FEMA Federal Region Bunker - Region IV: Pics and Stories
kjfitz
Back in the mid-80's I bid on some surplus computer equipment that the government was getting rid of. I had already won a bid on a system similar to this one so I did not inspect the stuff beforehand.
I won the bid, hooked up my trailer and headed for the installation. The installation was listed in the bid award as Federal Region Center IV in Thomasville GA. Thomasville by the way is a small town out in the middle of nowhere just north of the Florida border and maybe 60 miles west of Interstate 75.
I get to the town and ask around but no one knows what I'm talking about when I mention the Federal Region Center. Finally a young lady in the town library says, "Oh, my dad works there. It's about ten miles out of town to the southwest." When I get there all I find is a lot of old wooden buildings that look like a warehouse complex left over from WWII (the old hospital). I figured I was close because many of the government surplus sites look like this. I drove past the site two or three times before noticing a small sign saying Federal Region Center, Authorized Admittance Only.
Well since I had the bid award I decided I was authorized so I headed down the road. A few hundred yards later I came to a very sturdy, very tall, very nasty looking fence (there might have been two fences but I don't really remember) with an open gate and a telephone box. I picked up the telephone and told the answering voice that I was at the gate. He told me that he could see me. (I couldn't see him or any obvious camera.) I explained my business and about 15 minutes later he said to come on in.
I drove about fifty yards through a pine forest and came out into a clearing a few hundred yards on a side. In the center was a mound about thirty to fifty feet high and a couple of hundred feet on a side. There were a couple of truck loading docks an the west side and a small glassed in lobby on the north side next to a small parking lot. I pulled in front of the lobby and was admitted by a man in a suit who had strapped on a side-arm. I waited in the lobby under a large Federal Management Agency seal while the paper work was taken down a long sloping hall.
I was later taken out to one of those old wooden warehouses, collected my computers, and left. I never actually got to go down into the hole.
A few observations... Antennas every where. Man hole cover sized steel bubbles in the field that I was told later were more antennas that could pop up if "something happened to the others." A pre-fab garage to one side housed a few trucks that looked like they carried some BIG generators and microwave equipment.
Wish I could have had a guided tour of the site but they didn't look very receptive to the idea.
I won the bid, hooked up my trailer and headed for the installation. The installation was listed in the bid award as Federal Region Center IV in Thomasville GA. Thomasville by the way is a small town out in the middle of nowhere just north of the Florida border and maybe 60 miles west of Interstate 75.
I get to the town and ask around but no one knows what I'm talking about when I mention the Federal Region Center. Finally a young lady in the town library says, "Oh, my dad works there. It's about ten miles out of town to the southwest." When I get there all I find is a lot of old wooden buildings that look like a warehouse complex left over from WWII (the old hospital). I figured I was close because many of the government surplus sites look like this. I drove past the site two or three times before noticing a small sign saying Federal Region Center, Authorized Admittance Only.
Well since I had the bid award I decided I was authorized so I headed down the road. A few hundred yards later I came to a very sturdy, very tall, very nasty looking fence (there might have been two fences but I don't really remember) with an open gate and a telephone box. I picked up the telephone and told the answering voice that I was at the gate. He told me that he could see me. (I couldn't see him or any obvious camera.) I explained my business and about 15 minutes later he said to come on in.
I drove about fifty yards through a pine forest and came out into a clearing a few hundred yards on a side. In the center was a mound about thirty to fifty feet high and a couple of hundred feet on a side. There were a couple of truck loading docks an the west side and a small glassed in lobby on the north side next to a small parking lot. I pulled in front of the lobby and was admitted by a man in a suit who had strapped on a side-arm. I waited in the lobby under a large Federal Management Agency seal while the paper work was taken down a long sloping hall.
I was later taken out to one of those old wooden warehouses, collected my computers, and left. I never actually got to go down into the hole.
A few observations... Antennas every where. Man hole cover sized steel bubbles in the field that I was told later were more antennas that could pop up if "something happened to the others." A pre-fab garage to one side housed a few trucks that looked like they carried some BIG generators and microwave equipment.
Wish I could have had a guided tour of the site but they didn't look very receptive to the idea.