The conflict in Ukraine is reigniting old apocalyptic fears. This short series looks at different preparedness strategies for the worst of the worst. First case: atomic shelters, protection against the mother of all destruction.
The seething conflict in Ukraine brings us back to the Cold War, and with it the great buried fears of nuclear Armageddon.
Signs of growing panic are coming from all sides, from the overheating of survivalist movements to the new rush for iodine capsules and atomic shelters. After Europe, it’s the United States’ turn to shop for domestic bunkers.
The company Defcon Underground Bunkers, located in Independence, Missouri, admits by e-mail having observed, in three weeks of war in Ukraine, a 500% increase in requests for information on its products. Its metal boxes protect against natural disasters (such as tornadoes), but the more armored ones, added with concrete, resist the blast of nuclear bombs and their radiation. Its small-room-sized minibunkers cost a minimum of US$100,000.
Competing company Rising S Bunkers, from Texas, reports a 1000% increase in requests. Hardened Structures of Virginia has seen them swell by “at least 150%” since late February. She offers the ultimate protection by building veritable underground residences. Very wealthy customers pay from 5 to 100 million for these palaces of the apocalypse. We repeat: 100 million US dollars…
“We’re very busy already,” says Brian V. Camden, founding president of Hardened Structures, joined in Virginia. He hired an additional engineer last week for the new construction sites. “We don’t supply, and we have to send some potential customers to competitors. But some are so busy that they don’t even respond to inquiries anymore. »
His hyper-specialized company is the largest in the sector in the United States. It designs and builds up to ten luxury bunkers a year, most often in isolated places in the forest or in the mountains, in the countryside, and especially in megaranches.
These luxury hideaways can be used in peacetime as a wine cellar, guest room or entertainment center. “They are being built all over the world, especially in the Middle East,” said President Camden. Some have been built in Canada. »
Its offices are located in Virginia, Oregon, Texas, New York and Japan. The company also has the necessary US government permits to export its high-tech equipment capable of withstanding the electromagnetic pulses that scramble telecommunications and burn out electrical appliances.
Hardened Structures was founded just over three decades ago during the turbulent times of the early 1990s. went for a walk on a beach. “I said a prayer and asked God what equipment would be sought after in the future, and that’s when the idea of ’resistant structures’ came to mind. I had heard this term, which gave its name to my company, from General Schwarzkopf. »
From one war to another
The senior American officer led the first Gulf War (1990-1991), but the Cold War ended with the end of the USSR (December 1991) and the Warsaw Pact (July 1991). The great European pack ice now seems to be reforming, and with the same causes, the same effects.
The possibility of a nuclear escalation of the conflict is being considered by serious observers, even more so with the threat of direct retaliation from Russia and the atmosphere of siege in Moscow.
When a fire broke out at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, countries in Europe began to put emergency plans in place. Sales of potassium iodide tablets (which protect the thyroid from radioactivity) have soared in Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, all over the continent. Here, the Jean Coutu pharmacy network explained that it does not sell these kinds of tablets.
“At times like the ones we are experiencing now in Ukraine, as we experienced during the Cuban Missile Crisis, people suddenly realize that they have to take an interest in the nuclear question”, says Andrew Burtch, historian of the post-1945 period at the Canadian War Museum. “Some decide to build a shelter that will be forgotten until the next crisis. »
He published the reference book (Give Me Shelter, 2012) on Canadian civil defense plans during the Cold War. He explains that the use of protective refuges has become the only solution, as technological and military developments have taken place.
The American A-bomb of 1945 was imitated by the Soviets in 1949. The limited range allowed survival by flight from affected areas. The 1952 H-bomb, with a very large radiation impact radius, then the arrival in 1957 of the first intercontinental missile (the R-7 Semiorka, which also sent Sputnik into space), which could strike after 15 minutes flight, forced the change of survival tactics. It was now necessary to take shelter underground in reinforced concrete caches.
Only, unlike Switzerland, which forced the construction of hundreds of thousands of fallout shelters, Canada opted for city evacuation exercises (the largest, Operation Lifesaver, took place in Calgary in September 1955) , alerts and other ultimately insignificant measures, while the federal and the provinces returned this overheated potato. The subtitle of Mr. Burtch’s book speaks squarely of “a failure” of civil defense.
Governments had their own bunkers to continue their activities in case of conflict. The “Diefenbunker”, built by Ottawa, is now a museum. All provinces except Saskatchewan had shelters for their own government, including one at Valcartier.
The basic fallout cache for a private residence used to cost the price of a car. A census in 1960 counted about 2000 in Canada, but there were probably more. There are still some left in some houses in Quebec as elsewhere, but few, and the scarcity of demand has never generated a massive construction offer. Unless I am mistaken, even today, no Quebec company specializes in this very particular service, which could change if the nuclear panic spreads…