Nuclear Bunker for Congress

White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia

There's a no-longer-secret Apocalypse bunker 700 feet under the posh Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. Built to protect the federal government during the Cold War, the Emergency Relocation Center was built between 1959-1962, the classified construction camoflaged by work on the above-ground West Virginia Wing of the hotel. The bunker was outed by the Washington Post in 1992. The shelter officially closed in 1995. The public has since been allowed to tour the bunker and see where their taxes were spent. The tour includes a look at the dormitories and accommodations for Congress, decontamination rooms, hospital, and the power and plant systems intended to keep our government humming as the world above was incinerated.

We always wondered why Congress would evacuate 1,100 people by jet all the way out here, instead of driving to a more convenient redoubt, perhaps a facility squirreled away in Pennsylvania Turnpike's Kittatiny and Blue Mountain tunnels, shielded by hundreds of feet of solid rock. They could have just driven there.

Now we know why. They like the Greenbrier. Posh accommodations, frst class room service, all the amenities to survive. We'll never know how close civilization came to the brink -- it would have been almost too easy for the superrich to push the button, knowing that a plush, decade-long golf vacation awaited them.

According to the Greenbrier, the wing with access to the bunker reopened in 2006 for guided tours on Sundays and Wednesdays.