On March 12, 1953, UT President C. E. Brehm announced the initiation of a campus-wide civil defense plan. Twenty-seven civil defense shelters were established and equipped on campus, and drills were held to acquaint the students, faculty, and staff with the shelters. A Civil Defense Committee, chaired by Professor A. T. Granger of the Civil Engineering Department, was established. Professor Sam Venable served as civil defense coordinator. In summer 1953 Tennessee’s first Civil Defense Orientation Course, a noncredit course offered through University Extension, was held on the UT campus. In 1963 twenty-five UT buildings were selected as fallout shelters; in October supplies for the shelters were received from the federal government. A total of 347 cases of biscuits, 473 cases of candy (lemon and cherry flavored), 1,410 cases of crackers (regular animal crackers), 109 medical kits, 413 sanitation kits, and 3,984 drums of water were received and stored in Estabrook Hall and awaited distribution to the fallout shelters that were marked and ready to receive supplies. The supplies were sufficient to feed 19,910 people for two weeks.
The original plan of selecting and marking fallout shelters had been completed when new guidelines were received from the federal government, which made it necessary to completely revamp the plans. By January 1966 UT’s marked and stocked shelters had grown to 30 and could accommodate 26,323 people. All custodial, maintenance, and safety personnel were trained in radiological monitoring in classes in 1965, and a series of classes was held to train shelter managers and radiological operators. UT shelter locations were chosen to meet Corps of Engineers’ requirements for a protection factor of at least 40, meaning that a person inside would have 40 times greater protection than he would outside. A bomb shelter was built on the agricultural campus in 1963 for a family of four for display and information purposes. In 1979 Ernest Clark, operational official for Knoxville City Defense, criticized UT’s fallout shelter program. The supplies stocked—water, medical kits, and other necessities—were marked as having been packaged in 1963, including the candy bars. (Crackers that had been stocked had been removed and fed to swine.) City records showed that 90 percent of supplies for the shelters were stored in Clement Hall, meaning that people would need to take their own supplies to fallout shelters.