Inside a nuclear bunker selling by the thousands
Global security leaders are warning nuclear threats are growing as weapons spending surged to $144.4 billion last year.
At the same time, private bunker sales are on the rise globally, from small metal boxes to crawl inside of to extravagant underground mansions.
Critics warn these bunkers create a false perception that a nuclear war is survivable.
They argue that people planning to live through an atomic blast aren't focusing on the real and current dangers posed by nuclear threats, and the critical need to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Meanwhile, government disaster experts say bunkers aren't necessary.
A US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 100-page guide on responding to a nuclear detonation focuses on having the public get inside and stay inside, ideally in a basement and away from outside walls for at least a day.
Those existing spaces can provide protection from radioactive fallout, says FEMA.
But increasingly, buyers say bunkers offer a sense of security.
The market for US bomb and fallout shelters is forecast to grow from $216 million last year to $276 million by 2030, according to a market research report from BlueWeave Consulting.
The report says major growth factors include "the rising threat of nuclear or terrorist attacks or civil unrest."
"People are uneasy and they want a safe place to put their family," Atlas Survival Shelters CEO Ron Hubbard said.
"They have this attitude that it's better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it."
Hubbard said his bunker factory, located in at Sulphur Springs in Texas, is the world's largest.
Hubbard said COVID lockdowns, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war have driven sales.
On November 21, in the hours after Russia's first-ever use of an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile to attack Ukraine, Hubbard said his phone rang non-stop.
Four callers ended up buying bunkers in one day, he said, and more ended up ordering doors and other parts for shelters they were already building.
Hubbard said his bunkers are built for all disasters.
"They're good for anything from a tornado to a hurricane to nuclear fallout, to a pandemic to even a volcano erupting," he said.
Hubbard said he started his company after building his own bunker about 10 years ago.
He says callers ask about prices — $31,000 to multi-millions, averaging $791,000 — and installations — they can go just about anywhere.
He said most days he sells at least one bunker.
Under Hubbard's doomsday scenario, global tensions could lead to World War III, a situation he is prepared to live through.
"The good news about nuclear warfare," he said, "if there ever was any, that it's very survivable if you're not killed in the initial blast."
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