A man built a massive doomsday bunker — referred to as the largest in North America — using 42 school buses (video below).
Bruce Beach built a 10,000-square-foot nuclear fallout shelter on land near his home — a facility known as Ark Two. With the Atomic Doomsday clock closer than its been since 1953 and tensions between the U.S. and North Korea higher than ever, Beach said he believes “now more than ever” that people should be considering their options in the event of a nuclear catastrophe.
Despite the tensions throughout the world, Beach said he still understands that people might think he’s crazy for building a shelter.
“People think, ‘What a nut,’ and I know that, but I don’t mind,” he told the National Post. “I understand the world looks upon me that way.”
Even Beach’s wife, Jean, jokingly said she questions her love for her husband when asked how they first fell in love.
“I’ve often asked myself that question,” she said. “I almost married another guy but my dad broke it up, and I am glad he did. Bruce takes care of me — and I take care of him.”
Inside his shelter, Beach has a bedroom for children and a day care center with toys, as well as separate bathrooms for men and women. It also has a number of storage bins filled with toilet paper. It was built to house 350 people.
“Those aren’t for use, but for bartering,” he said. “We have all the comforts of home.”
“I used to always say the end of the world was going to be two years from now,” said Beach, who moved from the U.S. to Canada in 1970. “But now I say it is going to be two weeks from now — and if I am wrong, I will revise my date. I’ve done it before.”
Many readers reacted strongly to the homemade shelter, and some commented on attempts by the local city council to have it closed down.
“There’s always some governmental communist goober talking about public safety, trying to railroad you from your freedoms,” one Newsiosity reader commented on the site’s Facebook page. “He said the local government tried to close it down. Wtf!?”
“Crazy ol’ [coot],” another wrote. “He might be on to something.”
“Better safe then sorry,” another added.
“There are lots of people who laugh at this, yet every year buy fire insurance for their houses even though house has never burned down,” a National Post reader commented. “Take all that money spent on fire insurance and put it in the bank and after 20+ years it would be a lot.”
“And so, it one survives after spending many months or years in this ‘establishment’ one comes out to a world cold as hell, radioactive and inhabited by rats and cockroaches,” another added. “I think I would prefer to be at ground zero of a bomb.”