Forgotten fallout shelter found under Long Island school

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - A forgotten piece of history was found inside the basement of a Copiague, Long Island, elementary school. Walk inside this living time capsule and you're brought back to the height of the Cold War era. Inside are tins of biscuits, water filtration kits, dozens of desks and medical supplies in case of a nuclear attack.

"The incredulous construction manager came – 'You're not going to believe what we found,'" Dr. Kathleen Bannon, the superintendent of Copiague Schools, said. "And I didn't believe what we found."

Most schools in America were equipped with a fallout shelter. Civil defense education was ingrained in every child's mind. 

In this case, cinderblock sealed off the space for all of these years. It was only discovered after workers began replacing water pipes. There are supplies stamped with a civil defense seal from 1972 and a survival guide. 

"I would think there'd be panic and chaos --- the directions they have literally tell you what to do step by step in order to run an appropriately taken care of fallout shelter," Bannon said. 

Babylon town historian Mary Cascone said the original structure of the building is at least 100 years old. By the looks of it, the fallout shelter has been untouched for more than four decades. 

"Each community seemed to have at least three," she said. "It looks like the plan was to disseminate the information to the public. And then you were assigned to a shelter and you've 30 minutes to get to the shelter." 

It was ready in case of an emergency, luckily it was never used.