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.