馃攳
Inside A $3M Doomsday Condo - YouTube
Channel: Business Insider
[0]
Narrator: During the Cold
War, the US government
[2]
built numerous missile
silos in secret locations
[5]
across the country.
[6]
Many sit empty and useless today.
[8]
But there's one in an undisclosed location
[11]
north of Wichita, Kansas,
[13]
that has taken on a new purpose.
[15]
Welcome to the $3 million
doomsday-proof condo.
[20]
Larry Hall: It's not the
luxury that drives the cost,
[22]
it's the caliber of the infrastructure
[25]
and the threats you're protecting against,
[27]
and, most importantly,
[28]
the duration that you can be off-grid for.
[31]
Narrator: It's 15 stories deep
[32]
with walls up to 9 feet thick
[35]
that can withstand a
direct nuclear impact.
[37]
In 2008, Larry Hall bought
the property for $300,000.
[42]
Hall: We said, "Hey, if we're gonna build
[43]
a high-end bunker, I'd hate to, like,
[46]
need protection for two years
[48]
and only have designed it
for one and a half years."
[51]
So we said, "What would
we have to do to make
[53]
this place capable of
sustaining people indefinitely?"
[57]
And that turned out to
be quite a cost-driver.
[59]
Narrator: Hall's team spent
nearly $20 million to turn
[63]
the missile silo into a secure
shelter for 12 families.
[67]
They installed three
redundant power supplies,
[69]
three separate water sources
and a water filtration system,
[73]
aquaponic farming, and hydroponic food.
[76]
Then, with the help of a consultant,
[78]
the team developed a plan to deal with
[80]
the human factors of off-grid living.
[83]
Hall: You need to make
life as normal as it can be
[87]
because subconsciously, your brain
[88]
keeps track of abnormal activities.
[91]
Narrator: The team added a swimming pool,
[93]
gym, rock climbing wall, movie
theater, dog park, and more.
[97]
Hall: What you really
wanna do is make sure
[99]
that people feel productive,
so you're gonna need
[102]
everyone to be working four-hour workdays,
[105]
and every 30 days, people will rotate jobs
[108]
so you don't have any
single points of failure
[110]
and everybody knows how to
do all of the jobs there.
[112]
Narrator: The infrastructure is designed
[114]
to sustain 75 people for five years.
[117]
The idea was so popular
that every unit sold
[120]
before construction ended.
[122]
The project is just one example of success
[124]
in the growing survival market.
[129]
Announcer: The basement box-type shelter
[130]
is stronger, larger, and more comfortable.
[134]
Outdoors, you can build
an earth-covered shelter,
[136]
which affords the best protection
[138]
against blasts, fire, radiation,
and radioactive fallout.
[143]
Narrator: Doomsday
prepping isn't a new idea.
[145]
In the '50s and '60s, houses
were built with bunkers,
[148]
and shelters started popping
up during the Cold War.
[151]
Today's preppers have plenty
of survival shelter options.
[154]
They can choose from
converted shipping containers
[156]
to houses designed to stand
up to natural disasters
[159]
to survival communities
with country club amenities.
[162]
Doomsday preppers can also
prepare for emergencies
[165]
with a multitude of survival products
[167]
ranging from water filters
and freeze-dried food
[170]
to gas masks and emergency power sources.
[173]
Hall: They worry about world
events and natural events
[176]
and the things that they see
in the news more frequently.
[179]
People that call and
worry about things like
[181]
a global economic collapse,
[183]
there's people that worry about the flu.
[185]
Every flu season that comes around,
[187]
people worry about some
type of a global pandemic.
[190]
It just seems like anything
that could translate
[192]
into a larger dilemma could
present itself as a problem.
[196]
Narrator: And market
activity backs that up.
[198]
Sales spikes occur
after natural disasters.
[201]
For example, Mountain
House, a freeze-dried food
[204]
distributor, reported
that sales of food made
[207]
to last for 25 years
increased fourteenfold
[210]
after Hurricane Katrina.
[212]
Fears about the economy
and foreign relations
[214]
are heightened during major elections
[216]
and commonly cause sales to jump.
[218]
In the week after Barack
Obama's re-election,
[221]
one website sold $400,000
of prepackaged meals,
[225]
which depleted the company's inventory.
[227]
Doomsday Prep, a store in Georgia,
[230]
reported a 15% growth
in year-over-year sales
[233]
since Donald Trump's election in 2016.
[236]
Hall: It's kinda funny how it seesaws
[238]
with who's in the White House.
[240]
When the rhetoric was hot and heavy
[242]
between Trump and Kim
Jong-un in North Korea,
[245]
there was a real big spike in phone calls.
[247]
Narrator: Prep and Save,
a survival equipment store
[250]
in California, reported similar spikes.
[252]
The store saw a 200-400%
increase in business
[256]
in the days following the threats.
[259]
The size of the market is
difficult to calculate.
[261]
But in 2012, public
spending on emergency prep
[264]
was estimated at $500 million
[267]
and an additional $1 billion
from the government and NGOs.
[271]
The fears driving these purchases
[273]
aren't as rare as you might think.
[275]
An estimated 35% of Americans
believe an event will happen
[278]
that will lead to the end of the world.
[280]
Hall: All of our owners have
been self-made millionaires
[285]
by definition, and they're
from all walks of life.
[288]
They like the concept of
having this safe harbor,
[291]
and then they also comment about
[293]
what peace of mind they
get from owning it.
[296]
It's like they had this
worry that they weren't
[298]
consciously aware of,
but after they bought it,
[301]
they realized that they feel
like a burden has been lifted.
[304]
Narrator: To meet
demand, Hall and his team
[306]
are building a second
silo that's three times
[309]
the size of the original.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage