The United States Northern Command has sent teams of crucial personnel underground to protect them from Covid-19 pandemic.
Air Force General Terrence O' Shaughnessy directs U.S. Northern Command, as well as North American Aerospace Defense Command, in a joint U.S.-Canada operation that monitors the skies over North America for missiles and airborne threats. Earlier this week, O'Shaughnessy he told reporters that some of his teams would be moved from their usual command center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado to a number of armored underground bunkers.
One such facility is the Cheyenne Mountain bunker complex, a labyrinth of tunnels buried beneath 6.000 feet of granite and sealed behind blast doors designed to withstand a 30-megaton nuclear blast.
“Our professionals dedicated to NORAD and NORTHCOM command and control operations have left their homes, said goodbye to their families and are isolated from everyone to ensure they can sustain the commitment to defend our homeland every day”, O'Shaughnessy said. He also said that personnel sent underground will share the bunker with other members of the military, but "he is not authorized to say which ones."
Another team was sent to an undisclosed location, O'sSughnessy added.
Underground bunkers like Cheyenne Mountain are an integral part of the US government's plan to survive a doomsday scenario.
In the event of an existential threat, a nuclear attack, for example, the president and his officials, as well as a contingent of political, military, and civilian leaders would take refuge in four secure facilities to run the country even from underground depths.
These facilities are Cheyenne Mountain, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center under the White House, the Raven Rock Mountain Complex in Pennsylvania, and the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in Pennsylvania.
The current Covid-19 crisis hasn't triggered a mass exodus from Washington, but it may have done worse. It has pushed military leaders to take steps to ensure they remain combat-ready. After admitting that the U.S. military's readiness could be affected by the pandemic, Defense Secretary Thursday Mark Esper stated that the Pentagon would stop publishing accurate details on Covid-19 cases in its ranks. The purpose? Avoid revealing weaknesses to American opponents.
While some of O'sSughnessy's forces head into the mountains to wait out the pandemic in hermetic isolation, millions more on the surface will not have the same luxury. Army engineers are already deployed in New York to scout field hospital locations . A scenario that represents more than a third of the nearly 200.000 cases of the disease in the country.
As the crisis deepens, the U.S. military appears to be taking an all-out approach. Although the U.S. military is prohibited from carrying out police duties on American soil, President Trump signed an executive order last week. The measure authorizes the call-up of one million reserves and concerns army, navy, air force and coast guard personnel.
