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Short Stuff: Greenbrier Bunker · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck in again. This is short stuff, and this
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: one is pretty cool because it's about uh secret bunker
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  Speaker 1: hidden at a resort hotel. Not something you come upon
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: every day. No, this is I've never even heard of
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: this until the other day, actually, and I'm not even
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: sure how I heard about it now that I think
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  Speaker 1: about it, but it seemed like the perfect short stuff
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: because what we're talking about is during the Cold War,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the United States government saying, you know what, if the
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  Speaker 1: bomb happens, we need our government to function. And in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: order for our government to function, we need are the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: people of Congress to be safe and not fried from radiation.
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  Speaker 1: And the only way to do that is to build
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  Speaker 1: a massive underground bunker for everyone to go and live.
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  Speaker 1: And that's just what they did. Yeah, but they didn't
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  Speaker 1: they didn't like put it on a military base. They
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  Speaker 1: didn't put it like underneath the Capitol building. They they
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  Speaker 1: went to a resort in West Virginia called the Greenbrier
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  Speaker 1: that had been around for a very long time already
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  Speaker 1: it was. It's a very well known resort. It's still
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  Speaker 1: around today. It's beautiful and in fact, um Dorothree Draper,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: probably the greatest interior designer of all time. Um macked
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  Speaker 1: out the Greenbrier I think in the thirdies or forties
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  Speaker 1: and brought it back to life. It's an amazing place.
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  Speaker 1: But they they chose the Greenbrier in part because no
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  Speaker 1: one would ever suspect that they built the bunker to
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  Speaker 1: house Congress during a nuclear attack four hours away from Washington,
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  Speaker 1: d C. And West Virginia, beneath a resort that everybody loved. Right,
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  Speaker 1: No one would think that would happen, except for the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: people that built it. Because when the construction crews showed
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  Speaker 1: up and they're like, all right, we're gonna need three
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  Speaker 1: foot concrete walls here. Uh in these huge areas, we're
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  Speaker 1: gonna need about eleven bunk beds. They went, Okay, what's
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: going on here? And they said, don't worry about it.
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  Speaker 1: Just build what we tell you to build, and and
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  Speaker 1: stay quiet. Because obviously something like this had to be secret,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and it was secret for many decades until I don't
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  Speaker 1: know was it a reporter or just a writer that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: basically wrote an article about it. Reporter a guy named
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  Speaker 1: Ted Gup who sounds like the kind of person who
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: just out something for fun. It sounds like someone who
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: now they would use the word like he gut that
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  Speaker 1: thing up right, which he wasted billions of taxpayer dollars
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  Speaker 1: with one single article because it was then useless and
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  Speaker 1: everyone said, well, thanks, gup. Now we don't have our
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  Speaker 1: super secret bunker anymore. It's very much bombable because this thing,
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  Speaker 1: although it's built to withstand um to like be three
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  Speaker 1: you know, a few hours from Washington, d C. Where
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  Speaker 1: the big bomb lands. Uh it can it will stand
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  Speaker 1: like a direct hit. And no one would have bombed
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  Speaker 1: White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia had it not been for you. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Within three years of tag Gupps article, the Ultimate Congressional Hideaway,
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  Speaker 1: the Greenbrier Resort was giving tours of it because it
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  Speaker 1: had been decommissioned that quickly. And again this thing was
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  Speaker 1: in was in ready operation at a moment's notice for
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: thirty years. Over the course of those thirty yearsunk beds
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: were assigned to a person, and these were it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: like they assigned it once. As new congress people came in,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: they got assign bunk beds like if something happened, this
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  Speaker 1: place was ready to go. At a moment's notice to
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  Speaker 1: accept all of Congress, and I say, we take a
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: break and then we'll come back and talk about some
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  Speaker 1: of the details behind this ingenious plan. Let's do it. So, Chuck,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: if you went to the Greenbrier between the I guess nine,
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  Speaker 1: you might encounter somebody wearing a Forsyth Associates uniform and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: they if you ask them, what what Foresight's Associates? Did,
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  Speaker 1: you say, Oh, well, we we actually take care of
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  Speaker 1: all the TV sets here at the Greenbrier. And then
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  Speaker 1: the next thing you know, you would wake up in
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  Speaker 1: the Cryptan Mexico wearing someone else's clothes and that would
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  Speaker 1: be that. Yeah, And the last thought that you had
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  Speaker 1: in your head was, man, there's a lot of people
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: taking care of these TV sets here, right, Because it
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  Speaker 1: turns out that the Forsyth Associate TV technicians were actually
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the government employees who are secretly tasked with keeping the
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  Speaker 1: Greenbrier Bunker at a state of operational readiness at all times. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it was called when they built it, I saw fifty
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  Speaker 1: seven and fifty eight, so somewhere in there it was
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  Speaker 1: called Project Greek Island. And again was the location was
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: determined because it's close enough to d C to where
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  Speaker 1: it's not super far if he had to like get
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  Speaker 1: there in a hurry. Um, but it's it's safe enough
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  Speaker 1: to be there. Like, I think they could withstand radiation
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  Speaker 1: for how many days? Could they survive on just the
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  Speaker 1: air in their three But then the filtration system was
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  Speaker 1: so amazing that it could actually filter out radiation, so
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  Speaker 1: they were Okay, that's right. It cost about fourteen million bucks.
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  Speaker 1: Was completed in sixty two, right before the Cuban missile crisis. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: seven hundred and twenty ft underground, A hundred it's two levels,
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  Speaker 1: a hundred and twelve thousand and change square feet, so
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  Speaker 1: roughly the size of a couple of football fields stacked
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  Speaker 1: on one another. Yeah, think about it's seven hundred and underground.
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  Speaker 1: That is, that's a skyscraper down. And what's nuts to
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  Speaker 1: me is it still couldn't withstand a direct hit from
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  Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb. That really kind just says a lot
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  Speaker 1: right there. But um, so when you when you went
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  Speaker 1: to this place under a nuclear attack, Um, if you
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  Speaker 1: were a member of Congress, you would be hustled off
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  Speaker 1: to the Greenbrier. The first thing that would happen once
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  Speaker 1: you entered the secure sealed off area. UM. Is that
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  Speaker 1: you would be decontaminated, you'd be given new clothes, your
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: other close being sinerated. UM. And you would find very
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  Speaker 1: quickly that entire swaths of the Greenbrier had also been
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  Speaker 1: ingeniously included in this. Even though it was open to
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  Speaker 1: the public. They were used as as meeting rooms and
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  Speaker 1: stuff during normal times. In the case of a nuclear emergency,
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  Speaker 1: when Congress took over the bunker, they got sealed off
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  Speaker 1: with the rest of this bunker too. Yeah, so like
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  Speaker 1: they were literal uh me, like companies would have a
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: not a retreat, well, I guess a retreat there. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And you know they would go and listen to people
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  Speaker 1: lecture out their industry and not, you know, unknowingly the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: whole time they're sitting on top of this underground bunker.
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  Speaker 1: It's like it was pretty ingenious to not have it
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  Speaker 1: a military base and to sort of hide it in
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: plain sight in some ways. Uh. There's if you're wondering, like, well,
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  Speaker 1: how did you access it from the Greenbrier, it would
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of course be behind the door that says danger high voltage,
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  Speaker 1: keep out danger, danger. It's all I got of an
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  Speaker 1: Austin Powers movie or something. It's like I just put
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: high voltage and no one will open that door. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I think it works. I mean you're kind of a
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: chump if you go through that door anyway, you know, Yeah,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: you'd be a real gup. Nice call back, dude. So
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: we else is in there. You got your decontamination room,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: you got your dormitories, which are eighteen rooms with sixty
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: beds in each. You gotta have a cafeteria in a kitchen. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: They even had like media room set up with fake
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  Speaker 1: views of like the capa all in the background and
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, so they could uh that had you know,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: like a production facility essentially because they had to be
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: able to broadcast out in case anything went wrong. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And they had three meeting rooms. One that could house
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  Speaker 1: Senate the Senate, one that could house uh, the House
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  Speaker 1: of Representatives, and one that could house joint um joint
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  Speaker 1: congressional meetings like where everybody was involved. Um. They also
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  Speaker 1: had a pharmacy with tons of antidepressants. Apparently had a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: good stuff. They had a little jail, and then this
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  Speaker 1: to me was pretty revealing. I think either MPR or
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the Atomic Heritage Foundation pointed out that they had in
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  Speaker 1: this little jail area they had weapons, but that the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: weapons amounted to like a couple of rifles, some pistols, uh,
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  Speaker 1: like some batons, and like helmets, like stuff you would
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  Speaker 1: have for riot here. And I realized, like, that's that
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  Speaker 1: wasn't meant to be used on you know, Soviet forces
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  Speaker 1: trying to gain entry. That to be used in case
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: of like some sort of crazy mutiny like below ground
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  Speaker 1: by by Congress people who are losing their marbles, just
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: old grudges, like they're finally they're finally going to take
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Belosi down once and for all, put her in a
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: straight jacket because there were straight jackets. Uh that there
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: were two boxes of straight jackets with this jail, uh
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  Speaker 1: in case something happened like that. Yeah. So um, the
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  Speaker 1: whole thing was completed, I think you said, in time
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: for the Cuban missile crisis, right, Yeah, that's really really
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: good timing. And again when they did this, they did
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  Speaker 1: it under the auspices that the Greenbrier was building a
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: new wing. And indeed the Greenbrier did build a new wing,
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  Speaker 1: but there was some really weird parts of it, so
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  Speaker 1: it did raise some, uh, some questions. But apparently the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: locals kept it to themselves because it does not seem
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  Speaker 1: to have been one of those you know, UM open secrets,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: like it seems to have been like a real secret secret,
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  Speaker 1: which is, you know, hats off to everybody who managed
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to keep that a secret all those years. Well, yeah, because,
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  Speaker 1: like we said, the construction crews were immediately suspicious, but
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people worked on that thing and clearly
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  Speaker 1: knew what was going on. And I guess it was
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  Speaker 1: just a different time where people, uh cared this is
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  Speaker 1: about their country such that they knew it was important
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  Speaker 1: to keep it a secret for national security reasons. Yeah,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: hats off government on keeping some secrets. How fast would
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: this be tweeted out today? It was a drywall person
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  Speaker 1: working on an underground bunker. Check it out. Supposedly, the
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: UM Supreme Court was destined for the Grove Park in
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: in the in the case of a nuclear emergency that
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  Speaker 1: would find of the Greenbrier. Yeah, where's that Asheville? Okay,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: really yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, it's in Nashville, So
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  Speaker 1: they would do that's where they would go and bunk
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  Speaker 1: her down to Wow, pretty amazing stuff, Chuck. I wonder
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  Speaker 1: if this, I mean, if there were eleven hun red beds.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: This seems to indicate that they would have their families there, right,
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  Speaker 1: I guess, but I guess, yeah, it must be. And
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  Speaker 1: I think there's a there's um a train route from
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  Speaker 1: d C to the Greenbrier, so they would probably be
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  Speaker 1: time to be like maybe at the Amtrak station, we
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  Speaker 1: gotta go right to your family. That's the only explanation
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  Speaker 1: I can find all those staff. Maybe I could see
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Congress people choosing their staff over their family in a
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: nuclear a nuclear disaster. That's eleven d bucks though. That's
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: that's plenty of room for staff and families and maybe
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: even an enemy or two. Sure again though, thanks to
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  Speaker 1: the Atomic Heritage Foundation, great article on this as well
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: as NPR. We we we always love yes and great thanks
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: to you too, Chuck, and and you sir, thank you. Well,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: we thanked each other everybody. That means short stuff is out.
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• 11:59
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