In this age of crazy storms and earthquakes on the wrong coast, I’m excited to write about a recent discovery.

A couple of months ago I got a call from a gentleman explaining that he had just unearthed a warehouse full of what appeared to be old medical equipment still in wooden crates. The warehouse they were stored in needed to be emptied and the stuff would end up in a landfill unless Michaan’s could “rescue” the property and find a new home for it.

When the crates were delivered, I was shocked. They easily could fill a double garage, but all bore lovely stenciled descriptions of what they contained.

Sterilizers, Sutures, Catgut, Bone Mallets, Needles and Cots. What on earth was going on? After a little poking around — thanks again, Berkeley Public Library — I learned that we have a portion of a Cold War era Civil Defense Packaged Disaster Hospital.

Organized Civil Defense has existed in the United States since World War I and grew in importance during the World War II. It was not until Sept. 23, 1949, when President Truman announced that the Russians successfully had detonated an atomic bomb, however, that the idea of a well-organized and finely tuned Civil Defense was on the minds of most Americans.

By the late 1940s, Boy Scouts, amateur radio enthusiasts, police and fire departments were all trained in basic emergency communication methods. By the early 1950s, training had expanded to include radiological monitoring and medical health assessment, and training spread to nurses. The federal government released a film, “Survival Under Atomic Attack,” and distributed millions of copies of a pamphlet of the same name.

As nation’s population increased and increasingly moved to suburbs, the federal government put into play a national policy on attack. The first step would be to assess damage to roads, structures and mines; second, determine methods to disseminate information; third, accelerate research on fallout protection; fourth, construct shelters and fifth, incorporate fallout shelters in public and private buildings.

In the summer of 1961, President Kennedy asked Congress for $207 million to plan and create shelters to protect Americans from a nuclear attack, and in October 1962, the Cuban missile crisis seemed to make imminent attack a possibility.

The 8.4 Alaskan earthquake (later revised to 9.2) proved to be an opportunity to test the efficacy of some of these survival strategies. Alaskans experienced tidal waves, floods, power and communication outages. Amateur radio operators trained by the Civil Defense were among the first to re-establish communication.

What we have lotted for auction is a portion of a Cold War-era Civil Defense Packaged Disaster Hospital. By 1964, the United States had 1,930 of these packaged hospitals stored around the country. Interestingly, American Samoa and Guam — the only two territories anywhere near the original Bikini atoll atomic test site — had none.

The storage sites were chosen to be within 50 miles of the area served but no closer than 15 miles to a designated Critical Target Area. Each unit held a complete 200-bed hospital designed to be set up in a preselected building within a few days of a disaster. The fully functioning hospitals included surgical units, laboratories, X-ray suites, pharmacies, wards and administrative areas. When operational, they take up about 15,000 square feet; stored they are less than 2,000 cubic feet.

Items will be sold Sept. 6-7 at Michaan’s Auction. Preview begins Sept. 4. Estimates are low ranging, from $10 to $50. Now is the time to stock up on folding stretchers that double as cots — the holidays are right around the corner.

Jane Alexiadis is an appraiser with Michaan’s Auctions. Send your questions, any history, a brief description and measurements to whatsitworth@michaans.com. No more than three photos.