An elderly couple living in Canada have built a 10,000 square-foot fallout shelter in preparation for nuclear war.
The Atomic Doomsday clock says now that nuclear war is more likely than it has been since 1953.
And that’s why Bruce Beach and his wife Jean believe that ‘now more than ever,’ people should be thinking about their options for when war does break out, the couple told the National Post.
The couple have been preparing for nuclear holocaust for the past 50 years by building and keeping up a shelter sunk beneath several feet of concrete and soil on a 12.5 acre patch of land near their home.
They call the structure ‘Ark Two’.
Bruce Beach and his wife Jean built a 10,000 square-foot fallout shelter in preparation for nuclear war
The couple have been preparing for nuclear holocaust for the past 50 years by building and keeping up a shelter sunk beneath several feet of concrete and soil on a 12.5 acre patch of land near their home
Construction of the shelter started in 1980 when he bought 42 old-school buses for $300 a piece, he told the Post. He then excavated the property and buried the buses in the earth, covering them with concrete and soil
Bruce Beach, 83, is originally originally from Winfield, Kansas, and moved to Chicago later in life to work as a general contractor and electrical engineer.
That was around the time John F Kennedy was president, and advising Americans to stock up on canned goods and build bomb shelters in their backyards in case there was a nuclear war.
Beach figured that it would be better to ride out the war away from the city, so he moved to Canada in 1970 and eventually settled in the town of Hornig’s Mills, about two hours northwest of Toronto, where Jean has lived her whole life.
After meeting her and discovering that her family lived on a significant plot of land, Beach said his idea to build a fallout shelter started to truly take form.
Construction of the shelter started in 1980 when he bought 42 old-school buses for $300 a piece, he told the Post.
He then excavated the property and buried the buses in the earth, covering them with concrete and soil. By 1982, everything was set and ready for what he thought was surely an impending worldwide disaster.
By 1982, everything was set and ready for what he thought was surely an impending worldwide disaster
The entryway to the bunker has a locked door and two locked gates and leads into a reception area with cubbyholes for firearms
Beach said he tried to make the underground sanctuary as comfortable as home, and built a brig, a mortuary, a dentist’ s chair, a decontamination room. He also included multiple sets of chess to pass time and a box of radiation suits
Though there is currently some food in the underground bunker, there isn’t nearly enough. He said that through the years he and his wife have had to throw away hundreds of tons of canned goods that have gone bad
The entryway to the bunker has a locked door and two locked gates and leads into a reception area with cubbyholes for firearms.
In one room there is a rusty exercise bike that at one time could be used as a pedal-powered grinding mill for wheat.
There are also several bins of toilet paper, which Beach said are for bartering.
Beach said he tried to make the underground sanctuary as comfortable as home, and built a brig, a mortuary, a dentist’ s chair, a decontamination room. He also included multiple sets of chess to pass time and a box of radiation suits.
Though it is all still down there, things have become derelict over time.
The air in the bunker is damp and there isn’t much lighting, and moisture beaded up on the ceiling. Walls and floors are covered in bad-smelling mold that has grown over time.
In one room there is a rusty exercise bike that at one time could be used as a pedal-powered grinding mill for wheat
Though it is all still down there, things have become derelict over tim
Pictured is a room of beds in the bunker, which was built to fit up to 350 people
The air in the bunker is damp and there isn’t much lighting, and moisture beaded up on the ceiling. Walls and floors are covered in bad-smelling mold that has grown over time
‘We got to get things tidied up,’ Beach explained.
He said that one of the biggest challenges in getting things prepared in this day and age is how quickly technology is changing.
Currently the shelter’s security monitors are from old computers and there is one working landline hooked up to a rotary phone.
And it’s not stocked with food, either, because so much time has passed that the canned goods that once filled the bunker had to be thrown out.
‘I don’t know how many tons of food we have had to throw out over the years,’ Beach explained.
Most weekends he said he invites volunteers to come and work on the site, but said that most people who come once don’t come again.
The list has now narrowed down to about 50 semi-regular volunteers, and Beach says they each have a guaranteed spot in the Ark Two. It was originally built to accommodate up to 350 people.
And even though he said he probably won’t be able to fill the shelter when the time for war does come, Beach is picky about who can enter.
For National Post reporters to enter, they had to chop and stack firewood for his home.