Building Plan B

With the start of AMC's The Walking Dead and the Occupy (you fill in the blank) movement, a healthy market for "Plan B" activities is developing.  One such fabricator of Plan B structures is Vivos.  California-based entrepreneur Robert Vicino has created the first fallout shelters modeled on a cooperative, building two massive complexes in Indiana and Nebraska, with plans for three more in Wyoming, New York, and the Carolinas.  Each facility will typically house 1,000 individuals - - which includes private quarters with beds, a bathroom, and a kitchen, as well as access to a communal living space.  Prices start at $35,000.  Although the word Vivos is Latin and means alive, the music on the promo-video could be the sound track for a remake of Dr. Strangelove.  They also boil it down to the simplest of marketing messages - - "It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark."

If communal living is not your thing, Radius Engineering offers a backyard Plan B for the starting cost of $112,000 (with the heart of non-communal living being based in Texas, not California).  The backyard version holds eight and includes a kitchen and shower.  Walton McCarthy, the company's president and the author of Principles of Protection, hermetically seals his ovoid pods eight feet below the surface.  Each is equipped with a 400-gallon septic tank, two generators - - one diesel, another operated by hand crank - - and an internal air-filtration system that blocks radioactive gases and agents of chemical and biological warfare.  A custom-dug well supplies fresh water.  Figure on six-months before supplies run out - - or the remaining 99.99999% knock the door down.

And the demand - - Radius reports a 1,500% increase in sales from five years ago.