Push Button Nuclear, Bio-Chemical Safe Houses to Be Built in Chattanooga

The Tennessee Valley goes high-tech with a push button, nuclear and bio-chemical shelter.

Manufacturing of those shelters will take place right here in Chattanooga and up to 300 people will make a lot of money to build them.

The next time a major disaster hits, a product made right here in Chattanooga could be on the ground helping with emergency response... A Rapid Deployment Shelter System.

Randy Spikard, VP of Science Technology and Partnership for the Y-12 National Security Complex says after a video demonstration Wednesday at the UTC Sim Center, "You saw in the video how quickly this can be deployed, how easily it can be transported so it will significantly increase our ability to respond to disasters..."

Disasters and even military situations... Members of Y-12 in Oak Ridge and private sector company Adaptive Methods signed an agreement to manufacture the RDSS.

The shelters fold down to the size of a semi-trailer and open into a 400 foot nuclear and bio-chemical protected room with the push of a button.

Inventor Lee Bzorgi says, "Logistically it's the fact that it doesn't require 10 soldiers to move around with it and one person can open it and close it in less that two minutes."

Adaptive Methods plans to locate a RDSS plant in Hamilton Co.

The shelters can be used for disaster response, medical facilities, and even housing.

Adaptive Methods VP of Manufacturing Keith Buckner says, "We anticipate that this technology will actually expand to world wide applications very quickly."

Initially the company will employ 100 highly skilled engineers, but could add up to 200 once the manufacturing beings.

Congressman Zach Wamp says it's a great way to use technologies developed with tax payer dollars to benefit the Tennessee Valley, "It's exactly what we've wanted economically. To have these manufacturing opportunities that solve the problems of the world."

Adaptive Methods is already scouting for a manufacturing site in Hamilton County, and expects to begin making the RDSS by the Spring of 2009.