CD Chief Tonis Ready To Name Shelter Areas

The University is on the verge of taking concrete steps in its civil defense program. Robert Tonis, director of civil defense at Harvard, expects soon to have fallout shelters designated as such and made ready for use.

Harvard has been stymied in its program ever since government studies of potential fallout shelters were submitted for analysis at a Maryland computing center last year. Until these reports were returned, the University could not mark shelters with the standard CD sign nor stock them with government-financed supplies.

Quite recently Tonis received 61 "area survey charts" prepared in the government study by the U.S. Army Engineers. These charts estimate the value of a building or enclosed space as a fallout shelter. With this information available, Tonis expects to start work right away.

Though all civil defense information passes through Tonis' hands, the Corporation has the ultimate responsibility in determining which "shelter areas" are to be readied.

This red-tape process is lengthy, since Tonis must write a separate report on each area. Nonetheless, the chief of police and security officer expects some results within a few weeks.

The government study, directed by the U.S. Army Engineers, was "sublet" to Lockwood-Greene, a Boston engineering firm, which undertook the building-to-building examination.

"If [a building] has a protection factor of four or better, which means the shelter is 100 to 149 times safer than the outside, and can hold 40 people, it is [considered] a fallout shelter," explained Tonis.

Tonis anticipates little actual shelter construction or building modification. "The Engineers feel we have good natural shelters." He added, "In the future, though, we may make minor improvements."

The University still awaits a report on buildings on the Boston side of the Charles River, primarily the Business and Medical Schools. Lockwood-Greene was not the firm which studied those buildings.