Sales of disaster bunkers to idiots up 1000%

[Deep13]

http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/22/real_estate/doomsday_bunkers/index.htm?hpt=C2

This company sells space in underground bunkers for those worried about the Mayan calendar, the collapse of the economy, nuclear contamination, Armageddon, zombies I guess or whatever.

Some might wonder why these folks are not putting the money they are so eager to part with toward efforts to avoid disaster rather than taking the every-moron-for-himself approach. Of course, the fact that this company is accepting cash as payment means they don't really believe the end of the world is a realistic prospect.

[Kolesar]

1. We're gonna have a wing ding

A summer smoker underground
Just a dug out that my Dad built
Just in case the Reds decide to push the button down

[HughBeaumont]

36. Awesome, awesome AWESOME song and video.

That's one of the few videos from the 80s that actually made sense, and it had such a good simple ending. Donald Fagen made some good post-Steely Dan stuff.

[Kolesar]

40. That Be-bop era animation was a trip

It reminded me of Life Magazine ads from the 1960s.

When we encountered a grizzly on the trail last year, I asked my wife if she was wearing Ambush.

[Warpy]

2. Where there are frightened suckers, there's someone who's

eager to exploit them. In this case, I say go for it. Separate them from as much cash as they can.

At least the 1950s bunkers in the back yard later became useful as root cellars.

[devils chaplain]

3. I don't know if this is a bad personality trait, but...

... I don't think I'd want to live in a situation where it came down to hiding in an underground bunker to live.

[Deep13]

4. If it came to it, it is a decision each person would have to make.

Can't say either point of view is necessarily right.

[hlthe2b]

8. When I last visited Mesa Verde (ancient Indian cliff dwellings in CO)

I heard several tourists suggesting how they'd want to escape to these remote dwellings if the "end of the world" were near.... That is they expressed that UNTIL it was noted that fecal remains nearby were consistent with one or more large Mountain Lions.

LOL ;) Sometimes it may be better to just hang comfortably around home and take ones chances.

[WatsonT]

42. Not to mention that those sites are believed to have been abondoned due

to deforestation making it impossible to sustain such a civilization there. The area hasn't recovered since so if that's the plan be sure to bring your own food.

[slackmaster]

5. Several families in my neighborhood had Cold War bunkers in their back yards when I was a kid

Among those who did were several prominent physicists who had worked on the Manhattan Project or subsequent development of nuclear weapons.

[Xithras]

13. One of my first houses had one.

It was full of water, but we dropped a sump pump into it once and let it run for three days emptying it out. Most of the equipment had been stripped decades ago, and the leftover bits were rusted so badly that they were unrecognizeable, but it was still kinda neat. There was a fold-down desk bolted to one wall, and the remains of four fold down bedframes on two other walls. The whole thing was probably about 10 feet wide by 15 feet long. Not much space for a family of four.

The friend who lent me the pump BEGGED me to let him put some grow lights in it, but I turned him down and we closed it up. Within a week it was full of water again.

[slackmaster]

17. My friends and I pumped one out and used it as a photographic darkroom for a summer

Back when you needed a darkroom to do photography.

[Xithras]

21. This one wasn't in nearly good enough condition for that.

It actually looked like someone had taken a giant steel water tank and buried it on its side underground. I'd imagine that it was pretty slick when it was first built, but after several decades of flooding, there wasn't much left of the walls. The only structural strength came from the unreinforced concrete they'd wrapped the shelter in (using the "stack the bags and get them wet" method). It was neat, but I wasn't too eager to hang out in it and trust the integrity of the ceiling.

[RKP5637]

6. Now, if Palin were elected in 2012 ... n/t

[ClarkUSA]

7. P.T. Barnum was right.

[devils chaplain]

10. Except...

... I think the "minute" needs to be revised in proportion to the population increase since his time. And I don't think I'd trust the owners of this thing to honor their $10,000 agreement to let me into this underground party house in the event of the apocalypse.

[ClarkUSA]

25. heh

You're probably right. ;)

[hobbit709]

9. Wait until they all crawl in, then padlock them from the outside.

[dkofos]

11. Aren't these the same people who expect to raptured??

[Urban Prairie]

12. Those disaster bunkers better be well hidden, secret, secure, and defendable

otherwise, roving bands of survivors desperately trying to continue to do so, might just attempt to commandeer their carefully planned and carried out preparations. I can picture these idiots bragging about having one or more, and maybe even showing them off, to relatives, friends, and/or colleagues, who would remember "afterward".

It would be truly ironic, if a catastrophe actually occurred, while they were away, or due to their more remote location, that somehow prevented them from getting to their bunkers...heh!!

[Possumpoint]

20. Stock Them WIth

Plenty of food, water, guns and ammo. Lots of reading material wouldn't hurt too.

[CrawlingChaos]

39. That was an episode of The Twilight Zone

"The Shelter", 1961. Description from IMDB:

"A suburban dinner party is interrupted by a bulletin warning of an impending nuclear attack. As the neighbors scramble to prepare themselves, they turn against the one family that installed a permanent bomb shelter."

It was a pretty good one, as I remember, although it's been awhile.

[patrick t. cakes]

14. complete with fake ficus....nt

[Possumpoint]

15. Funny

watched a very interesting piece on the end of the first dynasty in Egypt. Everything was going great and all of a sudden the population starts shrinking and relocating. It got so bad, history for that time records that people started eating their children. Turns out that the problem was bigger then Egypt alone. That whole ME area suffered a 200 year drought that stopped the annual flooding of the Nile. Harbors filled in with wind blown sand. Mesopotamia and Ethiopia had the same problem too. Something happened the North Atlantic current and it stopped flowing. Altered rainfall in Ethiopia and Mesopotamia.

Point is, don't fall into the things have been good in the past so therefore they will be good in the future. That's the "Normalcy Bias" that screws humans up. They fail to prepare for things not being good. I think that many Japanese, seeing that the sea walls held during previous tsunamis, didn't seek higher ground. They were not expecting a 30 foot high tsunami. It cost them.

How much you prepare is your decision. I believe its better to prepare and be wrong then not prepare and be wrong.

[Urban Prairie]

23. Preparing for the millenium "computer bug" nearly bankrupted an ex co-worker of mine n/t

[Possumpoint]

26. The Generator

That I bought for Y2K was first used during the power outage caused by hurricane Isabel. I was able to not only protect my food but allowed 5 of my neighbor families to use it to protect their food also. During the power outage cause by Snowmegdon, winter of 10, I had lights, heat, TV and radio. We took a kerosene heater to elderly neighbor so it could provide heat and light to them. They were able to heat water for coffee and tea with it.

If you don't have preparations, you may end up dead in the water.

[Urban Prairie]

27. I really have nothing against people who can afford to REALLY prepare for the worst

possible scenario, or even for a short lived one, but in our current situation, my wife and I actually are just trying to eke out a living and barely survive now as "it" is, much less after or during a catastrophe, which in our case even one of a relatively brief duration, probably would do us in, and likely within a very short time.



:shrug:

Edit: We also made some "reasonable" preparations in case of trouble during Y2K, since we live in a cold-weather state, (back when I "was" still a homeowner...sigh) I had plenty of firewood and fireplace pipes to help heat the house, but the last item, which was a decent size generator, was really too much for our budget, since I had to convert my home's 2 fuseboxes (the second fusebox having been added by the previous homeowner, when they had a rear sunroom addition built, that "fusebox" was a jerry-rigged mess of mislabeled fuses and confusing wires attached to the 15 and 20 amp fuses) to circuit-breakers, and paid an electrician to do it, (even though I might have been able to do it myself) but fortunately, my late mother in law worked at Sears back then, and we got her employee discount by paying cash, and was able to return it after "nothing" happened.

My sister and her doctor husband (an ob/gyn) were/are quite wealthy, and her husband scoffed at the idea of preparing for Y2K when we visited them on Thanksgiving of '99, and I asked him if they were ready. It turned out that he was right, but since they knew that we had, it wouldn't have surprised me if they would have shown up at our doorstep if something had happened, since their mansion was too huge to heat and power and they had no generator or supply of firewood at all for their several fireplaces.

[hunter]

33. A lot of work was done beforehand to make sure the Y2K bug didn't bite.

Even so there were still a few outages caused by old computer code going whack, but these were contained quickly because people were prepared. If I remember correctly a few chunks of the U.S. credit card processing systems went down, in some cases rejecting cards, in other cases charging customers twice.

I worked in a place that was running final tests on their Y2K compliant software in 1992. These were critical medical systems so they were not taking any chances.

[Deep13]

31. I'm all for being prepared.

I just don't think spending thousands of dollars to live in a hole is preparation.

[NeedleCast]

16. Making Money Based on the Computer Game Fallout is Awesome

[TacoD]

45. Vault-Tec was what I thought of too (nt)

[barbtries]

18. thank you for that headline.

i so needed to laugh. :rofl:

[lunatica]

19. Aren't those the same people who believe we're in the End Times?

[MidwestTransplant]

22. I bought into one as soon as we we elected a black president.

I wonder what percent of these people are t-baggers/freepers.

[Urban Prairie]

24. Maybe a good topic for a movie or better still a "fake" reality TV series

Survivor: Nuclear Accident, with 100 or more smelly and stinky survivors attempting to co-exist in a cramped and gradually deteriorating/running out of supplies/food/water underground bunker like the one on that website.

[Javaman]

34. Falling Sky.

Check it out.

[lame54]

28. TU - Teabagger Underground

[provis99]

29. I don't need one.

I covered my windows with plastic wrap and duct tape to keep out disasters just like my government told me.

[EstimatedProphet]

30. Joke's on them! The world will end on May 21st this year!

http://www.wecanknow.com/

[marions ghost]

32. McMansions

are the new disaster bunker. :shrug:

[JoeyT]

35. Best scam ever.

You build one big bunker and sell space in it to a million different people.
What are they going to do, sue you after the world ends? Fuck 'em!

[Skidmore]

37. Armageddon?? SOme people must not have enough faith that

they will be raptured if they are investing in these.

[felix_numinous]

38. Do they lock from the outside?

Sorry I am extra plus evil tonight :evilgrin:

[ileus]

41. You could build one much cheaper on your own.

[WatsonT]

43. Nothing wrong with being prepared and having a plan

however the people who get in to it for these fad-type reasons are unlikely to be the type that is really prepared for anything.

It's not that hard to start your own stockpile and getting an education on useful skills will likely be even more valuable. (what are you going to eat when the food runs out? Best to learn how to skin a rabbit before you're starving and sickly).

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

44. My house has a bunker

It was added by the original owners sometime in the early 80's, a very, very eccentric Chinese couple. I use it for storing pet supplies. But I guess when the zombies come I will be grateful for it and my hoard of alfalfa pellets.