In the end, the only way to keep a big EOTW bunker hidden is to either locate it so obscurely that you hardly need a bunker, or put it behind expansive fences patrolled by well-fed and happy troops with strong fighting positions. A government can do that, maybe. For a while. A movie star can’t.
This is a lesson certain now-rich people are going to learn if (may the gods forbid) they ever get a chance to try their zillion-dollar urban bunkers for realsies.
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Seriously, a swimming pool? An average California backyard pool holds around 25,000 gallons so heavily contaminated with the chemicals that keep it from turning green only a fool dying of thirst would ever consider drinking from it. And if you’re trapped down there long enough, you will be that fool. I can think of better ways to store water. I hope the bunker designers can, too. But if they could, would they really waste space on…
…a greenhouse? Seriously? Do these people know how much space it takes to actually feed yourself from a garden? Or how much time? Do they know how much electricity it would take to do it underground? Where is this electricity coming from? Where is the waste heat from all that lighting going? (Yes, even CFLs of sufficient wattage to serve as growlights produce a lot of heat.) Ever see a cannabis grow room? Wonder why all that elaborate ducting, just to grow a few plants? There’s a reason greenhouses are always above ground.
“Power technology has improved tremendously thanks in part to Tesla and lithium-ion batteries that only degrade a maximum of 10 percent after 30 years,”
How many batteries would you need to simultaneously light your greenhouse, your game room, conference room, bowling alley, media room, pool room, gym, kitchen, several luxury bedrooms, while running the extensive HVAC system, the pool pumps, the sauna … How are you charging the batteries? With that “power room?” What are you using for fuel? Where’s the exhaust going, that’s not giving away the show to the ravening mobs? Have any of these people ever specced out a power system in their lives? You’ll need to run that generator constantly, using that magically infinite supply of fuel you’ve got squirreled away. What’s the point of batteries anyway? The article never says anything about power generation.
An underground garage for your exotic cars? (I hate to be so repetitive, but) Seriously? Your priorities seem to be missing, Mr. Cruise, Sir.
If I wasn’t a looter after all that booze and high-dollar food you’d stored away down there, I’d just park a truck in front of your blast door, set it on fire so nobody can move it, and let you rot down there.
“How are you charging the batteries? With that “power room?” What are you using for fuel? ”
That’s precisely why I want my multi-million dollar bunker to be built under (and connected to) a commercial solar farm.
so… where do they plan on sleeping?
Nuclear!
I really liked this . . .
“The company’s best-selling bunkers for L.A. are 10 by 50 feet, start at $112,000 and have their own power sources, water supplies and air-filtration systems: “These complexes accommodate families of four or five and are self-sustaining,” says Roberson”
Heh. I lived in a 10 x 50 mobile home for a couple of years. With just me and my wife, there was JUST BARELY enough room for modest comfort. Not real sure where all the support functions would be located, let alone storage for all the long-term supplies necessary.
And yes, I realize 10 x 50 is huge when compared to The Lair. Just sayin’ . . .
Abnormalist, that picture shows at least 19 beds, with little individual luxury bathrooms. Which led to the question that totally escaped me last night when I wrote the post: Where’s the septic tank, and what are they doing for gray water to feed all those toilets?
Sorry, but I’m having a really hard time coming up with that many “friends” I’d like to share the confines of that facility with for an extended period . . . or even a few days, in fact.
And the “storage” area shown certainly doesn’t provide for food for all those folks, either.
Oh . . . wait . . . I forgot . . . this is all for the Hollywood types, where the details are taken care of by “staff”. Nevermind.
Yeah, which is why I’ve got lots of exterior storage, which wouldn’t work with an underground bunker. I’ve got (very, extremely basic) food for maybe a year – for one guy – plus plenty of protein but not enough animal fat happily hippity hopping around waiting for harvest. In an underground bunker with the pleasure girls and your ungrateful mother and siblings and those armed guards you’re going to regret when things get extra-super nasty? I’d want to see a lot more space marked “storage” on that floorplan drawing.
I’m blanking on the title, but Leslie Fish has a song about post-Apocalyptic survivors making an annual holiday of piling more rocks on the exits of the “elites'” bunker, so they’ll never again escape to wreak havoc.
Maybe they don’t think there will be enoogh people left to form a mob.
No need for a mob, Allen, as long as the entrance/exit is blocked and carbon monoxide fed into their air intake.
Mark, True. Maybe these guys just need to buy an old nuclear sub.
Anyone who wants a real bug out bunker with that sort of money either buys a large farm in New Zealand or their own island and a large yacht or jet to get you there. Funnily enough a lot of wealthy Americans have been investing in farms in NZ. No it won’t stop nuke but pretty much anything else.
The Digwell Carol
There’s another on the same theme, called “Hello! Remember Us?” It sort of speculates about the attitude of the people you’d meet, if you were a rich’n’powerful emerging from a successful bunker stay.
Yep, The Digwell Carol is the one I was thinking of. Rember Us is cool. In fact, that whole album is good.
Ahh, you beat me to it. all of Firestorm is good, pity it’s been out of print so long. My own cassette copy died years ago. “Rhododendron Honey is also good , about the actions of survivors when proponents of a new, centralised government show up in their community.
I’ve always sort of thought of Leslie Fish as an alternate Claire Wolfe persona– grandma with a .45 and a guitar.