Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing.
Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse.
With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
Photo: AFP
“You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in the office of his company, Atlas Survival Shelters. “The respect and the demand for the product is really at an all-time high right now like I’ve never seen it before.”
However, with Iranian missiles hitting US targets in the Middle East and violence on the rise domestically, Americans are also worried. A customer from Florida called Hubbard to inquire about a bomb shelter for 10 people.
A basic backyard bunker housing four people underground for up to a week while shielding them from bomb blasts and radiation costs about US$25,000.
More sophisticated models, designed for years-long stays, can cost millions of dollars depending on how much food, energy and water they are stocked with.
“It depends if they’re preparing for the end of the world or Armageddon, or they’re preparing just basically for a barrage of missile fires as mostly the Israelis have,” Hubbard said.
His bunkers can be built from concrete directly on-site, or fabricated from metal at his facility in Sulphur Springs, Texas, and then transported to the customer.
A nuclear shelter only needs to be about 1m deep, because “it’s the earth and the concrete on top of you shielding you from the gamma radiation,” Hubbard said, adding that he usually tries to build them 1.8m to 3m underground to allow for protection from artillery fire.
The shelters feature a main door that seals hermetically and a decontamination chamber where people can shower if they have been in a contaminated environment.
Depending on the budget, the interior can resemble a small apartment, with a living room and TV, a bedroom, a kitchen, a laundry area and a bathroom. Some models even include a weapons storage room.
The facility connects to a power source and can store and filter water. If electricity fails, the bunker’s ventilation system can be operated manually using a hand crank — much like in vintage cars.
In Hubbard’s factory yard, about 20 bunkers that look like steel shipping containers stood ready to be shipped to customers across the country. Another 40 orders were in production.
“I expect to see my sales surpass probably the previous three years in the next two months,” Hubbard said. “But it will take me two to three years to probably produce all the shelters that I will sell over the next two months.”
Atlas also licenses its technology to companies abroad and sends a team of specialists from the US to supervise the construction work.
While Hubbard keeps his customer list confidential, some high-profile buyers — such as controversial social media personality Andrew Tate, and YouTuber and philanthropist MrBeast — have publicly acknowledged purchasing his bunkers.
In 2021, he appeared on a TV show featuring socialite and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian, where he built a bunker for her California home.
Tech titan Mark Zuckerberg also commissioned a bunker design from him, which was then assembled by a local contractor, Hubbard said.
“To those who say: ‘Crazy Americans getting bomb shelters,’ they’re not saying that anymore, because they’re seeing that a country like Dubai is being bombed religiously every single day ... especially with the future of the globe looking very bad,” he said.
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