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I have wanted to see this place for some time and conveniently scheduled my sales calls this morning so I would be in the area around lunch. Sure enough, I was just a few minutes away and headed over.
I parked my car on the side of the road, grabbed my gear and took 5 steps before encountering a shallow ditch with standing water. It was a bit wide so I got a running start, and splat! The shallow ditch was not so shallow. All the way up to my crotch in mud and water. Almost loosing my boots in the process, I managed to pull myself out and needless to say the afternoon sales calls were shot!
Making the most of a bad situation I headed down the 75 year old road that used to house army munitions. Today the place could be used for jungle warfare training. About a dozen well built concrete roads run parallel together and I had a general idea where I was going. After hiking about a mile the road ended and I found nothing so I made my way back up to the entrance and moved over to the next one.
Again nothing. Bleeding from the thorny bushes, thirsty, muddy and water logged I stopped for a breather and more importantly a smoke. Sitting on the log while contracting West Nile Virus, AIDS and god knows what else from the mosquitoes bleeding me dry I decide to take another look at google earth and some photos I had found.
Our friends at google were of little use but I found some clues in the old pics so I made my way back to the car and headed down to the very last of the parallel roads.
PAY DIRT! Literally. Where lush South Texas jungle once stood, now only piles of dirt and concrete were visible. A dump truck and bulldozer were moving earth around and it looked like they had leveled about 8 of these old buildings. Off to the right side there was a single building still standing.
I grabbed my gear again and made my way to the site. As I approached the dozer driver whistled to his buddy and work ceased. I was about 300 yards from them so I stopped, grabbed my telephoto lens and started shooting in case they ran me off.
I finally meet the dozer guy who didnt speak english so I just pointed to my camera, then to the one remaining building. He just shrugged so I figured that was as good as a yes.
I set up the tripod, laid in my settings when what comes tearing down the road but a pickup truck. He stops in a hail of dust, gets out and asks me what I'm doing. It seemed fairly obvious but I just replied that I was taking pictures of the old depot before it was gone. We chatted a couple of minutes, he lightened up a lot and told me that the one I was photographing was the last one on that side of the road and it too will be torn down soon in order to make room for oil storage tanks.
I got a couple of more shots and made my way back to the car. As I was leaving, on the other side of the road I noticed another one of these buildings and snapped off a couple of more pics. in my soaking socks as my boots were laying on the back seat...
If any of you have been to this site and want to see it again, you may want to get there soon. This relic of a time when weapons of mass destruction were the norm is about to be just a distant bad memory.
1. Leveled
2. Lone Survivor
3. Interior
4. Entrance
5. This one sits on private property so it will probably be there a while.
6.
7. Locked up tight.
8.
9. Another one off in the distance - again on private property.
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These all appear to be on the north side of the road are the depot buildings on the south side still there?
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Mmmmm, bunkery goodness. I wuv bunkers.
Thank you for sharing.
Just when I thought I was out... they pulled me back in.
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The two westernmost roads ended in a barbed wire fence. The eastern third is gone - plowed under. The parallel road to the east that's visible on google earth is the demarcation of what's been plowed (next to the existing storage tanks). According to the construction guy there weren't any more down the road to the south. That was quite a haul to walk and I was ready to take his word for it...
There may still be a few down there but it's quite the hike. The only road that's really close to this runs directly through a parking lot used by the cops so I parked across the street and walked over the tracks.
Now would be a good time to go as the eastern parallel road is good and I suspect pretty soon that whole area will be STRICTLY off limits because of the storage tanks.
[last edit 10/22/2015 1:41 AM by Peptic Ulcer - edited 1 times]
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I remember back in the late 1980s most of the bunkers and other buildings were storing what looked like files, parts and other older if I can remember correctly what looked like 1950s 60s and 70s surplus stuff. There was well over a 100 structures on the property. The building of Beltway 8 sliced off the western section, the northern section starting in the late 1990s begain getting cleared off. I have not been out there in a while.
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Posted by Peptic Ulcer
This relic of a time when weapons of mass destruction were the norm is about to be just a distant bad memory.
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Not trying to ruin your excitement or anything, but the munitions storage igloos you depicted would not have stored 'just" conventional munitions. By writing WMD, I & I think most others think of nuclear weapons.
/-/oolie
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people. | |
I don't believe there were ever any nukes stored at SJOD, igloos are a lot like what we see on USAF bases though with the exception of the secondary security vault inside.
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The "WMD's" I referred to were chemical weapons.
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