Survivalism

Duck and Cover: Americans Fearing Nuclear War Spend Big to Hide Underground

Ripped from a post-World-War-II meme, Americans in 2017 are spending big to build expensive underground bunkers to weather what they fear will be a nuclear attack.

In the wake of the Trump administration's rise to power, the increased action of the US military worldwide has led to predictions of war, and for many Americans that means hiding underground, just like what their grandparents did, fearing a nuclear holocaust during the 20th century's Cold War.

But for other Americans, that fear is translated into profit.

Survivalism

The nuclear bunkers designed for luxury living

Despite the fact that the apartments cost millions of dollars each to buy, starting at $1.5m (£1.2m), Mr Hall says he is seeing strong demand from wealthy customers.

It seems extraordinary, not least because nearby above-ground homes (admittedly without protection against nuclear bombs) can be had for a tiny fraction of the cost of one of these bunker units. So how has he managed to build an apparently successful business selling "survival chic"?

It all began after the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001. At the time Mr Hall was an entrepreneur with an internet business; he also had experience of designing and constructing computer data centres.

Demand for computer back-up facilities grew after the terrible events of 9/11, says Mr Hall. This gave him an idea: make a data centre that could withstand a nuclear bomb attack.

Survivalism

DOOMSDAY PREP FOR THE SUPER-RICH

Survivalism, the practice of preparing for a crackup of civilization, tends to evoke a certain picture: the woodsman in the tinfoil hat, the hysteric with the hoard of beans, the religious doomsayer. But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort.

Last spring, as the Presidential campaign exposed increasingly toxic divisions in America, Antonio García Martínez, a forty-year-old former Facebook product manager living in San Francisco, bought five wooded acres on an island in the Pacific Northwest and brought in generators, solar panels, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. “When society loses a healthy founding myth, it descends into chaos,” he told me.