The bunker plays a central role in many a prepper’s plans. It is a place of refuge and safety, a home base, a centre of operations, and the one place in which you can be sure to have surrounded yourself with everything you need for the duration of any crisis or emergency.
But what makes a bunker? What are its essential characteristics? And if you could choose, what makes for an ideal bunker?
What is a bunker?
Academics have traced the use of the word bunker to the nineteenth century when its principal usages drew upon mainly nautical origins – so sharing its roots with things such as a bunkhouse, bunk beds, and coal bunker, argued a paper written for Sheffield Hallam University.
It was not until the global conflicts that shaped the twentieth century, however, that the bunker cam to be more firmly associated with wartime – and, specifically, a type of underground shelter, reinforced against enemy bombardment, occupied by a central command structure.
Originally a combined command post and bomb shelter, though, in today’s world of more insidious threats and risks, the bunker has come to be seen as more or less any place of refuge – preferably underground – in which you can take shelter and survive a manmade or natural disaster or emergency for an indeterminate length of time.
A safe – and comfortably appointed – bunker became the principal focus of some believers of an apocalyptic future in the United States. Based on such a model concept, the bunker became ever more luxurious, well-equipped, and expensive. In a documentary prepared by the BBC in May 2020, the proud owner of one such bunker in Kansas explained that he had planned a “green doomsday structure” that he intended to use as a second home but that was coincidentally a “nuclear-hardened bunker”.
Do-It-Yourself …
The lavish, almost over the top, bunkers occupying thousands of fortified square feet of underground United States have, of course, grabbed many of the headlines. But that probably masks the fact that a purpose-made bunker remains the centre-piece for many a more regular prepper – whether in the US or here in the UK.
Indeed, there are self-help pages about building your own bunker, the features it might incorporate, and the freedom you have in adopting a DIY approach:
Land and permission
- building your own bunker is not for the faint-hearted – it’s a serious undertaking and one for which you will need to own a fairly tidily-sized piece of land (at least half an acre, let’s say);
- although it might go seem to go against the grain for some of the more free-wheeling approaches of many preppers, if you are serious about your bunker you will want it to last – and that means gaining the planning permission your structure is almost certain to need;
Digging out
- almost by definition, your bunker is going to be underground – and, since it is underground, that means you need to dig it out;
- excavating the hole by hand is certainly a possibility, but if you hire some earth-moving machinery you will slash the time it takes – and save untold manual effort;
Ventilation
- from the get-go, you need to remember that anything you are building underground is going to need a constant supply of fresh air and ventilation;
- if you are after something fancier and more sophisticated, you might even install air filters in your ventilation system;
Drinking water
- if your bunker is to be an effective refuge, you will need access to fresh drinking water – aim for several litres a day for every person taking shelter in your bunker;
- any way you look at it, storing a significant volume of water underground – in a storage tank or individual bottles – is clearly going to take up a lot of valuable space;
- a better option, therefore, is to trace a supply of clean running water fit enough to drink or – if you are prepared to rely on the UK’s fairly predictable amount of rain – collect the rainwater in tubs or barrels;
Food
- although the major volume of your water supplies may be stored aboveground immediately outside your bunker, stores of food are almost certain to be kept underground with you;
- a cache of food is ideally stored underground especially if you can devote a separate space or room exclusively for your store of non-perishable, tinned, dried, food and grains.
… or if money’s no object
With enough ready cash in your pocket, of course, you can save yourself all the sweat and hassle of digging out your own bunker by buying one that’s already made.
When it comes to ready-made bunkers – even if you restrict yourself to the UK, let alone elsewhere in the world – you might be surprised by the surprisingly wide choice of models available.
Museums – to view for ideas
Some are already taken, of course, and are still used for their original purpose of defence and monitoring, while some have been turned into underground museums.
Among the latter are the Churchill War Rooms in central London and the – once “secret” – nuclear bunkers at Hack Green, Nantwich, and Kelvedon Hatch, Brentwood. Kelvedon Hatch is still cunningly disguised by the modestly proportioned cottage that sits atop the 35,000 square-foot bunker below – it could give you design and construction ideas for your own bunker, perhaps.
Bunkers for sale
UK property agents Love Property, on the other hand, have listings of abandoned bunkers for sale – in the UK, the United States, and Spain.
From historic forts to decommissioned missile silos, the agents focus on the potential for preppers of every shade and opinion to refurbish and hunker down, staying well off the grid, in one of these underground properties.
Most of the sites in the US are former missile launch facilities, but those in Spain include some altogether more scenically attractive former barracks in the Balearic Islands, while the smaller, almost intimate proportions of the UK’s former nuclear bunkers retain a distinctly British quality in their design and functionality.
In a story on the 23rd of January 2021, for instance, the Mirror newspaper featured a two-man Cold War bunker built 14 feet underground in the Cornish countryside. The cramped structure features just the access shaft, a monitoring room, bunk beds for two, and a chemical toilet. But it appeared on the market for a snip at just £25,000 – a small price to pay for your holiday accommodation just a mile or two away from St Agnes and the Cornish coast.
… and if money really, really is no object!
The truly well-heeled, though, are likely to want to maintain their lap of luxury lifestyle even while the rest of the world above ground is going to wrack and ruin.
If that describes your own aspirations, Survival Life has picked out some of the choicest possibilities for you.
Redefining prepper luxury, for example, is the Missile Silo Bunker in Kansas, built a massive 174 feet underground and with walls said to be nine feet thick. But creature comforts also include a library, swimming pool, and home cinema suite. All yours for a cool US$2 million (£1.4 million).
The world’s biggest private shelter is called Europa One – a luxurious refitting and remodelling of a Cold War bunker built by the Soviet Union and carved from the solid bedrock of a German mountain. The whole site occupies 76 acres, with the underground facility offering 227,904 square feet of secure, blast-proof living accommodation.
US$1.7 million (£1.2 million) could also buy you the so-called home within a home at 3970 Spencer Street, Las Vegas. The unremarkable detached two-storey house has an underground twin that offers 15,200 square feet of living accommodation.
Seed vault
It’s occupied at the moment – by the world’s biggest seed vault containing an estimated 420 million samples of every plant on earth which have been safely stored away as insurance against any future global disaster or apocalypse. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is remote – just 810 miles from the North Pole.
Atlas bunkers
American company Atlas, of Texas, manufactures a range of affordable bunkers in the price range of US$36,000 to $85,000 (£25,500 – £60,000). Each comes with an air filtration system, blast-proof entrance, dining table, shower, kitchen, entertainment suite, under-floor storage and bunk beds.
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