

So, a large part of the city or the area which was targeted would be uninhabitable." You get instant radiation, you get heat, fires, huge winds. "Even the smallest nuclear weapon is, you know, ten times the size of the largest conventional weapon. "The most significant thing is the blast size of nuclear weapons, which are enormous," said Patricia Lewis, director of the International Security Program at the London-based Chatham House think tank and former director of the U.N.

So, it's up to buyers to do their homework.īack in 1961, President John F. "It's not like we can test these things!"Īnd the federal government provides only guidelines, not regulations, for building underground bunkers. "For all of us in the business, it comes down to engineering," Hubbard replied. Hubbard and his co-owner Ryan Olah told correspondent Roxana Saberi around a third of those inquiries have turned into sales. "I bet it made the phone ring probably 400 or 500%." The Defcon 5 Standard Bunker measures 8'x8'x20', with bullet-resistant doors and hatch. "Every time Putin talks about a nuclear weapon, the phone rings off the hook," said Cory Hubbard, of Defcon Underground Bunkers near Kansas City, Missouri. On April 22, the Russian president warned, "Our counterstrike will be instantaneous." With the tide of war in Ukraine turning against Russia, the threat of a desperate Vladimir Putin resorting to nuclear weapons to win at all costs is no longer so far-fetched. They now seem quaint, even absurd – public service films from the 1950s and '60s teaching children how to "protect" themselves from a nuclear blast, and showing families that they, too, can build a cozy bunker of their very own.īut as the cold war thawed, bunker-mania faded – that is, until recently. Interest in underground shelters builds due to Russian aggression 07:14
