I received an email about three months ago I kept meaning to answer but never got around to it. And since it is probably of general interest, I’ll answer it here. This is body of the email:
I’ve appreciated the info you’ve provided on your Idaho bunker, how you’ve approached the design and construction problems and solved them.
But….I’ve concluded you committed a tactical error in not just acknowledging your bunker exists, but also a strategic error achkowledging that such a thing as “bunkers” could even exist. OPSEC and all that.
<heavy sigh>
It started out that I was going to keep things as quiet as I could. But it turned out to be unrealistic. Here is the sequence of the information leakage slippery slope:
- Permit for septic system (state)
- Permit for well (state)
- Permit for road access (county)
- Permit for and inspection of electrical panel to connect to the electrical utility (state?)
- Permit for construction (county)
- Complete and accurate plans
- Inspections at certain milestones
- Permit and inspections for HVAC (state?)
- Permit and inspections for plumbing (state?)
So, basically the county and state government know pretty much everything about my place. Well, at least the general public doesn’t really know, right?
Shortly after the first concrete was poured one of the workers told me, “Everyone in the county knows about this. People I barely know ask me if I’m working on your place.” I would go to the local builder’s supply store to buy some tool, wire, or some sort of construction material and they saw the credit card or picked up on my name some other way I would get asked, “Are you the guy building the underground house?”
Okay. So, essentially all the locals know about it. At least the feds would have to ask around to get a bead on it, right?
Well… the Boomershoot ATF explosives license is coming up for renewal and the ATF, wanting to inspect the magazine before it got to muddy or there was deep snow blocking access, gave me a call. Nearly the first thing out of the guy’s mouth was, “I hear you are making good progress on your underground house.”
It turns out that other license holders in the area mentioned it.
So, who am I really trying to keep this from?
At this point I am having fun with it at work. I can “work from home” one day a week and I mostly just go into the office because it is close enough to home that the commute doesn’t really make much difference. But about once a month or so I “work from Idaho” on a Friday and the following Monday. If asked how my weekend was, I will drop a hint like, “I moved about 100,000 pounds of dirt.” After a few seconds of silence my manager asked, “Was this for fun or something else?” My reply was, “I needed more dirt on my underground bunker.” There were no more questions.
One of my managers asked me what I do when I go to Idaho. At that time my standard response was, “I’m a little private about that so I just tell people, I’m working on my underground bunker.” A few months later after getting a similar response and mention of all the snow I had to get through to camping trailer and the difficultly of keeping the trailer warm and the water running, he said, “I think I’ll call it your ‘Fortress of Solitude.” That works for me.
Another guy asked when I was going to retire and I told him I can’t retire for a while, “Underground bunkers in Idaho are expensive.” Silence for a few seconds then he laughed, “That’s funny!”
One weekend I was on call while in Idaho. While underground the cell signal is extremely poor or non-existent. I didn’t yet have Wi-Fi on the inside so there was no cell over Wi-Fi available. Mid-morning on Saturday, when I just barely had signal, I got a call for help. I told the guy I was underground and to hold on while I went outside to get a better signal. A couple hours later after the emergency was under control I told the people on the call I was taking a break to go check to make sure I had closed the door to the underground bunker when I got the call. People laughed.
When the place is ready for visitors, I plan to have an open house and invite everyone from work so I can get one last laugh out of it.
The best OpSec for a “retreat” is time. 20 years after you are through building it most people will have forgotten about it.
To me, that’s one of the BIG problems with Idaho and many (but not all) states: the need for permits and paperwork where the government and the public has access to full details on everything you’ve done.
it’s a large part of the reason my relocation plan is specifically to one of the states that do not have state wide planning, permitting, and zoning requirements.
(and also a state that is less on the .gov radar than Idaho, Montana, or Texas).
When will this happen? Not as soon as I’d like…
Were the underground bunker non-existent it would be a good source of humor; that it actually exists constitutes a pain point.
One solution might be to find a second property a reasonable distance away, more than far enough that the two could not be conflated, and bury a CONEX. Put furniture, TV, sink, toilet, etc. into the CONEX, publish pictures of same (with GPS coordinates in the pics, of course), and Presto! You have an underground bunker. When SHTF everyone will show up at the CONEX looking for you and find only a rusting CONEX with non-functional fixtures and appliances.
As for the permitting issue, one diversion is a real-sounding corporate name on all the paperwork, preferably multiples, so no one thing can be traced back to any particular source.
Having skipped both of those options, I’d guess the favorable course now would be lots of full belts, clear fields of fire, proximity fuzes, and aiming stakes (the first two would be somewhat problematic from underground, but the mortar platoon always appreciates accurately placed stakes).
I am told by people whom I think understand such things, that you can’t bury a Conex without it getting crushed unless you have some sort of arch over it. It is simpler just to get a drainage pipe of the same approximate size and bury that.
I guess I’d have just referred to it as an “earth-sheltered home”, or a “berm house”.
I used to be very interested in them but decided that problems in good construction, adequate drainage, and sunlight only in the front rooms were issues for me. I’ve seen some interesting berm homes on south-facing hillsides that managed to incorporate a half-story behind the front rooms for south-facing clerestory windows that let light into the rear portion of the house helping to alleviate the latter problem.
There’s a great engineer by the name of Joe Lstiburek (Building Science) who has done some fascinating work on how to correctly build air- and water-tight homes. One of the quotes I love is, “There are two kinds of windows. Those that leak, and those that WILL leak.” His contention about berm or earth-sheltered homes is that from an energy-efficiency standpoint you can do better with good walls, windows and doors.
I’m guessing he’s never considered the bunker aspects of it.
Nice idea. “earth-sheltered home” or “berm home” are hippy things, for people who get their inspiration from the Whole Earth Catalog. It suggests something utterly different from “underground bunker” even though it is technically accurate.
I say “earth-sheltered home community with stormwater management”, you say “earthwork fortifications with moat and interlocking fields of fire”, po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.
speaking of earth sheltered homes, the “WOFATI” thing they’re working on over at the permies.com place in Montana looks promising, but like anything new, will prob take a couple decades to be sure any bugaboos are found and fixed.
Underground homes were the comparatively new, big thing in the 70s in the Midwest. Always was tempted, but kept relocating.
Color me jealous!
Today the dream has evolved to a barndominium in TN.
And if all that wasn’t enough. One of the satellites got you in “flagrante delicto” phase of construction.
Maybe should have built a giant pole barn, complete with restroom facilities for guest workers, or custom farmers. (Since your not their most of the time.) That would have covered the permits. Well, sewer, electric. drainage, etc.
Then built it under the barn. After TOTWAWKI kicks off it would make perfect cover.
You could probably still do that. Stack those big bales around the inside perimeter and most nobody would give it a second look.
The locals are all going to know anyway.
I sometimes think the opsec thing is a tactic of the government to keep everyone isolated and alone and easy pickings for them and it seems to be working quite well…Now the Bundys on the other hand did the opposite and none of them died… Imagine that…
Maybe your neighbors can do the same. Then you can refer to them collectively as “Hobbiton.” Just make sure at least a couple of the doors are round.
There’s a Huge difference between and ‘Earth-Sheltered Home’ and a Military-Spec Bunker. Or even a proper Fallout Shelter. You still have all the ‘problems’ of a single-family Home in a ‘remote location’, and the general knowledge that you are some sort of “Doomsday Prepper” has inevitably put you on multiple ‘Target Lists’ of everyone who lived in that County before you moved in. That is one of the Unsolvable Problems with moving to a Remote Area that most people don’t realize.
p.s. ANY Bunker, even Military, .gov, bankster billionaire, etc. can be Taken Out with a couple of cans of Diesel Fuel and a Road Flare. Particularly if it has a Diesel Generator- Fuel down the Air Intake makes the Engine overspeed, break up, and catch Fire.
Everyone in Idaho has a secret underground bunker. Why else would anyone live here? 🙂
At least as plentiful as firearms in vehicles.
You’re just another one of the crowd.
Time for you to come back home.
The discussion reminds me of Kerchhoff’s principle, a rule of design and use of encryption systems. He observed that the system must not depend on secrecy of the design but only on secrecy of the key. There’s good reason for that: the key is fairly easy to change (more so now than 150 years ago when he worked) while the design is fixed in steel or silicon. And for any system used reasonably widely or for a while, it is unrealistic to assume that enemy spies won’t have learned how it works. (Which is not to say you’d disclose the details for no reason — no sense in making the enemy’s life easier.)
The analogy here is that the existence, and at least portions of the design, of your bunker should be assumed to be known to the opposition. Your security should not depend on their ignorance but rather on the strength of your defensive measures.