In 1950 Dr. Robert D. Birkhoff of the UT Physics Department, along with Dr. Karl Z. Morgan of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and officials from the Tennessee adjutant general civil defense administration, completed work on the nation’s first mobile, cross-country laboratory for testing radiation hazards in the air and water of areas crippled by atomic attack. In 1951, set up in a bus donated by Memphis Street Railway, the lab toured Tennessee for training. In the event of an atomic attack, the plan was that the lab would rush to the stricken area, picking up laboratory workers on the way, and then radio damage and radiation reports to area civil defense headquarters.