 15-120 seconds or so (depending on distance from the burst) to go get down behind something or seek shelter, rather than standing by the windows slack jawed or shooting videos on their cell phones until the shock wave arrives and turns them into a human pincushion with all that shattered glass and pins them to the opposite wall like a bug with flying debris. Later! OL J R :)

[@mariekatherine5238]

@@lukestrawwalker Yes, you’re absolutely right in many cases. Duck and cover could definitely save your life in a tornado. I’ve actually done it along with my friend, her daughter, and infant grandson. We took cover in the interior bathtub. It was the tornado that ripped through a concert in Indiana, destroying the stage and set, and hitting the bleachers full of people. Several were killed and quite a few hurt. The tornado headed south into Kentucky, spawning off several new funnels. It was one of these that appeared suddenly just as Mom and baby arrived. We had just enough time to get in the tub. It went between the garage and the three story house, tearing off part of the roof and shingles, and ripping a sheet of aluminum siding from the garage. Then it tore up the coral of the horse barn, causing five horses to bolt after it passed. The other seven remained safely inside where they’d fled to the far part of the barn. They ducked and covered by instinct? Because they were in the sturdiest part of the barn farthest away from the tornado. When we thought it was safe to come out, we could see where the tornado had continued down into the pasture, across the brook, and up the hill into the soybean field. We later learned a double tractor trailer had been blown off of an elevated portion of I-65 south of Louisville. Amazingly, the driver was not seriously hurt. He was able to climb out of the passenger side window of the cab and jump to the ground. He said he was saved by his seatbelt and the fact that the windshield had somehow stayed in place despite shattering. Three of the horses returned on their own. One more was returned by a neighbor with a farm about three miles away. We had to advertise for the last horse who was located after two days. She appeared in someone’s front yard, about 10 miles away towards Shelbyville. She had a gash near her eye, for which the vet was called. Otherwise, she was okay.

[@lukestrawwalker]

@@mariekatherine5238 Small world, we have family up in northern Indiana around the Rochester/Mentone area, and my wife's aunt and her sons live down near Spencer. I remember hearing about that tornado-- it happened during the state fair didn't it? Was that the concert? Glad you and your family/friend/baby were all okay, and the horses as well. Tornadoes aren't anything to mess around with for sure. As for the duck n cover, my mother was terrified silly of nukes her entire life (she would have been your age had she not passed away middle of last year from her heart giving out). I "came of age" about nukes during the war scare of 82-83, right at the height of the Cold War, at least the latter part of it. Thing is, we weren't taught "duck and cover" and I developed sort of a morbid fascination with nukes that has lasted my entire life, but where my mother wanted to bury her head in the sand, I wanted to learn as much about it as possible. Any sufficiently large explosion will create effects similar to a nuke, at least in smaller scale. If you're sufficiently close even a small explosion can kill you, that distance increases of course for nukes or large conventional explosions, but the simple reality is, when one looks at the geometry of concentric circles, the area goes up exponentially with distance, so while you're done for regardless if you happen to have the bad luck to be near the hypocenter of the explosion (regardless of size) blast and heat and radiation effects fall off rather rapidly with distance, and there's FAR more area with distance, so the odds are that MOST people will be sufficiently distant to survive the initial explosion-- whether they STAY alive and not critically injured depends in large part on them. It really infuriates me all these people that throw their hands up and think, "Oh, nukes are unsurvivable, it'll just be a flash and poof you're gone..." which is nothing further from the truth, unless you're within about 5 miles of a megaton-range blast, and a couple miles of a several hundred kiloton range blast, which is the most likely type nowadays. The idiots that have the attitude, 'I'll grab a beer and a lawn chair and go sit in the yard to watch the show" are going to be in for a rude awakening-- they'll be the ones screaming for help with 3rd degree burns over their entire body looking for someone to take care of them while they suffer in horrific agony for a day or two until they die. Whereas if they'd have taken cover, their injuries might in fact be quite minimal or even uninjured... it's just stupid, but people have brainwashed themselves and refuse to educate themselves on HOW to survive, and in the world we live in, that's a really dangerous and stupid thing. Course we see the opposite too-- people who basically think the world should stop and everyone should be forced to wear d@mn space suits, hide in their basements, and tape up the windows and doors trying to keep out a friggin' virus that IS OUT NOW and ISN'T GOING AWAY... it's here to stay, like johnsongrass and kudzu and west Nile virus and hantavirus and flesh eating bacteria and the common cold. Life knows no limits and it spreads and multiplies itself-- exactly the opposite of even the most powerful nuclear reactions, which are ultimately self-limiting, expend all their fuel and extinguish themselves... Later! OL J R :)

[@bambilackner]

Today they’d tell you to get on the floor put your hands on your butt, and kiss your azz goodbye!!!!

[@Ronbo710]

This cries out for MST3K voice overs

[@zoeyrochellezhombie829]

Most of these do! I try to go MST3K mode but it just doesn't work.

[@wickedmuffin76]

MST3K riffed "Invasion USA" which is similar.

[@EDOSANTX]

Cactus Pryor Narrating, a classic Austin Radio personality back then

[@PlasmaCoolantLeak]

If memory serves, he had a small part in John Wayne's "Hellfighters."

[@lostcause2137]

The guy at 4:44 is a true badass. He is going to fly the plane, navigate, and drop the bombs all by himself.

[@kyleshiflet9952]

Finally my big fucking break oh shit I just remember I cant fly oh well I'll wing it

[@schreckpmc]

They left one key item off the emergency list: cat litter. The odor control stuff works best.

[@paulrichards2365]

And don't forget the cat.

[@WR3ND]

it's not for the cat.

[@danielmorse4213]

I saw this in grade school. How and why It was up here in Michigan, but we saw it. Lot of snow and rain then. Those ladies would pile us in a room, the whole grade and show movies. The student teachers feeding the reels. Everyone else having deserved coffee lol.

[@baraxor]

Whew, what a couple of weeks! Let's go over to Threadgill's!

[@DenitaArnold]

I started out watching old Emergency Broadcast System vids, and ended up going down this rabbit hole :/

[@Thebald1]

Well did Carolyn Gilbert ever write that letter to the Civil Defense Agency?

[@stargo2931]

She was eating her Bologna sandwich and taking inventory of the beer they pilfered from the hotel.

[@gregwilson825]

Reminds me of Friday morning movies at Jefferson Elementary some 60 years ago.

[@hmadison]

17:50 Yay! We can finally empty our overflowing poo bucket!!! 18:16 It would be perfect if a little dog trotted up, sniffed Clarence, and lifted a leg on him.

[@hairypolack]

Whatever this is or isnt, it IS a wonderful look at old Austin!

[@PsychochickAER]

My Dad seemed to enjoy that aspect of the film as well.

[@tinto278]

Yea now Austin is a hell hole.

[@GOFLuvr]

@@tinto278 The US Grand Prix and SXSW has to count for something.

[@CoopyKat]

@@tinto278 I agree. It's being taken over by real estate greed and drug pushers. The home owner taxes are sky-high, the city is deliberately driving homeowners away from downtown so they can build condos and bring in more tax revenue. Austin isn't the cool "weird" city it once bragged about.

[@11B30Inf]

When I was a kid during the Cuban Missile Crisis I was only nine years old. Duck and Cover we practice at school not for earthquakes....but for the "A" bomb when drop. Saw my teacher having a nervous breakdown and made us pray. Other teachers came in and had to move her out of class. Glad the crisis didn't happen. For we were just 3 or 4 miles from a Navy airfield base (Los Alamitos) in California.

[@SatansMullet]

i have to show this to my dad, he has lived here all his life... this will really touch him i bet :D hell its touching ME and i was only born in 82!!!

[@_PrimetimePranks]

That eerie music.....

[@starventure]

Radiation half-life from a fission or fusion weapon that is not salted fades to within reasonable levels within about two weeks. US soldiers were able to walk around without protection in Hiroshima a month and a half after the bomb was dropped. The city was rebuilt in the 1950s and is thriving today.

[@randydelaney7053]

It was an air burst there was no fall out and the bombs were not as powerful as the nukes are now.

[@riceboy1701e]

Mr. Phillips should have stopped at Buc-ee's in New Braunfels and filled up the Corvair. :-D

[@BryanAlexander]

Wild use of "Ride of the Valkyries."

[@turbo1438]

I also thought 'ride of the valkyries?' that's strange song for a nuclear attack!

[@ZakWolf]

@@turbo1438 Particularly one where the bomb is just dropped on uninhabited woods (except for wildlife), and the only danger Austin faces is the radioactive fallout (instead of also the heat and the blast wave.)

[@riceboy1701e]

"Kill the Wabbit..."

[@riceboy1701e]

@@ZakWolf Not anymore. That part of West Austin is full of development now.

[@freakwilliams]

I was thinking the same thing😅🤣

[@paulrichards2365]

I lived in Sydney Australia as a kid in the 1950s and we had none of this. None at all. Mind you, we did have 12 above ground Nuclear Bomb tests in the desert.

[@emilyofjane]

Why did they have to do Clarence so dirty like that at the end 😭

[@RicheBright]

Poor Clarence. It looks like he was the only one that didn't make it.

[@sakuraknight9274]

R.I.P. Cactus Pryor 1923-2011 Were miss you already. :(

[@TheGrinningGrammy]

This may be just a civil defense film, but it is still the Austin in which I grew up.

[@ITILII]

Very far from it, taken over by leftist loony libtards 🤓

[@MrScottie68]

I’m reviewing these older civil defense films given what is presently going on with Russia and the Ukraine……there is never any harm in being prepared for the unknown.

[@WhitefolksT]

NWSS handbook.... nuclear war survival skills. Check it out.

[@njl51]

Some preparations most of us could never procure.

[@bobfall]

Wise

[@GeoffDavis1974]

These films teach you nothing but to lay down and take whats coming...

[@cockneycharm3970]

In 1960 the still didn't understand about protecting yourself. And present day they have much, much larger nukes than way back when.

[@PsychochickAER]

Dang Clarence not only did you get yourself killed but, you ruined any chance of getting business from Mr. Martinez. Way to go buddy.

[@RenegadeChauffeur]

Yeah Clarence was meeting with a prospective customer. His LAST prospective customer.

[@Setebos]

Remembering all the good times at Matt's El Rancho. I can remember when Bergstrom was a SAC base and could see the B-52's on the flight line. All of us kids at Maplewood Elementary constantly took "duck and cover" drills. Wild times.

[@AliasUndercover]

That air force base closed in 1993, so I guess Austin is safe now. Plus, apparently, closing the windows and having juice will save you from a 5MT boom. Who has a basement in Texas?

[@TheLeonhamm]

Oddly enough, basements are not necessarily the safest environments in a thermo-nuclear event .. what oxygen is in there will be sucked out - leaving it a death-trap. As for the odd notion of closing the windows, that may sound counter-intuitive - but at a distance the drag-and-push of the blast will have some (minimal) resistance factor .. though the decapitating force of the flying glass would still be - erm - dangerous (to say the least). The water/ 'juice', salt/ banana, paper bags and disposal bin would be a great deal more useful to any casual survivor than one might care to imagine ... ;o)

[@riceboy1701e]

Yes, but now they have a bigger target: Lackland AFB. I live less than five miles away.

[@dayaninikhaton]

@@TheLeonhamm if the hypocenter is close enough that the thermal effects sucks the air out of the room, breathing has long since been a concern of yours.

[@dayaninikhaton]

No one uses 5 megatons in an air or surface burst anymore. Accuracy has increased to the point that device yields have been reduced significantly. In some cases, to about 5 kilotons. Short term survivability near targets is a bit less of a concern now- but depending on where you are and how prepared you are initially, that may be bad news anyway.

[@TheLeonhamm]

@@dayaninikhaton Sort of, but not quite. In areas where the initial heat-blast might be 'survived' - away from the 'ground zero' saturation focal point, yet within the structural damage limit - may well become 'collateral' epicentres of 'ordinary' firestorms, quite independent of the bomb. The ambient wind effect, as well as the thermal-scatter, can carry the devastating extent of a fire far beyond the target area, cf the ordinary-weapon bombing on Tokyo etc. If you see what I mean.

[@mh-on7fp]

7:59 The “poor man's Porsche,” a Chevy Corvair. It remains the most pleasurable car I've ever driven. It was killed by Ralph Nadar's book, 'Unsafe At Any Speed.'

[@RicheBright]

A Corvair? Yeah, that poor bastard was going to die anyway.

[@ITILII]

Corvairs killed a lot more people in America than nuclear power did, and it that's the most pleasurable car you ever drove....you're one high roller, son !!

[@danielmorse4213]

My uncle had one. He piled all us kids in the thing and went to the DQ for ice cream.

[@WhitefolksT]

They were actually just fine after they revised the rear axle and suspension to an independent rear setup. It was already too late though.

[@RenegadeChauffeur]

13:29 “itemizing the supply of food, soft drinks, and beer” Damn right I want a beer after a nuclear attack!

[@zoeyrochellezhombie829]

I don't drink and I'm on meds....but I agree. The world's done. Let's get shitfaced.

[@BruceAkaBRUISERCanady]

My granddad was a Captain at DPS and I can remember being 4 or 5 years old when he supplied all our family with rubber/lead lined suits from head to toe with boots. We had to lie down on the floor to get into them. Once inside I had to be rolled over and helped to get to my feet and get to the car where we were going to drive to the shelter under DPS that was a dozen blocks away. Lol crazy times. Complete with a small scuba type air tank and regulator. Looking back at it what a joke it all was but taken as a viable solution to the rooskies that were going to attack us at any moment. We rehearsed it all several times a year. At school it was Duck and cover under your desk facing away from the windows. The rooskies, Terrorism, The rooskies again, Physcopath shooters in high towers (Whitman @ UT) the Hogg foundation and gun control. Bacterial warfare. On and on it goes.......

[@RealCptHammonds]

What was a joke about it? I'm retired from the military and served on several Nuclear, Biological and Chemical teams. This was 100% accurate and valid today.

[@MrShobar]

"Man on a String" released in 1960. Featuring Ernest Borgnine, Colleen Dewhurst, Glenn Corbett, and Kerwin Mathews. Directed by Andre De Toth. An unexceptional spy drama. The closing credits on this pot boiler used part of the score from the film "The Spirit of St. Louis", released in 1957. It was a James Stewart film, and was directed by Billy Wilder. James Stewart was simply too old to portray Charles Lindbergh (who was 25 when he made his flight). Stewart was in his late forties. A good film nonetheless.

[@RealCptHammonds]

Are you saying this video came from that movie?

[@mayra3277]

This is older than both my parents, but it sure uses its music well.

[@Ronbo710]

... and I, your announcer, am spanking it.

[@beverlyhorvath439]

We had to go downtown to pay our utilities......I was 9 then. Oh how I long for those days....

[@EddieVBlueIsland]

I can see Captain Kong (Slim Pickins) riding on the back of the H-Bomb down - Yeehaw! WooDoggie!

[@kyleshiflet9952]

Lol

[@kellyvaters1689]

Must've been before he was promoted to major and flown off in search of the Laputa ICBM complex.

[@y2k5333]

I believe Tom Ogden was the name of man who played the advertising man at 6:40. He 'sent the secretary 'Caroline Gilbert' to the basement. I believe he was a salesman for KTBC during the late 50s or early 60s - hard to remember. whatever, he missed the credits and I thought deserved a mention.

[@MayorMikeMurphy]

Took me a minute to recognize Cactus!

[@brianarbenz7206]

13:20 the last item on that list shows that Austin will get through this crisis!

[@garyfrancis6193]

Apr 1 2022. Must be a coincidence all these nuclear war information films are coming up.

[@conductorinblack]

18;16 - Nice hook slide Clarence!

[@Springbok295]

Austin, former home to Bergstrom AFB. Instead of 1960 try 1980 where that city would be vaporized within 10-12 minutes from a Soviet sub launched SLBM. Not enough time to think about getting fried.

[@ClarkeMarek]

"Congress have the usual mid morning traffic." Must be a holiday judging by the traffic. :D

[@AliasUndercover]

They're politicians. That's a heavy work day for them.

[@setebos8231]

@@AliasUndercover Congress Avenue.

[@mariekatherine5238]

Year I was born! I’d love to have one of those cars in working condition!

[@edman813]

Basements in Austin that's rich.

[@voltaire2001]

I know of one in the Bouldin Creek neighborhood.

[@PlasmaCoolantLeak]

I want to know if those city streets around Zucker School were ever paved! Nothing like a nuclear attack to provide an excuse for bureaucrats to drag their feet...

[@juancarlosmiguelsantos3105]

Politicians are always looking for a excuse to get out of work.

[@joeyjonson8637]

Yes they are, i lived there : )

[@namenotavailable7365]

I'm from Austin. Those underground caverns in Round Rock nearby would be inviting. Bergstrom AFB would certainly be a target.

[@DenitaArnold]

Sad for the guy who panicked and died 😢

[@atinalouise]

Food, soft drinks and beer.

[@SaturdayMorno86]

This should have been the original "The Day After"

[@ZakWolf]

Maybe, but the family in the bomb shelter actually gets a happy ending here.

[@PeterNebelung]

Missiles over Canada. Clarence got the Darwin award he deserved. No where near the time needed to do anything BUT find a hole and hide. We didn't have the civil defence courses and the rest of it up here in Canada, but I remember well the girl who joined our class after her father transferred to the Toronto corporate office. Especially when the Cuban Missile crisis was going full steam.

[@altfactor]

I suspect that some of the actors playing other people in this film were played by KTBC staffers. By the way, KTBC-TV was owned by the family of future President Lyndon Johnson and for years was the only TV station in the area. In 1966, when a gunman shot numerous students at the University of Texas, KTBC contributed reports for the evening newscasts of all three networks.

[@altfactor]

In fact, I think KTBC carried live coverage of the 1966 University Of Texas shooting and fed it to the three networks, which I think also carried it live.

[@hebneh]

I noticed the infamous sniper tower was visible in this film more than once.

[@robertnorment5106]

Well so much for the effectiveness of that Nike Missile base out on Bee Caves Road.

[@txlonghorn82]

At that time Bergstrom was a SAC Base for escort fighters for SAC bombers. Just west of Austin (not quite 25 miles) on Bee Cave Rd.was a Nike ground to air missile base placed there to protect Bergstrom AFB.

[@Ronbo710]

I would have thought they would hit Carswell.

[@rustyhusky6845]

Yes but in Colorado we have NORAD which is a huge target

[@thesolesurvivor8096]

+GingerMan512 If so, that's my favorite strategic bomber.

[@txlonghorn82]

+Pvt Cowboy Yes, sorry for the late, late, late reply.

[@scratchdog2216]

14:12 White-shirted man in chair is operating a Gonset 'Communicator' radio.

[@MrShobar]

Gonset built lots of radios for the Office of Civil Defense.

[@tohellwithgoogle4261]

If that had ever happened from 1950s to now would be scary AF. Would mean the end for almost everyone.

[@RealCptHammonds]

Not really. People will be stunned that they survived it if it comes.

[@bill-pn7vz]

and then the other 8 bombs hit...

[@Peter_S_]

...followed by at least three biological warfare agents. The USSR had a whole bunch of biowarfare agents and chose at least 3 different agents for each major target to follow the nukes.

[@lukestrawwalker]

actually even in the 62 Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets didn't have more than a handful of ICBM"s capable of hitting the US mainland... that's why they were willing to risk putting their IRBM's and MRBM's into Cuba-- it gave them a massive upgrade in their ability to hit the USA in a nuclear war. Most of the Soviet missiles were IRBM's and MRBM's, capable of hitting and basically wiping out Europe from the Soviet motherland, but with insufficient range to hit the US mainland. They had bombers, but not a lot and we had MUCH stronger bomber defenses back in the 50's and 60's, from a large interceptor fighter jet force equipped with everything from 50 cals to nuclear tipped Genie missiles, to nuclear tipped Nike-Ajax and BOMARC missiles and later Nike Zeus... SO had we suffered a nuclear attack by the USSR even in '62, the US would have been likely hit with less than a dozen missiles, and maybe a handful of their bombers would have gotten through our defenses to actually bomb their targets. The Soviets didn't have nuclear subs til after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the missile subs they did have were equipped only with three liquid propellant missiles that had to be launched one by one after being hoisted out the top of the sail (conning tower) of the submarine, fueled, and launched, from a STATIONARY submarine, unlike the US Polaris missiles that could be fired underwater and from a moving submarine. This basically made their subs sitting ducks, and they didn't have many missiles in them. They had nuclear torpedoes that they could have attacked ports like Galveston, Miami, Los Angeles, etc. but we also had a pretty darn good antisubmarine warfare capability back then too, nuclear torpedoes and nuclear depth bombs and ASROC nuclear rockets to take out subs. They might have gotten off a few "lucky shots" but we'd have frankly cleaned their clocks, and they knew it. Oh, the US would have probably sustained 12-24 nuclear detonations on its soil, some high yield hydrogen bombs, with others being kiloton-range weapons, but we could have literally bombed them back to the stone age. We had hundreds of Atlas and Titan I ICBM's ready to fly, thousands of B-47 and B-52 bombers armed with numerous bombs each, and from 1960 on Polaris missile boats on patrol. The first squadron of Minuteman missiles went on alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Titan II's were available soon after. Plus our warhead inventory and delivery systems outnumbered theirs by a huge margin, and our equipment and training was FAR better. The US operated under the doctrine of "massive retaliation" until the SIOP 62 war plans changed to "flexible response", which means in 60 we'd have hit them with everything we had once the popped the first nuke off, and they knew it. We literally had 3 bombers and 3 bombs minimum assigned to ever major target in the Soviet Union, as a form of redundancy. The Soviets had fighter jets and their SA-2 anti-bomber missiles, but we also had war plans for taking out their air defenses wholesale in the opening shots of a war. We'd have undoubtedly lost more than a few bombers, but we also had overwhelming superiority in numbers and redundancy in targeting for just such reasons. Everything changed by the late 60's and early 70's and only got worse from there. The Soviets built a large survivable and highly capable ICBM force and SLBM force with nuclear submarines capable of hitting the US blow for blow, and advanced jet bombers for the 'Second strike'. By then a nuclear war would have been the death of both countries and probably most of the rest of the world as well. Later! OL J R :)

[@briankistner4331]

@@lukestrawwalker Even that "handful" would have spelled doom for the country. Add on our strike on the Soviets, Soviet strikes on other NATO countries and vice verse and that handful starts the end of Earth as we knew it.

[@njl51]

I am wondering just how much warning time any of us would get these days.

[@RealCptHammonds]

20 minutes at the most, depending on your location.

[@modernaudioplays7325]

15 maybe 20. Even less if it's a submarine launched missile. That's if you even get warning at all.

[@stickshiftdriver1832]

I I wonder if the man's car really run out of gas of was it an emp attack before the nuclear bomb dropped

[@riceboy1701e]

"...and then at 19 minutes past the hour, an explosion occurs 25 miles west in the Edwards Plateau." Also known as Trinity Site.

[@WhitefolksT]

Yo that was in New Mexico

[@bonnieswenson9925]

Wow, another Nulclear film recommended to me in 2021. Is it time to dig a hole?

[@ZakWolf]

Interesting how it was made so the bomb was dropped in a very woody area away from the city with no one there, so the only real threat to Austin would be the radiation. I do love the happy ending for the family in the shelter though.

[@allen480]

Dropped in a woody area. We mourn the loss of innocent rattlers and water mocassins.

[@pg13]

Pity poor Clarence Phillips...the only casualty of a nuclear attack on Austin Texas. (Oooops...spoilers!)

[@ForkliftJoe]

Peter Greyy Actually he died of food poisoning. You can't eat Mexican then go running around in 100+ degree Texas heat like that! It'll kill ya!

[@Xerdar36]

I thought he turned into a ghoul... lucky bastard.

[@midcenturymodern9330]

Not even his mighty Corvair could save him. Wait...What? 😄

[@dougnewton]

These people back in 1960 had have no idea what traffic is...

[@mikeb1149]

I love these films because no matter the situation, the phones always work, teletypes always work, the electricity always stays on, no one 'goes postal' in the shelter and kills 10 people or commits suicide. I'm betting the shelter with the beer had at least one good gang bang, and maybe Caroline found a boyfriend. The Klukis family lets their daughter go outside to play, and she gets a sixth finger on one hand a couple months later. At 15:15 cue the shrill dramatic music.. AAaaarrrggggghhhhh!!!!! lol

[@ozarkmedia]

Man thanks for posting this! I haven't seen video of Austin that far back and it brings back memories. I was a youngster at Dawson Elementary in the 60s and did the whole duck and cover thing. Thank goodness in this film that the Commies couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. And poor Clarence. What a dumbass when he could have sheltered with Matt at El Rancho and chowed down on some fine rice and beans for two weeks!

[@stevenmerlock9971]

Sadly within 8 years liberals have done more damage to Austin than any thermonuclear device😔

[@allen480]

@@stevenmerlock9971 Roger that

[@matta3968]

RIP Clarence Phillips.

[@arturopalos2739]

After the Nuclear explosion, Austin became a weird city.

[@Cinephillya]

Does anyone know the name of the classical music that's playing at the beginning?

[@lawrencemyers3623]

Told she should get to the basement, Caroline Gilbert first powders her nose knowing if one is going to be vaporized in a nuclear blast, you might as well look good doing it.

[@AlejandroInAustin]

Just decided to look up the ATX and found this. Interesting!

[@stargo2931]

Yep, the people in the government always have a nice roomy bunker to get into post haste. Even now.

[@DenitaArnold]

My sister in law lives near the old bunker in Denton TX

[@binyon7]

And? They all lived happily ever after? Except the dead guy, I suppose.

[@altfactor]

The opening title looks like plastic letters on a menu board.

[@Splinter48708]

All right...where's the Nuka Cola at??

[@rapierduell]

Strange the bomb hit the hills 25 miles away and not Austin itself?

[@RealCptHammonds]

Russia's weapons accuracy has always and still sucks.

[@Madness832]

"An alarm sounds (~3:02)..." Sure someone didn't just ring the doorbell? :D

[@kellyvaters1689]

Just a couple thoughts here. If invasion was the presumed endgame for such an attack as illustrated here, the explosion occurring upwind of the city, rather than in the city itself, would make sense. Destroying valuable infrastructure and materiel would have been a foolish expenditure for an invading force. Poisoning the population via radioactive fallout would have caused loss of life on a scale that might well have compelled surrender by the surviving population, while largely preserving the buildings, roads, pipes, sewers, power lines, etc. that could be of use to the invader. While the neutron bomb was still about 25 years into the future when this was made, its conception came about in about 1958. I'm not sure if this information would have been publicly known then, but it may have been hinted at by either Civil Defense or military consultants to such films or programs as this one.

[@7.62forge3]

Kelly Vaters I you wish to kill off a population without damaging infrastructure, why not use biological or chemical weapons? Surely less expensive and far more efficient.

[@kellyvaters1689]

Simply put, such weapons would have been considered beyond the pale of "ethical warfare" even for the superpowers. Besides, delivery systems for the distribution of such weapons were still relatively primitive in 1960. Additionally, with antibiotics and vaccines at the forefront of medical research at the time (in part as a response to the polio epidemic, partly to support the push to eradicate smallpox,) even the publicized threat of biological and/or chemical agents would have brought about an immediate response by scientists researching vaccines for the viruses threatened or antidotes to chemical weapons.

[@Ea-Nasir_Copper_Co]

Kelly Vaters The problem is, where fallout is heaviest depends on the wind. They didn’t have any way back then to determine the local winds and minutely adjust where a missile would do the most damage. The Soviets weren’t even sure if their missiles would work!

[@beenaplumber8379]

It's a fun mental exercise, but the presumed endgame of invasion is a pretty big presumption. I would think destroying the enemy's ability to fight would be the endgame. Why would the Soviets want to take over the US? Why would the US want to invade the USSR? We just wanted their bombs to go away. Invasion was not our endgame with Germany or Japan, nor was occupation, though both were steps toward our endgame. Our endgame was shutting down their ability to wage war, which is what we did. Why would the Soviets want to take on the nightmare of administering a huge nation full of residual radiation, pestilence, and the living dead? (That's part of invading and occupying a country like we did in Germany & Japan.) Too much bother when they already have radiation, pestilence, and the living dead all across their own land, and far, far more than they can deal with. I could see some of them coming over here to plunder, but you don't really need much of an infrastructure for that, and it would be extremely dangerous for them.

[@lukestrawwalker]

No invasion plans... that's for stuff like the "Amerika" miniseries... though that's a good one too LOL:) No "Red Dawn" scenario. OL J R :)

[@JAEUFM]

I would like to see video or photos of the locations in this video, just to see the difference from back then to now.

[@voltaire2001]

Matt's El Rancho

[@leptonsoup337]

I feel bad for anyone that had to scoop poor Clarence off the pavement. While his corpse may have been mildly radioactive, the real hazard was biological in nature.

[@sifridbassoon]

"....the usual mid-morning traffic..." yeah, all six cars of it! LOL and Barton Springs water is freezing.

[@twa545]

I personally feel that describing Austin, Texas as a huge city is an inaccurate statement. Yet then again, the only cities I would describe as huge would be equivalent to the size of New York. However, Austin is indeed a large city, then and now.

[@judywilliams6571]

This is so great. Circulating under the #whyAustin hashtag on Twitter.

[@Trainlover1995]

They got one thing right: how unreliable Soviet ICBMs were in that era. Overshooting a major population center by 30 miles is just embarrassing. And if Austin was the target, why was so much fallout created by an airburst?

[@user-jt5vm3mi1w]

ok

[@stumicthehedgehog5285]

I was wondering about Clearance Philips when he said weeks webt by

[@riceboy1701e]

Dammit...the bombs completely missed UT. GIG 'EM!

[@CoopyKat]

The scary music in this video is appropriate, I lived there for 2 years and fled the city in fear. It's been taken over by drug pushers and real estate greed in the downtown area. It's no longer the cool "weird" city that it brags about. It's also growing so fast (thousands of people move there every month) that the roads can't keep up with the added traffic. When I left there in 2012, I was so happy to get away.

[@DenitaArnold]

Sad. I sometimes hate living in TX (I live in Fort Worth)

[@TomBarrister]

Thanks for uploading this.

[@unssh2580]

Back in the day. When the word "traffic" meant something completely different in Austin.

[@user-jt5vm3mi1w]

what

[@DenitaArnold]

​@@user-jt5vm3mi1wI think he means drugs

[@am74343]

Ah, the 1950s and 1960s... When all you needed to do was add some tremolo and feedback to a soundtrack, and it made everything "spooky" and "scary"! LOL!

[@cockula776]

I actually liked the soundtrack to this, but A Flow of Seagulls "I ran" would have been better, such a shame the 80s were a little ways in the future

[@sleevesch]

Is that Cactus Pryor?

[@johnpeters482]

It definitely sounds like him.

[@johnfinck288]

Okay, I was going along with this, giving it some slack due to the time it was produced, allowing that the parts that seem stiff and corny were intended to be serious back when it was made...and then the bomb is dropped, and they start playing "Ride of the Valkyries" . Come on.

[@CoopyKat]

It's ironic that the real threat came 6 years later from Charles Whitman, an American and resident of Austin, TX.

[@DenitaArnold]

I was just thinking about that, especially when they showed the UT tower