100 Places You Will Never Visit (7 page)

The CDC originated in 1942 as the Office of National Defense Malaria Control Activities. Atlanta was selected as a base for the organization, which was originally focused on reducing the mosquito-borne disease that was then endemic in the Southern States. The organization subsequently underwent several name changes, and the scope of its work broadened, so that today it employs some 15,000 people and has an annual budget of several billion dollars.

SWATTING BUGS The headquarters of the CDC on Clifton Road in Druid Hills, Georgia, as seen from Emory University. The CDC purchased the land for this site from the University in 1947 for a nominal payment of US$10.

The CDC also happens to be home to one of a small number of Biosafety Level 4 laboratories, a designation that reflects stringent precautions for storing certain harmful biological agents. It is because of these exacting safety and security standards that it is allowed to keep a stock of smallpox virus. Only a handful of other viruses—including Ebola and the Marburg virus—are subject to such high-level protective measures.

Smallpox accounted for the death of millions across the globe over many centuries, and seemed beyond control until the English physician Edward Jenner discovered the first ground-breaking vaccine in 1796. In 1980, after a global vaccination program running for several decades, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that smallpox had become the first disease to be completely eradicated from the world. The last person to naturally contract it (as opposed to being infected in a laboratory accident) was an unvaccinated Somali hospital worker.

MICROSCOPIC KILLERS Scientists at the CDC undertake investigations into some of the deadliest viral and biological threats known to humanity. Pictured here are electron micrographs of tissue affected by, from left to right, Legionella, Anthrax and Ebola.

A scheme was set up whereby existing smallpox stores were to be surrendered and destroyed. However, the United States and the then Soviet Union argued that they should be allowed to keep small stocks in high-security environments so that further research work might be undertaken. CDC was to be one of these secure environments and the VECTOR State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, Russia, the other.

CDC is home to around 450 samples (some of which have reportedly been given nicknames depending upon their origins—for the record, these include “Harvey,” from a British patient who contracted the bug in Gibraltar, “Yamamoto” from Japan and “Garcia” from South America). Stored in a chained and padlocked freezer in a high-security building, no more than ten scientists have access to the samples. On the rare occasions when they are accessed, staff must wear protective suits and breathing apparatus.

SUITED UP Two CDC laboratory workers carrying out research in one of the facility’s top-security Biosafety Level 4 labs. The scientists’ air supply comes from overhead lines that plug directly into their protective suits. A complex airflow system ensures pathogens do not escape from the experimental area.

The WHO regularly reviews whether the remaining samples should be destroyed, and have so far decided against it. While those in favor of getting rid of the stockpiles suggest that a renewed outbreak is only possible while the virus is preserved, advocates of retention argue that it is impossible to know whether these really are the only reserves left on the planet. While it is hoped that no country surreptitiously retained a small sample when the global stocks were disposed of in the 1980s, we cannot know for certain. Furthermore, the population born since the 1980 WHO announcement has gone unvaccinated, while evidence suggests even those who have been vaccinated can expect only a decade of immunity. In an age when bioterrorism is a perpetual threat, the supporters of retention contend that it would be madness to destroy our best hope of responding to a new outbreak.

21 Iron Mountain, Boyers

LOCATION Boyers, Pennsylvania, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

SECRECY OVERVIEW High-security location: a secure storage facility built into a disused mine.

Iron Mountain Incorporated is one of the world’s leading data management companies, and its most famous high-security storage facility lies more than 60 meters (200 ft) underground in the former mining town of Boyers, Pennsylvania. Among the priceless materials stored in the former mine is the Corbis photographic collection, now owned by Bill Gates.

The Iron Mountain company was founded by Herman Knaust, a businessman who had made his fortune in mushroom farming and marketing. In 1936, he forked out US$9,000 to purchase a defunct iron ore mine and 40 hectares (100 acres) of surrounding land in Livingstone, New York. It was, Knaust was convinced, the ideal setting for mushroom cultivation on an industrial scale. But by 1950 the bottom had fallen out of the mushroom market and Knaust spotted a new opportunity. The Second World War and the Cold War had focused attention on the need to preserve official records in locations secure from military attack or other disasters. The one-time “Mushroom King” renamed his mine and founded Iron Mountain Atomic Storage, Inc.

Meanwhile, the town of Boyers in Butler County, Pennsylvania, was a once-thriving mining community that had dug all it could out of the ground. From 1954 onward, various organizations began to use its former limestone mines as storage facilities. After Iron Mountain went through a rapid phase of expansion in the 1980s and 1990s, the company bought one of these sites in 1998 from National Underground Storage for a little short of US$40 million. It is in many respects the company’s flagship branch.

About 53 hectares (130 acres) of the mine are now devoted to climate-controlled storage, with clients ranging from the Corbis photographic library to US government departments, and from film companies to the National Archives. The facility is entirely protected from the elements, geologically stable and resistant to bombing.

On the approach to Iron Mountain, visitors are greeted by armed guards, who check their credentials and give their vehicles a thorough inspection. Entry to the complex is via large, steel gates, and guests must be accompanied by an official escort at all times. Security systems, including extensive surveillance, are in operation throughout the facility—not even Bill Gates gets into Iron Mountain on a nod and a wink!

1 ICONIC IMAGES The Corbis archive contains original images of many famous events such as the destruction of the German airship Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937.

2 FILED AWAY The Iron Mountain Corporation is just one of several organizations who use Boyer’s abandoned mines as ready-made storage facilities. For instance, the US Office of Personnel Management and the US Patent and Trademark Office both run their own facilities.

22 Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center

LOCATION Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Washington, DC

SECRECY OVERVIEW Existence unacknowledged: secret installation to house US government officials in the event of a disaster.

Straddling the Loudon and Clarke counties of Virginia, the facility at Mount Weather comprises two main parts—one above ground, concerned with the management of national disasters, and a more mysterious subterranean section. This hidden, unacknowledged complex is widely believed to serve as a “continuity of government” base, a home for key Washington personnel in times of crisis.

The Mount Weather site was historically used for launching weather balloons, and later came under the aegis of the US Bureau of Mines. During the 1950s, an extensive program of drilling into the mountain was undertaken with a view to the military building a subterranean complex of tunnels and bunkers.

Today the complex, covering several acres, is believed to include high-tech ventilation systems, computer rooms, a broadcasting studio, a hospital, reservoirs and accommodation quarters. It is widely speculated that Mount Weather would be used as an alternative command center by the President and other senior government officials as well as members of the Supreme Court in the event of a disaster. Much of Congress was rumored to have been transferred here in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Sited inconspicuously off Route 601, the center first came to public attention in 1977, after a Boeing 727 crashed nearby in bad weather. Toward the end of the 1970s, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), now part of the Department of Homeland Security and charged with disaster response, opened above-ground training facilities. It is also rumored that the US National Gallery of Art has an emergency plan to deposit at-risk works of art here.

While FEMA’s operations are in the public domain, the underground part of the complex retains its mystique. No journalists or members of the public have ever been granted a tour, and all personnel associated with it in an official capacity maintain a strict code of silence. The area is surrounded by razor-wire fencing and barriers, while signs warn “US Property. No Trespassing.” Armed guards patrol the environs and protect the main entrances, which are believed to include 3-meter (10-ft) thick blast doors weighing over 30 tons each. Some conspiracy theorists have become convinced that the complex houses a “shadow government” pulling Washington’s strings, although there is little evidence to back this up.

1 PANIC STATIONS FEMA was constituted in 1979 and has run a facility at Mount Weather since its inauguration. The organization received fierce criticism for its response after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Pictured left is a search-and-rescue flyover during that operation.

2 PRESIDENTIAL BOLTHOLE In the event of a catastrophe such as the outbreak of full-scale war, the underground complex beneath Mount Weather would offer a possible shelter for the US President and senior government officials, arriving aboard military helicopters such as the President’s Marine One.

23 Raven Rock Mountain Complex

LOCATION Pennsylvania, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Camp David, Maryland

SECRECY OVERVIEW Operations classified: Alternate Joint Communications Center for the US government.

Sometimes known as the “underground Pentagon,” or simply as “Site R,” the Raven Rock facility is a communications hub built into a mountain, running dozens of systems and providing information technology services to, among others, the National Command Authority (i.e. the President and the Secretary of Defense), the Joint Chiefs of Staff and assorted other agencies in the Department of Defense.

Raven Rock was initially constructed with the intention that it should serve as an alternative operations base for the government in the event of a military emergency such as a nuclear strike. With the threat from the Soviet Union growing ever more pressing in the late 1940s, it was decided to locate the base amid the natural defenses of Raven Rock, which is formed of greenstone—one of the hardest forms of granite known to man. The complex lies a few kilometers away from Camp David, which is over the state border in Maryland. However, Raven Rock spent long spells under the jurisdiction of Camp Albert Ritchie in Maryland.

Building on Raven Rock began in 1951, during the presidency of Harry S. Truman, and the facility became operational three years later. Hewn out of rock some 200 meters (650 ft) beneath the mountain’s peak, the complex is thought to boast some 65,000 square meters (700,000 sq ft) of space and room for up to 3,000 people. According to informed conjecture, the site contains five main buildings, each three stories high, with rooms full of computers and even a giant underground reservoir and a helipad. Above ground, the site is surrounded by a forest of communications antennae, towers and satellite dishes.

There are thought to be perhaps four or five entrances into the complex, constantly under guard by the Raven Rock Military Police Company and closed-circuit surveillance. Some of its metal-clad ingresses are visible from nearby Route 16. However, anyone who stumbles across the complex will encounter razor-wire fencing and conspicuous red warning signs.

UNDER THE ROCK An overview of the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, built amid the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the early Cold War. While the odd driver along Route 16 may glimpse one of the entry portals, they are given little clue as to the vast infrastructure that lies within the mountain.

Nonetheless, Raven Rock is a product of its times. Many of its technological features soon became obsolete, and rumors of its existence quickly spread—something of a problem for a secret base. Plans to overhaul the complex for modern operations were drawn up in the late 1970s, but were abandoned before the decade was out.

Even more damaging to its prospects in the 1980s was the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev through the political ranks of the USSR. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, it seemed as if Raven Rock had come to the end of its useful life—a mothballed future appeared its most likely fate.

But there was to be another twist. Dick Cheney, Vice-President to George W. Bush, reputedly stayed in Raven Rock for one or more spells after the terrorist atrocities in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Never had there been such a direct attack on the nation’s heart of government as when the Pentagon, the core of the nation’s defense system, was hit by a hijacked airplane. Suddenly the world seemed far less secure than it had the day before, and the need for an alternative operations base in case of a future, even more devastating hit on Washington seemed more important than ever. The future of Raven Rock was, for the short-to mid-term at least, secured.

Today, the majority of operations carried out at Raven Rock are still highly classified. Access is strictly monitored and confidentiality is a prerequisite for all staff and visitors. It is illegal to photograph, map or sketch the site without prior permission, and cellular mobile phones and other modern communication devices are not allowed. In fact, even if a phone did find its way in, it would be useless as there is no service. However, anyone found guilty of breaching security can expect to experience the full force of the law, whether in the form of a hefty fine or a spell in prison.