1982-April 1994: Planners Build and Maintain High-Tech Fleet of Mobile Command Centers

The National Preparedness Directorate within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is responsible for overseeing parts the highly classified Continuity of Government (COG) program, develops and maintains a high-tech fleet of mobile command centers, known as Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS) units. The MERS vehicles, crafted out of 18-wheel tractor-trailer trucks, are meant to provide federal leaders with the ability to not only escape a nuclear attack, but also monitor information and communicate with the rest of the government while on the move. The MERS units cost billions of dollars to develop and are packed with sophisticated technology. According to Cox News Service: “Sensitive radio, telephone, and satellite gear—much of it classified—is stored in custom-built trucks that resemble mobile bank vaults.… The mobile units can operate for a month without support. They include generators capable of powering a three-story airport terminal and a fuel tanker that can suck diesel fuel from whatever service stations survive the nuclear blast.” One truck carries a pop-up satellite dish and weighs 24 tons. Early models, however, are inundated with problems. When the first two MERS prototypes are tested in 1984, one gets wedged beneath a highway overpass because it is too tall, while the other causes a road to collapse because it is too heavy. There are also technical flaws. The communication system at the heart of the Continuity of Government program does not function properly from late 1985 until at least December 1990 (see Late 1985 and December 1990). Despite the complications, FEMA eventually constructs 300 MERS vehicles and stations them at secure facilities in Washington State, Massachusetts, Denver, southern Georgia, and rural Texas. Most of the MERS vehicles are used rarely, if ever. “Billions of dollars were spent on such equipment, much of which is now gathering dust in Army depots,” the New York Times reports in 1994. [Emerson, 8/7/1989; Cox News Service, 2/22/1993; New York Times, 4/18/1994]