Sep 28, 2020 4 min read

I’ve been reading more during the COVID-19 lockdown. So it was that I stumbled across an editorial published May 20 in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry. Its three authors put forward the theory that we are dealing with COVID-19 much as we deal with bereavement. That is, we go through stages that they enumerate as fear, anxiety and panic, anger, acceptance and resolution. I think their observations are spot on.

Millions have become anxious in the face of COVID-19. Some have panicked; others have accepted that the virus is real and have resolved to take measures to avoid being exposed and help stop its spread. I count myself among the latter group.

Am I afraid of the virus? Absolutely. I accepted it as real and resolved to do what I can to avoid catching it and to help stop the spread by wearing a face mask and social distancing. But did I get angry and anxious, or panic? Oh, heck no!

I simply decided to buy a bunker. I jumped aboard the bunker bandwagon after reading a wonderful article in The Atlantic. Staff writer Annie Lowery profiles two American firms that build underground bunkers. One of them, Vivos, tells Lowery that inquiries about the company’s products have gone up 2,000% recently. The other, Rising S Co., reports that sales of its products have more than doubled.

Rising S builds bunkers that range in size from 96 square feet (the size of a small bedroom) to 6,000 square feet. Prices start at $40,000. The bunkers can be installed “discreetly” (if your neighbors don’t become curious about the giant metal box the “plumbers” are installing out back) in whatever space you can provide. Maybe a backyard, or perhaps that lake property you bought years ago. Vivos offers not only private bunkers but also underground communities. “Vivos Indiana” is a massive, segmented bunker with space starting at $35,000 per person. “Built during the Cold War to withstand a 20-megaton blast … this impervious underground complex accommodates up to 80 people for a minimum of one year of fully autonomous survival, without needing to return to the surface,” the company explains on its website.

But let’s say you can barely make it through Thanksgiving dinner with your extended family, so you don’t like the thought of riding out the pandemic with 80 people. “Vivos xPoint” offers an alternative. Located in the former Black Hills (South Dakota) U.S. Army base, xPoint is a complex of 575 individual bunkers, each of which can house up to 24 people, at $35,000 per bunker, for up to one year. The video of the complex on the Vivos website shows multiple mounds poking up from their flat-as-a-pancake surroundings; I couldn’t help but be reminded of a prairie dog town. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But I guess I’m predisposed to bunker up.

I grew up in the 1950s, when the U.S. Department of Civil Defense thought it a good idea to send schoolkids home with illustrated brochures about building an underground bomb shelter in your own backyard. I was all in, but Mom and Dad could barely afford our small house. The brochure disappeared from my bedroom under mysterious circumstances. Probably stolen by the neighborhood Commie spy.

Today, I play all the “Fallout” video games, set in an America left a wasteland after nuclear war with China and Russia in 2077. Each game begins with the player leaving an underground “vault” after spending 200 years in suspended animation. The wasteland is populated by mutated humans and animals, ghouls and a few normal humans who also have emerged from their respective vaults. Everyone – and I mean everyone – owns guns. Throw in a few political yard signs and the scenario could be present-day America.

2020 for has been, without doubt, the Year from Hell. A pandemic; the presidential election; violent protests in the streets; goon squads of unidentified, camouflaged troops snatching peaceful protestors away in unmarked vans; three American cities declared “anarchist jurisdictions” by the U.S. Department of Justice; threats of civil war no matter which party wins the White House in November. Another lousy season from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

I’m ready to head down under! Join me? Cool!

Bring deodorant.