I’ve declared this the totally unofficial Water Emergency Week here at Thirsty in Suburbia, just because it’s a strange, unsettling and interesting topic. Day two… cold advice from the Cold War.

I was in first grade when the Cold War’s fever-pitch panic hit its stride in 1963 and vaguely remember feeling fearful over dead-serious bits of advice such as this video. (Or film, as it would have been called then. Attention Mad Men writers: this would be a killer storyline! How would Betty decorate the cozy Draper shelter?).

Funny, the most visceral memory I have of this period is a frightening episode of The Twilight Zone, “The Shelter”, in which formerly-friendly neighbors find that adequate shelter, water and supplies are the least of their worries in the face of a civil defense emergency–that the biggest threat to their survival might be each other!