Old fallout shelter catches Continental's eye=20 09:08 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 By Jason Whitely / 11 News=20 Click to watch video Just east of the Havens Landing RV Park in Montgomery County, a cold war re= lic is buried beneath 50 feet of earth.=20 "You know, no one really got a chance to come down here and see what was he= re," Westlin Corporation's David Herr said.=20 Now, some 16 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the owners of a = 25-year-old nuclear fallout shelter have converted it into a secure undergr= ound data center.=20 Houston-based Continental Airlines recently chose the site as a back-up ope= rations center to use in the event of a citywide disaster like Hurricane Ri= ta posed last year.=20 The underground bunker will house the airline=E2=80=99s backup computers an= d data systems to monitor its planes around the globe in the event Continen= tal can not use its primary control room at its headquarters in downtown Ho= uston.=20 =E2=80=9CIt=E2=80=99s virtually impenetrable,=E2=80=9D said Julie King, a s= pokeswoman for Continental Airlines.=20 Designed in the 1980s by a Chinese oilman fearful of a third world war, the= 50-feet deep bunker was capable of sustaining 1,500 people for up to 90 da= ys. The 40,000 square foot bunker is outfitted with its own utilities such = as water and power, plus was built with oddities like a morgue and jail cel= ls.=20 "Remember that the bunker was built for almost 700 people for a couple of m= onths," Westlin said. "My daughter asked me the same question when we went = through this. I said, 'you know you're down here in the bunker with that ma= ny people; there's no TV, no Internet, no radio. All you can do is sit arou= nd and play Monopoly and Scrabble with everybody else.' She said, 'OK, now = I understand.'"=20 Also online=20 Bunker Continental recently retrofitted 15,000 square feet of an above gro= und building near the bunker to house up to 275 of its staffers if the airl= ine ever had to evacuate its Houston skyscraper. That structure alone is bu= ilt with bulletproof glass. The underground facility would only be manned b= y several of the airline=E2=80=99s IT employees in the event a Category Thr= ee hurricane or higher threatened Houston, said Julie King, a spokeswoman f= or Continental.=20 The Westlin Corporation now manages the site, which is 55 miles northwest o= f downtown Houston. Westlin leases out the two-level underground shelter to= companies like Continental looking for a secure space to store data.=20 Twenty companies use it to house duplicate computer servers.=20 Anadarko Petroleum reportedly rents space at the bunker along with the gove= rnment of Montgomery County and other companies.=20 =20 =20 View our videos at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=3Dewrw4co =20 Roger & Amanda La France