The Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center is a government command facility located near Frogtown, Clarke County, Virginia, used as the center of operations for the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

(FEMA). Also known as the High Point Special Facility (HPSF), its preferred designation since 1991 is "SF". The facility is a primary relocation site for the highest level of civilian and military officials in case of national disaster, playing a significant role in

continuity of government Continuity of government (COG) is the principle of establishing defined procedures that allow a government to continue its essential operations in case of a catastrophic event such as nuclear war. Continuity of government was developed by the Br ...

(per the U.S. Continuity of Operations Plan). Mount Weather is the location of a control station for the FEMA National Radio System (FNARS), a

high frequency High frequency (HF) is the ITU designation for the band of radio waves with frequency between 3 and 30 megahertz (MHz). It is also known as the decameter band or decameter wave as its wavelengths range from one to ten decameters (ten to one ...

radio system connecting most federal public safety agencies and the U.S. military with most of the states. FNARS allows the president to access the

Emergency Alert System The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a Emergency population warning, national warning system in the United States designed to allow authorized officials to broadcast emergency alerts and warning messages to the public via Cable television, cable ...

. The site was brought into the public eye in 1974 by ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' and the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

, which mentioned the facility following the crash of TWA Flight 514, a

Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavier Boeing 707, 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter ...

jetliner, into Mount Weather on December 1 of that year resulting in the deaths of 92 people.

Location

Located in the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States and extends 550 miles southwest from southern ...

, access to the operations center is available via State Route 601 (also called Blue Ridge Mountain Road) in

Bluemont, Virginia Bluemont is an unincorporated village in Loudoun County, Virginia located at the eastern base of Snickers Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The village's center is located along Snickersville Turnpike ( Virginia Route 734), west of the inco ...

. The facility is located near

Purcellville, Virginia Purcellville is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia, Loudoun County, Virginia. The population was 8,929 according to the 2020 census. Purcellville is the major population center for Western Loudoun and the Loudoun Valley. Many of the older struct ...

, west of

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

The site was initially opened as a weather station in the late 1800s.

William Jackson Humphreys William Jackson Humphreys (February 3, 1862 – November 10, 1949) was an American physicist and atmospheric researcher. Biography Humphreys was born on February 3, 1862, in Gap Mills, Virginia, to Jackson and Eliza Ann (née Eads) Humphreys. ...

was selected as the supervising director for the Mount Weather Research Observatory, which was operational from 1904 to 1914. In 1928, the observatory building was the summer White House for

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously ...

. The site was used as a

Civilian Public Service The Civilian Public Service (CPS) was a program of the United States government that provided conscientious objectors with an alternative service, alternative to military service during World War II. From 1941 to 1947, nearly 12,000 draftees, wil ...

facility (Camp #114) during World War II. At that time, there were just two permanent buildings on the site: the administration/dormitory building, and the laboratory. Those buildings still stand, supplemented by many more modern buildings. The underground facility within Mount Weather, designated "Area B", was completed in 1959. FEMA established training facilities on the mountain's surface ("Area A") in 1979. The above-ground portion of the FEMA complex (Area A) is at least . This measurement includes a training area of unspecified size. Area B, the underground component, contains .

Notable activations and evacuations

The Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center saw the first full-scale activation of the facility during the Northeast blackout of 1965. According to a letter to the editor of ''

'', after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, most of the

congressional A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ad ...

leadership were evacuated to Mount Weather by helicopter. Between 1979 and 1981, the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

developed a program to transport valuable paintings in its collection to Mount Weather via helicopter. The success of the relocation would depend upon how far in advance warning of an attack was received.

In the media

The first video of Mount Weather shot from the air to be broadcast on national TV was filmed by ABC News producer Bill Lichtenstein, and was included in the 1983 '' 20/20'' segment "Nuclear Preparation: Can We Survive", featuring ''20/20'' correspondent Tom Jarriel. Lichtenstein flew over the Mount Weather facility with an ABC camera crew. The news magazine report also included House Majority Leader

Tip O'Neill Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill Jr. (December 9, 1912 – January 5, 1994) was an American Democratic Party politician from Massachusetts who served as the 47th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987, the third-l ...

and Representative

Ed Markey Edward John Markey (born July 11, 1946) is an American politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States Senate, United States senator from the state of Massachusetts, a seat he has held since 2013. A member of ...

, confirming that there were contingency plans for the relocation of the United States government in the event of a nuclear war or major disaster. Mount Weather and the now-deactivated bunker at The Greenbrier were featured in the A&E documentary ''Bunkers''. The documentary, first broadcast on October 23, 2001, features interviews with engineers and political and intelligence analysts and compares The Greenbrier and Mount Weather to

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

's control bunker buried beneath

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

Notes

References

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External links