Colorado Springs – No nuke ever shook her like this. And thousands of feet under granite, secretary Maggie Petrowske braced for moving orders today.
She still hopes to work for as long as possible in the Cold War bunker under Cheyenne Mountain that – despite incessant drips and phone calls from people seeking free rides to space – became home.
The 57-year-old Minnesotan has served 16 NORAD commanding generals since she arrived in 1988.
“This has been an extraordinary place to work,” she said. “Underlying everything is a sense that what we do is important to the whole country.”
Her days run from dawn into night. “When you turn off the lights in here, there’s no place darker.”
Mountain insiders point to Petrowske as the one who knows everything, such as where the general will move next. De-conflicting generals’ schedules grew increasingly difficult after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, she said, as homeland defense broadened.
She also knew where a newspaper-carrying fox last was seen on the twisting road up to the tunnel, when to avoid the trash bins due to bears, secrets of staying sane without sunlight (stroll outside once a day), and how to reach the FBI if callers seeking free rides also make serious threats.
A few years ago, the FBI notified her that one of her callers later threatened to bomb a military base in Washington state. If he calls again, the FBI agent said, try to find where he is.
Sure enough, the man called the next day, needing to make an intergalactic getaway. Petrow ske said she knew of a flight to the space shuttle launch pad, but needed his address. He gave it, and his room number, in Seattle. She relayed it. The FBI nabbed him in time.
There were pros. No window-washing. And cons. “The first 10 years I worked here, there was no way to work without getting dripped on.” (Each morning at 7, she walks through the 2,000-foot tunnel entrance, rather than ride the blue bus.) When engineers finally stretched white plastic across the moist ceiling, “it totally ruined the aesthetics of the tunnel. But it saved our hairdos.”
Petrowske reached across her desk for a pearl-gray piece of granite – a piece of the mountain she plans to take when she leaves.
