The True Philadelphia Podcast With Matt O'donnell

The idea of the US government spending several decades preparing to ride out an apocalypse by building an entire city in a hollowed-out mountain is fascinating - and terrifying, all the same. This city is contained within a massive bunker carved out of an Appalachian mountain known as Raven Rock. Historian, author and journalist Garrett Graff wrote the definitive book about it. I spoke to Garrett via a Zoom connection from his home in Vermont about the analogies he's seeing between preparing for a nuclear holocaust and enduring a viral pandemic. We also talked about 9/11 and what similarities and differences he is seeing there. We talked about anticipating the craziest election in American history (Garrett worked on Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign). And yes, we talked a lot about the mountain, Raven Rock. Recorded on Zoom on May 26, 2020. In this podcast: I asked Garrett if writing a book about the US preparing for Armageddon helped him prepare for this ongoing pandemic (1:45), why it is so hard to a