The Return of the Bunker

This isn't your grandparents' underground shelter.        Atlas Survival Shelters

The family that lived around the corner from us when I was young had an underground bomb shelter. It was in their front yard, and the entrance ~ a metal door surrounded by concrete and built into a little man-made hill ~ always made me wonder whether we should have one, too. It seemed like a good idea in the age of the Cold War, when the schools (in California, at least) interspersed earthquake drills with air raid and bomb drills (in an earthquake, stay away from the windows because the glass will shatter and fall straight down; in a bombing, huddle directly under the windows because a blast will blow the glass a few feet into the room, or so we were told). The Cold War is over (for the moment), but there are those who foresee many other threats just as disturbing, which brings us to Atlas Survival Shelters (whose motto is "Better Prepared Than Scared") and the companies that will invariably be following suit (video): http://www.kcet.org/shows/socal_connected/stories/culture/underground-shelters.html