THE
S TUDENT PRINTZ www.studentprintz.com
SERVING SOUTHERN MISS SINCE 1927
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Nuking Mississippi|
Volume 99 Issue 17
Remembering the “shot felt ‘round the world” in 1964
Kathryn Miller Executive Editor
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Tom Breshears remembered that eerie morning in October 1964 when the Earth shook in silence from his parents’ home near Baxterville, Mississippi. The whole community knew it was coming, so around 10 a.m., he walked outside in his yard and sat down on the ground. He said an engineer drove by his home and said, “Oh my God, get up off the ground. This thing will burst your insides.” Then, three distinctive ripples heaved up the ground under his feet. “You ever seen a rock thrown in a puddle? The way the ripples come out away from it? Can you imagine that in three-foot high dirt?” Breshears said today, as he compares it to the blast made by Project Salmon, a U.S. government nuclear test at Tatum Salt Dome, 2,700 feet below ground. Oct. 22 marked the 50th anniversary of Project Salmon, the first nuclear test east of the Mississippi River, according to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management. The Oct. 28, 1964, Student Printz shows a photo of a Confederate flag that “waves in the breeze over ground zero, the spot where a five-kiloton nuclear bomb was detonated.” Before the caption, one wrote the blast was the “shot felt ‘round the world.” On that date, about 400 residents were evacuated from the area and were paid $10 per adult and $5 per child for their inconvenience. A week after the blast, more than 400 nearby residents filed damage claims, reporting damage to their home or their water
HATTIESBURG
BAXTERVILLE
Illustration by Cody Bass
wells were dry, according to Mississippi History Now. About 28 miles away in Hattiesburg, the shock waves were felt by residents, including the editor of the Hattiesburg American, who said the newspaper building wobbled for three minutes. Called Project Dribble, the series of tests were designed to improve the capability of the U.S. or its allies in
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detecting, monitoring and identifying underground nuclear detonations by other world powers, such as the USSR. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the U.S. Department of Defense detonated the Salmon Test in 1964 and Sterling Test in 1966. The Salmon Test was about one-third of the power of the atomic bomb that
FEATURE Community impact Baxterville resident recalls 1964 atomic bomb test.
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destroyed Hiroshima in 1945, which killed approximately 80,000 people. According to David Allen Burke’s book, “Atomic Testing in Mississippi: Project Dribble and the Quest for Nuclear Weapons Treaty Verification in the Cold War Era,” after the AEC tested various salt domes in Mississippi, it selected Tatum Salt Dome for the Salmon Test
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strictly for its underground rock formation. The idea stemmed from the Cold War circa 1947, a point in time that the U.S. and the USSR were in direct competition with the development of nuclear weapons, according to Mississippi History Now. In 1963, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the U.S.
See NUKE, 3
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SPORTS Football Eagles face 4-3 Bulldogs in Blackout Game.