TIL the EMP proof bunker I visited in rural Montana was a total letdown

I drove out to this place near Butte last Saturday that supposedly had this underground shelter from the 60s stockpiled for doomsday. Turns out the owner just converted it into a storage unit for old lawnmowers and rusty tools. Half the canned food expired in 1985. Has anyone else checked out these supposed survival bunkers and found them to be pure hype?

3 comments

3 Comments

cole99425d agoMost Upvoted

Heard the same thing from my buddy Mark. He drove all the way out to this place in eastern Oregon that claimed to have a fully functional Cold War era bunker network. Got there and it was just some guy's half finished root cellar with a cot, a case of MREs from 1991, and a bunch of spiderwebs. The "air filtration system" was literally just a box fan duct taped to a dryer vent. He was so pissed he turned around and grabbed a burger in the nearest town instead of even taking a picture. I think those old survivalist dudes just bought a lot of canned beans and called it a day.

rowanharris26d ago

Drove three hours to one in Wyoming that was supposed to be a fully stocked cold war fallout shelter. Got there and it was just a dude's basement with a bunch of old National Geographics and a water heater from 1972. The "decontamination chamber" was just a shower with black mold growing in it. Felt like a total sucker. At least you got some rusty tools out of it, I guess.

the_susan26d ago

Maybe the real treasure here is the black mold's potential for scientific study. A colony that old might have evolved into something new, maybe even a medical breakthrough if someone cultured it right. But also, you probably should've checked if the guy had a working Geiger counter before you drove three hours, because that water heater could be leaching all sorts of things into that shower. Still, you got a story out of it, and that's more than most people get from their Saturday errands. I'd honestly be more worried about the mold than the nukes at that point.