Cheyenne Mountain
“Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past.” [Isaiah 26:20]
Hidden 2,000 feet beneath Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, is the world’s most sophisticated military headquarters. NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, is a joint U.S. and Canadian command center, set up in the 1960s. Their task was to coordinate military efforts in the event of nuclear attack and monitor the skies and space for possible threats.
To accomplish this, NORAD had to be built to survive a direct hit from conventional nuclear weapons. So, 4.5 acres were excavated from solid granite to form a small city of chambers deep beneath the mountain. Twelve of these inner buildings are three stories tall. To enter the complex you must drive down a tunnel one-third of a mile long and through a pair of 25-ton steel blast doors. To resist the shock from a nuclear attack, all of the buildings in the complex are freestanding and do not touch the granite walls. The rooms are mounted on 1,319 steel springs that weigh about 1,000 pounds each. This allows the complex to shift 12 inches in any direction.
To make the compound self-sufficient, it contains a dining facility, medical facility with dental office, pharmacy, and a small clinic. It also has two physical fitness centers with exercise equipment and sauna, a small base exchange, chapel, and barber shop. Water comes from a spring within the mountain and is stored in four reservoirs that hold 1.5 million gallons each. Incoming air can be filtered to remove any harmful germs, chemicals, or radioactive particles. For backup power they have six huge 2,800-hp diesel generators. This self-sufficient design allows NORAD to provide its own power, water, air, and food for up to 800 people for 30 days.
But it is still not tough enough to survive the second coming of Christ. The Bible says about this event, “And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!’ For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:15-17). On that day, not even a command center deep in the earth will hide people from Jesus’ coming.
