Vault 97

Vault 97 was a Vault-Tec Vault located off the shore of North Carolina underneath the Diamond Shoal Lighthouse. It was one of the few vaults designed with the intention of being underwater as opposed to being chiefly subterranean, though most of the structure was still below the sandbar. Only the elevator shaft and entrance complex is above the sandbar. There is an extensive docking platform built into the lighthouse. The vault was designated as the official fallback vault for people in the Southeast unable to reach their designated vault in time. Because of this, it was one of the last vaults closed - nearly two weeks after the Great War was the official date the Vault was sealed.
Above the surface, Diamond Shoals Lighthouse was turned into a decontamination unit for possibly-irradiated people entering the Vault. It contained living quarters as well as communications arrays. Following the war, of course, the vault lost contact with anyone above the surface, though it would later be used to monitor communications among survivors in the Broken Banks. The lighthouse also contained a number of reusable life-rafts for survivors once 25 years had passed. The issues that plagued the Vault were due to its engineering rather than its experiment - to examine how a society might develop on an artificial island. Rather, the experiment had the unintended effect of dooming most of the Vault once evacuation became necessary. Vault 97 had been given a G.E.C.K., ample resources to turn the lighthouse and vault complex into a thriving community, but the life rafts were unusable to prevent inhabitants from returning to land and tampering with the experiment. What could have been a post-war arcology instead became yet another sunken headstone in the Graveyard of the Atlantic...
==Construction==
Unlike other vaults, which tended to have a wide, spread-out layout, Vault 97 was built like a spiral and extended deep into the bedrock, with many elevators and stairwells servicing many smaller floors. This was because building a habitable structure under submerged terrain is very difficult and reducing the horizontal surface area also reduced the need to dig new rooms under shallow rock, thus risking flooding. Being built like a spiral also meant that if the vault flooded, water would collect at the bottom first, allowing the residents to shut off flooded portions of the vault as they tried to fix the problem.
Though this did its job at keeping water out, the undistributed weight of the vault began to pull the entire structure down, causing tension on the elevators to the surface. Though this merely caused loud noises the first time it was raised (irritating the Mirelurk population which had begun to call Diamond Shoals Lighthouse home), it would not be used again for nearly another century, at which point the elevator became stuck, requiring survivors to have to climb another 15 feet out of the elevator shaft and angering the Mirelurks in the area with the noise. The entire structure sinking would also pull the entire lighthouse down, resulting in the water level eventually reaching the first floor of the above-water complex and allowing it to become inundated with marine life.
Construction began in 2060. Though Vault 97 was actually one of the earlier vaults to begin construction, it would be among the last finished. The process of digging out the structure lasted six years alone and would be plagued by labor strikes, bad weather, and a fire in 2064 which killed eight people. Building the vault itself would not be completed until 2075, and the renovation of Diamond Shoals lighthouse finished in July of 2077.
===Layout===
Above the surface was Diamond Shoal Lighthouse, a 120 ft tall tower and platform constructed in 1966 by the US Coast Guard. The platform's first floor contained about 10 bedrooms, a meeting room, and multipurpose food production rooms. The second floor was a flat, open roof which doubled as a helipad. The lighthouse remained automated and lit well past the Great War. Underneath the structure, cranes were constructed to lower or raise lifeboats as needed. In the dead center of the structure was the vault elevator. It was constructed similarly to Vault 111's elevator and the Vault door was horizontal rather than vertical. Built into the sediment and soft, underwater sand were further decontamination units, which were much more spartan and intended to serve as overflow for people trying to get into the vault.
The Vault had 12 levels from top to bottom:
*Level 1: Basic food production, water purifiers, sanitation, clean water, storage for above-ground supplies or additional vault supplies.
*Level 2: Air filtration, engineering, machine shop, electrical, security.
*Level 3: Atrium upper level, administration, hospital & crematorium, maintenance office.
*Level 4: Atrium lower level, diner, bar, common area.
*Level 5: Gymnasium, school, library.
*Levels 6-10: Residential units.
*Level 11: Computer room.
*Level 12: Water recycler & sewage treatment.
==History==
===The Great War===
On October 23, 2077, nuclear war engulfed the world. Those lucky few selected for life in the Vault hid underground, though many did not reach their vaults in time. Those given the option to relocate to Vault 76 were usually Vault-Tec representatives or their families who lived in the southeast. A number of locals won chances to enter the vault through raffle. Anyone operating the lighthouse was also given a slot. Vault-Tec owned and operated small facilities near Norfolk, Wilmington, and Charleston. These facilities contained boats for the survivors. By the time the bombs fell, all boats were already at sea, though the ships escaping Norfolk were on the edge of a thermal blast and there were many injuries. In total, 400 people had made it.
Every day for the next two weeks, a boat would be sent to these safehouses to collect survivors. These would bring another 200 survivors in total. Diamond Shoals lighthouse served as temporary housing as these survivors were isolated in case of radiation sickness, illness, or injury.
Category:Vault-Tec Vault