The hidden underground facility located 60 miles west of Washington, D.C., is getting upgrades. But the specifics remain a secret.
A secretive underground FEMA base where Congressional leaders hid following the 9/11 attacks is getting an upgrade.
But what exactly are workers doing at Mount Weather? Well, that’s classified ‒ and the contractors who are doing the work have Top Secret security clearances.
Buried in the Blue Ridge Mountains 64 miles west of Washington, D.C., Mount Weather is part of a network of underground facilities scattered across the United States designed to protect federal leaders during a crisis. It takes less than 30 minutes by helicopter to reach Mount Weather from Capitol Hill.
“The breadth and depth of capabilities offered by Mount Weather make it a unique facility,” FEMA said in a rare 2009 fact sheet about the site. “The (facility) supports a variety of disaster response and continuity missions, mostly classified.”
The “continuity of government” sites also include Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain bunker, with buildings made from battleship steel sitting atop giant springs to help them weather a nuclear attack. The public generally cannot visit Mount Weather’s underground facility, but a USA TODAY reporter was permitted to tour Cheyenne Mountain in 2015. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/06/12/norad-cheyenne-mountain-bunker/28689013/
Mount Weather, which is also known as the High Point Special Facility, has both above and below-ground facilities as part of its 564-acre site, and Homeland Security Kristi Noem visited the complex in early April, posing for photos outside with the complex’s fulltime fire department and armed FEMA security guards.
“This DHS Command Center is crucial to emergency relief and federal coordination in the face of disaster,” Noem said in a social media post that showed her visiting a cozy living room with historical plaques and (unreadable) information signs on display beneath her photo, along with that of President Donald Trump.
What Noem didn’t do, however, was reveal any details about the classified parts of the bunker system. But federal contracting details and historical announcements from FEMA provide tantalizing hints about the facility that started life as a weather and mining research site in the early 1900s.
Among its facilities is an underground cafeteria with seating for 300 people, which offers a sense of how many people could be housed there. The facility also has office space, dormitories and private sleeping spaces for VIPs, and training rooms.
Even the price tag of the new Mount Weather work is confidential, but contracting details suggest workers will must be skilled in both underground construction and HVAC equipment, including air handlers.
FEMA did not respond to a request for comment.