Suburban Underground Vadders

Standard Industries

Manufacturers of reliable batteries and permalife glass fiber.

Let me just start off by saying, wow. This place is really a find, to bad it’s filled with toxic chemicals and hazardous waste. Good thing I know how to come prepared.

The first time that we came here Marbrough and I (RevSM) decided to wait before venturing in, mostly because we were unsure if the alarm system was still in working condition. Yeah, it appeared that there was a motion detector set up at the fence line to deter trespassers and we knew that it had the potential to be in working condition because this place still has power. We knew that we must have set off the alarm by just being there so we decided to come back for a look during the day another time.

I did more research on this place and found out that it is huge! Check out an overhead image of the facility (thanks GlobeXplorer):

We came back with Pale Blue Corpse and that was when we realized that the line connecting to the motion detector had been cut. It would seem that the problem had been solved for us. Unfortunately there was a farmer on a tractor and a guy on a backhoe in the adjacent fields that saw us driving up. We decided that we would go see a show at the local club and come back after dark. Before we left I stopped my car next to a cardboard box in the parking lot to see what was inside. I never expected to see… PORN?!?! Yeah, a big box of porn, weird place for it. But Pale Blue Corpse likes even the vintage used stuff, or something, and decided it was his.

Well, Marbrough and Pale Blue Corpse was unavailable to check the place out later that night but The Noize Technician was so we decided to go without them. Getting in was easy. I was up and over the fence in a second next to the front gate where the barbed wire had been beaten down into the rest of the chain link fence. Next to the gate was a small building that once served as a guard post. The part on the other side of the fence had a sliding glass door but was securely shut tight by the wood blocks in place. The side that I was now on, however had another sliding glass door but was smashed to glittering bits all over the ground. Oh well, that made it easy to remove the blocks and let Noize Tech right in.

We let ourselves in through the open garage door at the loading dock and stepped into the junction of 2 buildings. A single fluorescent light dimly lighted the one to the right. Directly to the right was what looked like offices? Seemed to be a good place to start.

Now some pics! Keep in mind that the color pictures were taken with a super flash and do not really depict the mood of this place. Everything was nearly pitch black once the fluorescent light was out of view. The black and white pics are from the first trip and the color ones are from the second. Also, you will notice that we are wearing respiration protection knowing that we did not really know what to expect when exploring an abandoned battery factory.

This is a picture of the first office area that we came to that had large cubicles separated by wood partitions. That is me (RevSM) on the left and Axis Nemesis on the right. As you can see we are prepared with proper respiration protection from acid gasses. I am wearing my personal fave, the British S-10 gasmask used by the SAS and Axis is using the Canadian M-69.

Here’s Marbrough on the left and Axis on the right, Marbrough is using the US M25A1 tank crew mask because it was the only one we brought that he could use while wearing glasses. This office area is filled with broken discarded testing equipment and stacks of filing cabinets full of documents like the one behind Axis.

Again, it was very dark before the flash went off for this photo so not everything got fit in but certainly heed the warnings on the brightly colored signs on the wall. The orange one lists the chemical hazards ahead. This is the entrance to the Lab!

Click to enter the lab…