The Backstory: Surviving an Apocalypse in Pure Luxury

As humans, our most serious drive is survival. So when we start worrying about apocalyptical events from what we do to ourselves or what others do to us, we make a plan. Doomsday bunkers of all sorts are popping up to protect everything from seeds to regrow our food supply . . to insanely luxurious underground escape spots for the one percenters.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, what's the most intense drive for all life, Whether
it's now, one hundred years ago, one hundred thousand years ago,
it's survival. Now, say the apocalypse is approaching, either because
of stuff we do to each other, the stuff we
do to the planet, or the dreaded onslaught of bigger, smarter,
more powerful beings from another world. How do you want

(00:21):
to protect yourself, your family, and if you're nice, maybe
even humanity. I'm Patty Steele doomsday bunkers for all tastes.
That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back. We have,
for hundreds of thousands of years, as a specie, tried

(00:42):
to protect ourselves. Right, Lately, there's been a lot of
anxiety about survival, talk of war, lack of affordable food
and fuel, the environment, even, weirdly, the possibility of aliens
circling and drying a target on our little blue dot
in the universe. What happens when we feel threatened, Well,

(01:02):
it's the old fight or flight response, right, and admit it,
Fighting seems like a crummy choice if you have a
place you can flee to. Now, personally, if there is
an end of the world scenario here, I want to
be the first one taken out. But it turns out
a lot of folks have been quietly preparing some sort
of destination to get away to where they can wait

(01:23):
out what's happening above ground and hopefully emerge ready to
do life all over again. Let's start out with a
more inclusive plan for saving our lives. It's called the
Doomsday seed vault. Huh seeds. Well, here's the thing. If
you're choosing a place to protect humanity's future, scientists say,
you'd want to protect the food supply and do it

(01:46):
somewhere isolated, cold, politically stable, and tough to destroy. And
that's how they ended up. On the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard,
halfway between mainland Europe and the North Pole. There are
snow covered mountains, polar bears roaming the wilderness months of
total darkness during winter, temperatures cold enough to naturally preserve

(02:09):
food and biological material for centuries, and buried inside one
of those mountains is humanity's agricultural backup drive. It was
created because if crops disappear somewhere on Earth because of war, disease,
climate disaster, or human mistakes, scientists can come here and

(02:29):
get replacement seeds. You see, for most of human history,
civilization has depended on a surprisingly fragile thing, seeds. Every
civilization and even wildlife survives because of agriculture wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, beans, fruit,
all from plants that feed billions. But even seeds are vulnerable,

(02:52):
and so seed banks started popping up in various places
around the world. They're about seventeen hundred of them. It
turns out some have been in places with difficult climates,
some in war zones. So what if humanity needs a
backup for those backups? That question led to Norway, where
construction on the Svalbarred Vault began in two thousand and six.

(03:17):
The mountain itself is frozen year round with natural permafrost,
so even if the power failed completely, the surrounding ice
would help preserve the seeds. It's its high above sea
level so it can survive flooding from melting ice caps,
and the vault was engineered to withstand earthquakes and even
nuclear conflict. It could literally last thousands of years. Today

(03:41):
it holds over one point two million different types of seeds,
and it can handle four and a half million as
more varieties are gathered so if the world gets really
shaky at Norway and you can replant right. But there's
a whole other way of dealing with our existential apocalyptic fears.
It's the doomsday bunker. Some folks are happy to have

(04:04):
a very basic underground bunker which you can have installed
in the forty thousand dollars price range. Then you get
it stocked with MREs meals ready to eat that'll stay
edible for twenty five years or so. Personally, don't want
to be underground in a little bunker with dried food.
But whatever, you can buy full on kits with everything

(04:25):
you need in them, depending on how long you're expecting
to stay below the surface and how much storage space
you have. But there's also survival for the one percenters,
and you ought to see these places. Ron Hubbard is
the CEO of Atlas Survival Shelters. He says he's built
a slew of lavish bunkers for super rich a listers

(04:46):
like Kim Kardashian in a lot of cases because of
the fear of fire and that kind of thing. But
he says these places will quote come in handy when
the civil war occurs, and he thinks what he calls
below the dirt bunker will be standard when building luxury
homes in the coming years. But at a super secret
meeting a few years ago of billionaire preppers, the CEO

(05:09):
of a brokerage house said he'd almost finished building his
own underground bunker. He then asked, but how do I
maintain authority over my security forces after the event? The
event really meaning the expected environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosions,
solar storm, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes

(05:33):
everything down. Well, that's a good question, because no matter
how lux your bunker is, if you don't want to
share your stuff, you need security. That's where these big
luxury group bunkers come in. Now you're part of a community,
a really rich community with a lot of security. So
get this, due to open this year in Virginia, where

(05:54):
the richest of politicians and other masters of the universe
can quickly escape in case all hell breaks lose, is
a three hundred million dollar members only luxury doomsday bunker.
This thing comes equipped with robotic medical suites, the most
insane swimming pools, and fine dining restaurants, as well as

(06:15):
robot help The builder says it'll revolutionize how the rich
and powerful shelter themselves in an apocalyptic disaster. It's being
built by a company called Safe Strategically Armored and Fortified Environments,
a Virginia company that specializes in secure property designs. They've
already built another bunker someplace that's outfitted with all Formula

(06:39):
one racetrack, but they say this one, due to open,
called the Ara, will provide a five star survivalist experience
if you can afford the twenty million dollar single person membership.
Line up now because they're only taking six hundred and
twenty five members. It's the first of a network of
similar spots. Place seems like it's from yet another limited

(07:02):
series about the apocalypse, but it's planning for a real
world summer opening this year. So after seeing Survival for
the one Percent, the Doomsday Seed Vault, it's faldbarred Norway,
feels less like a bunker and more like a message
to the future across time, saying we tried to protect
what mattered, not just our one life and our stuff.

(07:26):
This fallboard vault hidden inside that Arctic mountain is a
fascinating contradiction. It was built because humanity fears catastrophe, but
it also exists because humanity still believes the future is
worth saving. So somewhere beneath the ice and stone, millions
of silent seeds are waiting, just in case. I hope

(07:50):
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(08:12):
a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Duran Group,
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Mike Pieseglia. Our
writer is Jake Kushner. New episodes are out every Tuesday
and Friday, and feel free to reach out to me
with comments and story suggestions on Instagram at reel Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening

(08:34):
to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history
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