Carolina man has been holed up in a bomb shelter since 1962 - and he won’t
come out
By DEREK CLONTZ
Your World Report
Thomas Barsley has lived in a steel-reinforced, food-stocked bomb shelter since
1962 - and he sees no reason to come out now.
The 72-year-old man from Whiteville, North Carolina, says fears of a nuclear
war between the United States and the former Soviet Union convinced him that moving into
the basement shelter 46 long years ago “was a smart thing to do.”
“The Soviet Union isn’t a threat anymore but now we’ve got
terrorists,” Barsley told me exclusively via the ham radio he uses to stay in
touch with “people on the surface.”
“I think I’ll stay put,” he added. “I think I’m better off
right where I am.”
Barsley says he’s left the 1,200-square-foot shelter with running water and toilet
facilities just once since locking himself inside on May 28, 1962.
“I walked outside in 1989 to see how much the world had changed, and it
hasn’t changed much - it’s still a dangerous place,” he says.
“I enjoyed seeing my sister, though. She still lives upstairs in the house.”
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