October 2, 2016

"Safe" Spaces of the Ultra-Rich: Bunkering Up In The Middle Of A City Is A Bad Idea

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What’s amazing to me is that the wealthy, but not very intelligent, people having these bunkers built for them don’t understand is that if things get bad enough that they NEED the bunkers, the bunkers aren’t going to help them very much. At least not for very long. All the designs in the article seem more driven toward maintaining a standard of living rather than living to survive. This is a case in point:


AATHR-style-bunkers.jpg


A garage full of luxury cars is more than a little useless.

Those expensive cars are going to be rather useless simply because of the amount of resources required to keep them running. Especially logistics related things like fuel and oil. If things get bad enough that everything shuts down, then deliveries are going to stop, especially to places like Napa CA. All it’s going to take is a couple of armed BLM roadblocks and it’s going to get ugly fast. There’s also no point in trying to grow food, if, A. you’ve never done it before, and B. the power you are relying on to light the underground garden is reliant on a rapidly diminishing supply of fuel. As for the game room and swimming pool, well those are useless. The swimming pool water can’t even be used as potable if it has pool chemicals in it and if it doesn’t the water is going to get ugly quickly. Standing, open water is not a good way to keep water drinkable and disease free.

These bunkers are the result of narcissists who are afraid to face the consequences of the actions they have taken and the world they tried to create. Unlike the revolutionaries of the early 20th Century these people don’t have the courage to put themselves on the barricades. Instead they naively believe that they can hide away as the SHTF and hope that somebody, anybody, will return things to normal.

RTWT @ ===>> | The Arts Mechanical

Posted by gerardvanderleun at October 2, 2016 8:42 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

They may be more like a boat than a boat is.
You know, a hole in the water you throw your money into.

If I could afford the one with the bowling alley I would instead purchase some acreage way out there somewhere and do one up right, without all the silliness. Solid reinforced concrete floors, walls, and roof, built into the side of a big, steep hill and heavily concealed. Then kill everyone that worked on it or had knowledge of it.

Posted by: ghostsniper at October 2, 2016 10:10 AM

Exactly,Ghostsniper...whoever thought up that floorplan has more money than brains. Motor Cave? What is that,the garage exit? Media Room? So the Apocalypse will be televised?? No library? Good grief...

Posted by: Nori at October 2, 2016 12:23 PM

I like the idea of killing everyone who worked on it; urban or rural.

But the value of such a fort can't be known until the nature of a crisis is known. During great civil unrest it may be just what you need.

Posted by: KTWO at October 2, 2016 12:25 PM

A bowling alley you say. How delightful, but of course Arturo, we'll need pin boys since the ball return and auto pin set machine won't be working. But that is fine; they can weed the gardens when not working the lanes. And someone just HAS to do the laundry. Can you imagine NOT dressing for dinner? How gauche.

Ghost, You're on my dinner list but for one exception. No one gets directions to here; security takes precedent as you can well imagine.

Thank you for not coming.


Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck at October 2, 2016 12:27 PM

I remember the ending of John O'Hara's "The Lockwood Concern". George Lockwood, having had a secret stairway built into his new house by Italian workmen who scattered to the four winds, fell down it and died. No one could discover he was there.

Posted by: Gregory Hlatky at October 2, 2016 12:44 PM

Folks building these things probably think that when TSHTF somebody will come help them. That was my ancestors job for almost three centuries. We quit.

Posted by: nnelG at October 2, 2016 4:06 PM

I would prefer to give them the Dirty Dozen treatment.

Posted by: Butch at October 2, 2016 7:02 PM

No one commented on the brilliant part: the rifle range terminates in the media room. Media down range: a dream come true.

Posted by: Casey Klahn at October 2, 2016 9:02 PM

I like Ghost's idea of being embedded in a hill with good fields of fire. A good way to give the Model 70 a workout!

Most likely some natural disaster would turn area "neighbors" into predators, once they realized their food stamp cards cannot be eaten.

Posted by: Snakepit Kansas at October 3, 2016 4:52 AM

I'm tired of this. Those of you in the country won't do any better than city folks. Have you noticed the legal and illegal immigration patterns in the past few years. In a SHTF these people will turn on you and surely Ruby Ridge, and Waco should show you that being in the country wont save you when an army shows up. Stop fantasizing. In SHTF nobody is getting off easy. We will all suffer and a lot of us will die whether you have freeze dried beans hidden in a cache under a rock near the old well or not.

Posted by: daisy at October 3, 2016 6:51 AM

Never allow emotion to over rule logic, Daisy.
Your post is scattered and wrong.

Posted by: ghostsniper at October 3, 2016 9:21 AM

It's not a new concept:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho#/media/File:Jericho_cityscape_from_wall_ruins.jpg

In fact eleven millennia not new.

Posted by: Frank P at October 3, 2016 9:41 AM

Back in the 70s I had a safe space. Remember the 70s? An awful decade with the USSR always threatening, ruinous stagflation, and a government bent on progressive policies.

My place was high in the Colorado mountains. It had a hand pumped well and an outdoor privy - both as backups should the electricity go down for long periods or forever. A big propane tank for heat, but a Franklin stove and many cords of wood as backup heat. Deer and elk were plentiful as were rabbits and squirrels. A large pantry with non-perishable food for a year. A rifle, shotgun and a couple of semi-auto pistols with plenty of ammo. A bag of silver coins and a dozen Krugerands. I was ready for TEOTWAWKI.

Then a strange thing happened. Ronald Reagan was elected. He instituted some conservative policies and, "voila," the country began to resemble the America of old. Unfortunately, he was a one off. Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II allowed us to drift back toward the left. Now Obama has shoved us far to the left and once again we can see TEOTWAWKI looming. I'm too old to set up my redoubt again. I'm just going to do my best to take as many of the b**t**ds as I can with me. But I'm praying for another miracle like Reagan.

Posted by: Jimmy J. at October 3, 2016 10:43 AM

Y'know, for all the Koresh Kompounds I've seen in the news for nearly 60 years...

I've yet to see one actually properly sited, or intelligently using the contours of the land. None of them know what "military crest" means, or how best to leverage a placement thereon.

Their clusters of (poorly built) buildings, offer little ballistic cover, no interlocking fields of fire, they have no means to detect, much less deflect, being flanked by an opponent.

Their agriculture, water reserves, food storage and fuel are seldom well protected, if protected at all.

No placements for sentries, no carefully crafted tunnels or trenches wherein to traverse from one building or other cover to another, all while staying below the view of ground level eyes.

Now, given the explosion of drones, the need for overhead cover, camo, concealment or misdirection will require an entirely new state-of-the-art. And we'd best learn it, pronto.

I think loners are doomed to go out in glorious, but futile blazes of glory. Yet, "compounds", soon give way to the bovine complacency of the crowd.

What the right answer, numbers or solution is, I don't really know.

But wrasslin' the problems is key to solving them, I think.

And those solutions will vary wildly by locale.

Not much in the way of a "military crest" on this part of the Texas Gulf Coast. And digging deep cover will soon introduce one to the water table, courtesy of the Gulf of Mexico.

Anyone with a "one size fits all" solution, hasn't tried on all the sizes on the rack.

But the one thing that matters most of all. Keep yer mouf shut. Don't tell people of your preps. Get rid of yer damn bumper stickers.

Fly under the radar, as far as your neighbor's knowledge goes.

Here in electronic land, there's really no cover.

Everyone say "Hi" to Bob at the NSA. "HI, BOB!"

Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX

Posted by: Jim at October 3, 2016 11:50 AM

Deadfall and natural contours are used to "channel" approachers into specific areas which are laced with surprises, tanglefoot, tripwires, etc., and are easily observed, so perimeter guard is mostly unnecessary. At *go* time black 5 gal buckets can be pulled up into the trees at these locations with black masonry twine and tied off, then punctured at a distance with a high powered air gun (silent) releasing their contents onto unsuspecting ne-er do'wells - then the same air gun will launch white tip matches into flanking rock slabs creating ignition for the contents. It's all 100% safe until it's all 100% not.

This stuff is a small part (hasty obstacles) of the Combat Engineer training given at Ft Leonard Wood, Mo and there's lots of us running around out here.

Posted by: ghostsniper at October 3, 2016 1:23 PM

Fools and charlatans, all of you. Goatsnapper will survive, you will all die horrible deaths when your enemies realize that you exist.

Posted by: Mr Sensible at October 3, 2016 5:01 PM

Mr. Sambla,
BAH!! To you! I will protect my family and compound on the edge of this golf course! I will sit on the roof in a lawn chair, wearing nothing but a flak vest and lobster print boxer shorts.With my Winchester (and a fifth of Wild Turkey) at my side, I'll shoot the lead element of the raging mob right in the gut and let him slowly die in the fairway. That should send the rest scattering for a while. The resident Canadian Geese (Sky Carp) can feast on the rotting corpse.

Poor Daisy at October...she/it does not realize that the Army is not allowed to attack its own citizenry. Randy Weaver's son and wife were killed by our FBI.

Posted by: Snakepit Kansas at October 4, 2016 4:49 AM