President John F. Kennedy’s doomsday bunker in Tom Nevers was recently vandalized, and Nantucket police believe someone may have used a vehicle to rip the bunker’s heavy metal door open and off its hinges.
An island resident was going for his usual walk at the Tom Nevers park property last weekend when he noticed the bunker’s large green door ajar and called the police to report it.
“(He) informed me that he often walks the property as he lives close, however he had just gotten back to the island and hasn’t walked the area in four weeks,” officer Chase Colasurdo said in a police report. “He did say that four weeks ago the door was not vandalized.”
At the entrance to the bunker there are now two tire tracks dug into the ground. Officers believe that they may belong to a vehicle that pulled the door open and off of its hinges.
It is unclear what would have enticed a vandal to use a vehicle to break into the bunker, as it’s been largely empty for years. But Colasurdo reported that when he checked the interior of the bunker to make sure no one was inside and that it was empty, he noticed large amounts of debris and trash on the floor. It is unclear whether this trash was new or had been there for some time.
“I was unable to secure the door back into a position where people could not gain access to the bunker so I asked for the DPW to come and block off the entrance,” Colasurdo wrote. “I was unable to locate any cameras in the area, however several of the homes in the area were vacant and I was unable to ask for camera footage.”
The case is being turned over to the Nantucket Police Department’s Detectives Unit for further investigation and extra patrols will be added at night to prevent people from entering the bunker.
The bunker was built in the early 1960s on the now-defunct U.S. Navy base in Tom Nevers as a shelter for President Kennedy and his family when the prospect of a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union escalated during the early days of the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis. The site was chosen because of its close proximity to the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis.
You can read more about the history of this Bunker by clicking here.
