Doomsday Planners in the District

• April 18, 2012
• 1 Comment

by Shilpi Paul

Rendering of a shelter from Radius Engineering.

Think your neighbor is putting in a swimming pool? It may actually be something quite different.

According to a recent article in the Examiner, DC is a booming market for Texas-based Radius Engineering, a shelter-building business that sells 50 to 100 safe rooms a year. In 2011, half of Radius’ annual sales happened in the nation’s capital.

Radius’ smallest offering costs $108,000 and can sustain eight 2012 end-of-days prognosticators for one to five years. It is equipped with a generator, septic tank, a radio, and other survivalist features. The safe rooms are strong enough to protect you from nuclear radiation, severe storms and presumably whatever the apocalypse throws at you.

The Examiner noted that many owners want to keep their shelters a secret, which makes sense for a variety of reasons. Most of these structures are built off the grid, without any official permits. Some contractors even disguise the projects as swimming pool installations, according to the newspaper.

That said, UrbanTurf is extremely curious to check out on these end-of-world shelters, so if you are willing to give us a tour, we promise the utmost discretion.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/doomsday_planners_in_the_district/5434

1 Comment

1. xmal said at 2:27 pm on Thursday April 19, 2012:
   What a great find. I can't believe a couple dozen get installed here every year! I guess that's what they've been doing on H Street all these years. Note: in case you can't get into your neighbor's shelter come December, there is always this: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/8364/fort-renos-cold-war-era-undisclosed-location/