On March 1, 2002, THE WASHINGTON POST revealed that within hours of the

synchronized attacks of the WTC and Pentagon, President Bush activated the

CONTINUITY OF OPERATIONS PLAN

also known as COG (Continuity of Government).

COG was initially conceived under the

EISEHNOWER administration as a way of preserving

government functions in the

event of a NUCLEAR WAR.

The plan was later modernized by

RONALD REAGAN during the height

of the cold war with the Soviet

Union.

In 1985 Reagan issued Executive Order 12656 which directed every Cabinet department to

define “legal instruments for succession to office and emergency delegation of authority.”

Within hours of the 9/11 attack, military District of Washington helicopters lifted off with the first wave of evacuated officials.

Witnesses near one of the two evacuation sites reported an influx of single and twin- rotor transport helicopters escorted by F-16 Fighter Jets and followed not

long afterward by government busses.

The Bush administration conceived the move that morning as a

temporary precaution, likely to last only days, but later reconsidered.

Growing fear that Al Qaeda might possess nuclear capabilities caused the

program to develop into a shadow government that existed underground for

months.

NBC News summarized the WASHINGTON POST story for a national

audience in 2002.

WATCH THE NEWS REPORT

We now know that about 100 senior civilian

managers were evacuated to top-secret

locations, where they lived and worked

underground 24 hours a day, without their families, in 90 day

intervals.

Within the bunkers, they were assisted by

75 - 100 civilians which fluctuated based on threat

assessment.

This group was a compliment to the acknowledged absence of Vice President Dick Cheney who was away from Washington for over

5 months following 9/11.

News of the shadow government was first revealed to the nation, following

the Washington Post story on March 1, 2002.

WATCH THE NEWS REPORT

Key congressional leaders say they didn't know President Bush had established a "shadow government," moving dozens of senior civilian managers to secret underground locations outside Washington to ensure that the federal government could survive a devastating terrorist attack on the nation's capital, The Washington Post says in its Saturday editions. Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) told the Post he had not been informed by the White House about the role, location or even the existence of the shadow government that the administration began to deploy the morning of the Sept. 11 hijackings. An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said he was also unaware of the administration's move. Among Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), second in line to succeed the president if he became incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.) said they were not sure whether they knew.

NEWS

“agreed to a White House request not to name any of those deployed or identify the two principal locations

of the shadow government.”

WEATHER MOUNT

VIRGINIA

Mount Weather is located near

Bluemont, VA in Loudoun County.

It houses operations and

training facilities above ground for

FEMA and contains an

underground facility designed

to house key components

of the American government in case of nuclear

war.

It was completed in 1959.

From a distance, the above ground complex used by FEMA.

Mount Weather was a natural choice for a bunker. It is only 48 miles from Washington. The mine already existed and demolition

of multiple high explosives showed the mountain resilient to shock waves. In 1954 a massive expansion to the mine began.

In an eerily prophetic article, TIME MAGAZINE wrote extensively about the place on June 24, 2001.

“Designed to survive the unthinkable and completed in 1958, the year after the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite, Mount Weather stands as a monument to a potential

nightmare. Few in the U.S. government will speak of it, though it is assumed that all along the Soviets have known both its precise location and its mission.”

On the approach to the facility, along a twisting, narrow

stretch of County Route 601, past Heart Trouble Lane, a

flashing yellow warning light and a 10- m.p.h. speed limit

provide the first hint that something unusual is around the

bend. The compound is surrounded by a 10-ft.-high chain-link

fence topped with six strands of barbed wire. Armed guards

patrol the perimeter. Anyone straying past the entrance is

temporarily relieved of cameras, asked to stay in the car and

then shown the way out. Motorists who take an inordinate

interest in the site are shadowed by security cars and

watched through binoculars. Warning signs forbid the making

of sketches or diagrams of the facility. Strangely enough, the

airspace over the site is unrestricted -- probably because the

most sensitive portion of the installation is underground. A

TWA 727 jetliner crashed into the mountainside in 1974,

killing 92 people and drawing unwanted attention to the site.

Current and former Mount Weather employees describe an eerie complex

that could be turned into the U.S.'s underground capital in an instant.

Standby sleeping quarters were set up to accommodate hundreds of

government officials. Because the country's Emergency Broadcast System

could be obliterated in a nuclear strike, a radio-and-television studio was

included so that the President or other key officials could address the

nation, providing people with emergency instructions and telling them that

at least some units of government were intact and carrying on. Diesel

engines were installed to generate electricity in an underground utility

plant called the power chamber. Refrigerators were brought in for food

storage. A cafeteria became part of the complex, as well as a hospital.

An air shaft was dug from the main tunnel to the top of the mountain, and

pumps and fans were installed for air circulation. If need be, the entire

underground complex could be sealed.

Mount Weather is a city unto itself, with a resident complement of

scientists, computer programmers, engineers, fire fighters, craftsmen and

security guards, with a direct link to the White House Situation Room.

In 2012 the DISCOVERY CHANNEL produced this short

film about the history and inner workings of Mt. Weather...

AMERICA’S DOOMSDAY PLAN Nov. 4 2012

Mount Weather's greatest vulnerability, however, may lie not with nuclear

weapons but with human nature. The government officials designated to

be evacuated in case of an emergency are not permitted to take their

families with them, and many former officials say they would find it

unimaginable to abandon husbands, wives or children. The issue has

dogged the doomsday planners from the beginning. "I never took it very

seriously," says Alexis Johnson, who was Deputy Under Secretary of

State during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. "It was an unrealistic thing, it

seemed to me, that we'd all pick up at the ringing of a bell and run for the

hills, leaving our families behind..

"That raises another troubling question about Mount Weather's mission.

Over the past 33 years, tens of millions of dollars have been spent on

maintaining and upgrading the complex to protect several hundred

designated officials in the event of nuclear attack. During the same

period, the U.S. government has dramatically reduced its emphasis on

war preparedness for ordinary citizens and currently spends less than

50 cents a head each year on civil defense

SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (1964)

The military attempts a coup

against the president – filmed

during the Kennedy administration.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

Mt. Weather is used as the under-

ground location where GORT is

probed by the military in 2008.

In popular culture

THE 100 – TV SERIES (CW)

Landing site used in the first

novel, and featured extensively

in season 2 of the TV show.

On August 9, 2006

published a letter from Stephen I. Schwartz

Former editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and a professor at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies, Monterey

that stated “on Sept. 11 most of the congressional leadership was evacuated

to ‘Mt. Weather’ by helicopter.”

Schwartz also claimed that

Vice President, Dick Cheney was

eventually moved to a

separate location known as

SITE R.

RAVEN ROCK MOUNTAIN

SITE R

It was designed to house 3,000 people and function as a back-up

to the Pentagon.

It is located on the Maryland –

Pennsylvania border, 6 mi. from Camp David.

It is also known

as the “Alternate Joint Communications

Center.”

It has 700,000 feet of usable floor

space inside Raven Rock Mountain.

Planning for the

complex began in 1948.

Word of the project was written about in the local paper – Jan. 26, 1951.

Much of what we know about SITE R was provided in 1999 as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.

In 1989 a $13.5 Billion upgrade to the facility was provided.

President Truman approved the secret project in 1950 and one half million cubic yards of greenstone

granite rock was blasted out and hauled away in ten months. Three underground buildings A, B, and C

(each 3-stories tall) were completed in 1953. Ten years later, buildings D and E were added.

GRAND VIEW OF AREAS SHOWN IN GOOGLE EARTH ANNIMATION.

In addition, there is also Site C, which is a

satellite communications facility located

atop Quirauk Mountain in Washington

County in Maryland supported by the 302nd

Signal Battalion. Someone living nearby

captured the nighttime glow from Site C in

this photo posted to Flickr.

In 1991, the "mayor of Raven Rock", Lt. Col Art Maxwell, described

the underground facility in an unclassified briefing. Site R has four

portals going 650 feet below the 1,529 foot summit of the Raven

Rock Mountain. It has living quarters, a fitness center, a medical

facility, the Granite Cove dining facility, a barbershop, a chapel,

legal services, and a convenience store. The underground

reservoirs hold millions of gallons of water. There are 35 miles of

cables on 180 telephone poles. The inside of Site R looks like a

typical office building except that there are no windows.

A Baltimore Sun article describes Site R's five 3-story underground

buildings: "The five buildings at the site are separated by thick rock

walls because each was erected inside its own mountain cavern." A

2012 employment ad described the facility as operating 24 hours a

day, 7 days a week. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency

provides security for the installation. An online resume of a

Supervisory Police Officer at Raven Rock put the military police

force there at around 148 as of 2007.

Source: Baltimore Sun / About Camp David

JEREMIAH - SHOWTIME

Featured as a location in

this 2001 TV series set in a

future post-virus world.

OBLIVION

2013 Post-apocalyptic science

fiction film about the after

math of an alien war.

In popular culture

THE HUNGER GAMES - SERIES

Generally believed to be District 13

described as an underground

military base in Appalachia.

Following the 9/11 attacks, V.P. Cheney stayed

at a variety of undisclosed locations, out of

public view. Raven Rock may have been one of

them. Cheney later revealed in his memoir In

My Time that these "undisclosed locations"

included his official Vice Presidential

residence, his home in Wyoming, and Camp

David.

In Mid-June, 2006, the federal government conducted “Forward Challenge ‘06”

a COG exercise involving 4,000 government personnel.

The deployment of “the shadow government” is believed to have ended approximately

5 months after the 9/11 attacks.