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Inside Donald Trump's doomsday bunker: Built to withstand a nuclear strike

A large law enforcement response is seen near the White House after a protest was dispersed - Getty
A large law enforcement response is seen near the White House after a protest was dispersed - Getty

It is perhaps the safest place on Earth, designed to withstand a direct hit from a nuclear bomb, and equipped with communications systems to run the world's only superpower.

Five storeys beneath the White House the US president's last refuge is said to be an impregnable subterranean fortress which no rioter could ever hope to reach.

As clashes erupted outside the White House in recent days Donald Trump was taken to his bunker by Secret Service agents, the first time that has happened to a president in nearly two decades.

He was guided through tunnels and bank vault-style doors which sealed hermetically behind him.

The official name for the bunker is the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC).

It was originally dug out and constructed in the Second World War for Franklin Roosevelt, but was enlarged by Harry Truman.

The location is underneath the East Wing, the residential wing of the White House.

On September 11, 2001 Dick Cheney, the vice president, was rushed down to the bunker amid fears another plane was about to hit the White House. Others taken there that day included National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush.

President George W. Bush was not in the White House at the time but arrived later.

Mrs Bush later gave the best description there is of the bunker. She described being taken down "flights and flights of stairs" because the Secret Service considered the elevator too risky. Then she went "through a pair of big steel doors that closed behind me with a loud hiss, forming an airtight seal".

After that there was an unfinished underground corridor with old tile floors, pipes hanging from the ceiling and "all kinds of mechanical equipment."

Mrs Bush was taken to a small conference room with a large table, and there were televisions, phones, and communications facilities. Later, she was offered a foldout bed that "looked like it had been installed when FDR was president".

She said: "George and I stared at it, and and we both said no."

The main PEOC operations room was 600 sq ft, with wood panels on the ceiling, and had a large conference table for 16 people. On one blank wall was a large official seal and at both ends were big TV screens.

Donald Trump walks out through the anti-ballistic glass entrance to the White House North Portico - Reuters
Donald Trump walks out through the anti-ballistic glass entrance to the White House North Portico - Reuters

Photographs in the National Archives show Mr Cheney sitting solemnly at the table on September 11,2001 with stacks of paper coffee cups and a thermos.

The room itself has been recreated in numerous Hollywood films including White House Down and Vice, and the TV drama House of Cards.

However, in the aftermath of the terror attacks it was found that the bunker was only good for keeping the US leadership safe, and did not allow them to run operations as they could from the less secure White House Situation Room.

They did not even have the capacity to address the nation on television.

It is believed that under Barack Obama $375 million was spent expanding the PEOC into a so-called "super bunker". A massive building project was officially described as involving infrastructure, but it is thought the bunker was extended under the North Lawn of the White House.

According to author Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post reporter and Secret Service expert, it is big enough to host the whole White house staff with its own food and air supply for months.

It is "at least five storeys deep" and "can house the staff of the entire West Wing indefinitely in the event of a weapons of mass destruction attack," Kessler wrote. "Its existence is classified."

There is said to be biometric security, a vastly improved communications system, and walls thick enough to withstand radiation. Mr Trump was given a tour of it soon after he took office and instructed how to use it in an emergency, according to Kessler.