Interesting shelter built by Teacher

I first saw this story on the news in 1999, so it's not new.This guy was preparing for Y2K in a big way. He buried a bunch of school buses on his property linking them together to make an entire compound for about 50 of his survivalist friends.I saw a news crew go inside this shelter and it was amazing what he had done.He was harrassed by the locals for everything you can imagine ( classic sheepdog behaviour IMHO). I have posted two links. One is a news article about him and the other is a diagram of the shelter.What I'd like to know is if he or his family is still keeping up the shelter for any future need? www.rense.com... and this www.webpal.org...

Interesting. AccessDenied. I don't recall having heard of this before.

I was looking at the diagram and it seems they've covered virtually every aspect of "what would be needed" for any extended period of time.

Here's an image of the actual shelter before the buses were buried.

external image

Did you say there was a video "tour" done by a news crew?



 


[edit on 26-5-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

Thats a cool pic.I remembered seeing the Story on I believe it was CTV news or The new VR (Barrie Ontario, now the A channel I believe).It stuck with me all these years and last night I googled it to see if I could find anything.It wasn't a complete tour, probably only a few rooms at best, but he listed most of what he had there. I can tell you that the rooms did not resemble buses at all and he even showed bathtubs and facilities and sleeping quarters. This guy thought of everything.

A quick search on Google turned up this video from a penn and Teller episode "End of the World".



It seems the local fire dept. has since sealed the facility and deemed it a "safety hazard". Bruce comes across a bit kooky, but you're right about the interior fit and finishes. You can't even tell they're inside of a bunch of school buses.

On a side note, and somewhat similar, a friend I went to school with [back in '02 ] ended up moving to Arizona. He bought a piece of land in the middle of nowhere, so to speak, and proceeded to build a house made of tires. Yep, tires. Filled with and surrounded by dirt, yet to look at photos of the interior you'd never know it. The outside, well, I guess there's only so much you can do with tires and dirt.


[edit: to add]
Link to additional photos and maps of The Shelter.
www.radmeters4u.com...

[edit on 26-5-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

I've been following this project for many years, and always found his web page to be very interesting. It's not very far from where I live, and even when I worked in the area, I never got the chance to go to the site and take a look.:shk:

I really think it's quite amazing, so here's a few pictures and links.

This is one of 6 bunk rooms, and of course they would be "hot bunking" if the facility was full.




Each bunk room has a day room attached.




The caged in area is the pharmacy.




The place has two kitchens.




This is the computer room, but I don't see any computers.





It sure wasn't built as a 5 star hotel, but fantastic in an emergency situation.
Here's some links to his web site and additional pictures.
The second link is well worth a look......

www.radmeters4u.com...
www.radmeters4u.com...

Great info guys thanks!I read some of his website and he does seem a bit kooky, but I think his preparations are right on the money.The local fire dept. are just being jerks IMHO and I bet if TSHTF they would be first in line to get in.

The guy definitely accounted for pretty much everything under the sun however I wonder if perhaps school buses were the right choice for materials? I've been looking into ways to construct a similar facility and so far the metal shipping containers like you see on huge ships tend to be the best choice especially if you go with marine-certified containers as they tolerate moisture a heck of a lot better. Some of those interior pictures made the place look pretty dingy which can have a lot of negative side-effects such as creating a unhealthy environment both physically from dirt and grime as well as mentally from the aspect of being dark and depressing which is terrible for morale.

Hate to pull a one liner but I think being dark, dusty and gloomy would be far better than having that unhealthy green glow.

I think he did an outstanding job with the materials that he had at hand. I am sure it was expensive but not cost prohibitive. The padlock and welded bars don't look too overly secure if he really needed to go inside. Of course the powers that be would want their free ride. I'd tell them sit on the bench and wait for the next bus, but that is just me.

As far as the shelter itself, I suppose it would be comfortable enough. Better than the alternative. However this guy runs a tight ship and some of his rules are just crazy. Like separating the men from women even if they are married. And ordering children to sleep 12 hours a day so the adults can have peace and quiet. If anything he would be the one to make the experience intolerable.Check out his website posted above for more info.

He should built it somewhere else further out away from the prying eyes of officialdom. Now they know where to send the stormtroopers.

I agree with you on that fact.Now everyone knows where he and his band of merry men are.No safety in that.

Pretty fancy for one old guy putting it all together. Amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.

Yeah, I think I would rather build my own shelter than take orders from him. But he will likely be dead before anyone needs to use it anyway, by the looks of it. Wonder what will happen to it when he's gone, will the government tear it down? Who's he leaving it to?

just my munkie nuts opinion but :

the ergonomics of his shelter are freaking hideous

everything is so baddly misplaced - it makes my head hurt

Looks like there's a list of Survivalist Groups, mostly in Canada and the U.S, but there's even one listed for Australia.

Doesn't look there's a group for the DFW area of Texas... Maybe it's because the area is anticipated to become slag in the event of a nuclear attack, but there's a lot of Situation X's that don't involve nukes.

I haven't really read anything that made the guy sound kooky. He gives pretty valid reasons for each decision. Like the bunking men and women and children seperately thing. He's got to protect the maximum number of people, and they'll need to sleep, change, etc, in shifts. There's not really room for man and wife to be sharing a private bus of their own, and I don't think a bunch of women would be happy with some lady's husband sitting around watching them change, and vice versa. Like the guy said, the place is a life boat, not a luxury liner.

Though I'm curious as to what the duties of everyone would be that require 16 hours a day. Still, work is the easiest way to keep people from getting restless. As long as they feel like they're doing something important, versus the sort of drop in morale and discipline that would accompany a "sleep all day, sit around and play poker" existance.

As far as the aesthetics, all I can say is some people can complain about anything.

"Well sure, it's safe, solid, plenty of fresh water, food, heat, A/C, with working toilet facilities, a pharmacy, dental and surgical area and a library and computer room, and stuff, but look how ugly it is!"

It's a helluva lot better than the shelter I had planned.