Kailua, a beach community on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, has everything that residents and visitors could want from a tropical paradise: exquisite beaches, crystal clear water and modern amenities. No wonder it now boasts nearly 55,000 residents and thousands of yearly tourists, including the Obamas. But one thing this paradise doesn’t have is an adequate number of fallout shelters – there are only three with enough room for 235 people — in case North Korea launches an intercontinental ballistic missile or nuclear attack.
The state’s emergency fallout shelter plan, not updated since the Cold War, includes a Salvation Army store, categorized as a “safe zone.” That plan is not exactly common knowledge. One of the store managers didn’t even realize the building is on the 1985 fallout shelter list and said the so-called safe area in the basement is packed with donated items. The fallout shelter at Territorial Savings Bank, in the middle of Kailua, holds just 35 people. READ MORE
