Bunker living, expenses

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Someone elsewhere linked to yet another article about a fella who has decided to take a swing at making a former missile silo his home. And while on the subject, here are two more here and here.

I must admit, I love the idea of a missile silo home. Pretty darn hard to live in a place much more secure than that. The obvious drawbacks are the lack of daylight and the weak link of having to pump your sewage uphill. Many of the bases are flooded and there may be some environmental issues from the missile fuel. However, the low profile aspect sure is attractive. Unless someone knew there used to be a missile base there, folks are just going to walk right by you. On the other hand, missile base locations are pretty well documented and the locals will surely know about it. My fantasy would be to have one of these silos and build a house right on top of it. 2500 sq. foot house with a 25000 sq. foot basement. How awesome would that be?

Missile silos aren’t the only ‘secret’ hardened facilities that come up for sale though. When we think about government-built doomsday-bunkers we usually think of the missile silos because they get all the press. However, there are other facilities that although not as big are just as hard. More importantly, the public are less aware of them. Everyone knows about the old Atlas missle base three miles off county road six. But almost no one knows about the satellite control center three miles out of Podunkville, or the hardened communications switching facility near Dead Moose Junction. Also, hardened facilities aren’t just limited to .gov. Back in the old days, Ma Bell built many critical switching centers and other buildings with an eye towards survivability… probably with the quiet encouragement of the Cold War era government. (Head over to cryptome.org sometime and look at their maps of some of these hardened facilities.)

Every so often facilities like this turn up on ebay. Years ago me and the missus looked at a wonderful microwave relay station that had 8” concrete walls, blast shutters, and a host of other features that made it a lovely example of what im talking about. (if youre curious) These things are still on the market from time to time and are a lot more affordable than a missile silo. (Of course, their square footage is much much less as well.)

You and I might think something like this is uber-cool but the majority of people will look at you like you’ve got two heads. Why, they might ask, would anyone want to live in a concrete tomb? I suppose it depends on what youre after. I’d love to have a missle silo as a personal bunker but I probably wouldn’t want to live in it full time. It wold be nice, though, to have as a fallback position for when things get weird.

If youre interested in more about this sort of thing, this looks like a good place to start.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Thanks to everyone who kicked in a few bucks for operating costs. Enough was generously forked over to cover things for the next year and a half. Some folks kicked in a buck, some kicked in a good bit more. Average was around $15 or so. I thank you muchly and I’ll try to provide good value for your infotainment dollar. Very kind of you, and I thank you.