Surreal Estate Stories: The Bomb Shelter (Part 2)

http://www.surrealestatestories.com/?p=347 This video is part 2 of The Bomb Shelter house, where we open the sealed lid to the bomb shelter and tour the bomb shelter itself. I try to figure our some of the more interesting features of this fascinating piece of WWII architecture.

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• Matthew Smith

[hrdknox2000]

Cubby hole in 3:55 full of pea gravel looks to be a sump drain. Perhaps for a shower.

[mesmith26]

@hrdknox2000 That's a good thought. When we tracked down the guys who built this (actually the son's of the guy) they said that cubby #2 was built primarily for food storage, but that the pipe leading topside was actually a periscope that could be used to scope out the landscape above!

[lakesidegreg1]

The ammount of engineering that went into this blows my mind.This guy was either a genius or scared shitless of being bombed.

[mesmith26]

@lakesidegreg1 Tell me about it! I just keep walking around saying to myself...Where did he learn to do all this stuff? What did he see in his life that scared the bejeezus out of him to spend almost 10 years building this stuff? Today we are going to run a snake down some of the lines with a camera to see how everything linked together.

[perforators]

@mesmith26 Read a book "Time to love and time to die" by Erich Maria Remarque and you will understand. Mr Briedis probably survived bombings, in Latvia or in refuge in Germany during WW2, and wanted to be ready, if Soviets attack US during Caribbean crisis.

People who has seen war and hunger, never throw out food. My mother inherited a house from an old lady - there was a lot of canned food hidden everywhere. There was also big stock of first need goods - soap, sugar, matches, candles, salt...

[mesmith26]

@perforators Very good point. There is a graphic novel by the futurist David Brin that was called "The Tinkerers" and he talks about how most men of that time were able to in affect build and fix alot of things more so than young men of today. Even so, to take the remains of a torn down grocery store and clean all the rubble and rebuild them by hand over 4-5 years is quite a feat.

[avianphlu5397]

3:55 decontamination shower point..you would stand in it and wash yourself before going to any other part of the shelter

[LaughingGuns]

Have you seen a new fall-out shelter.I went in there it had a lot of doors i had to go through and a long ladder I had to climb to get to the actual M039 Underground Living room.I mean,it looks pretty good.A lot a food stored.2 guns...I could live there if i were a mole.

[smilewait4flash]

You might need this one day. I'd get it in working order and start stocking it as soon as possible.

[amazingangel23]

Nah, those were russians (ussr) who occupied us, not nazis (in 60'ties nazis was long gone in history) ... and because of them he probably had to leave Latvia, because commies eliminated any Latvian, who tried to resist occupation (or even think of resisting) ;)

[perforators]

If you have handyman skills it is not so hard and expensive to bild such thing. An in 50ties-60-ties US bomb shelters was quite a popular hobby - mostly because of recently invented nuclear bombs and unstable situation in the world. And those, who has seen communists in action, like Mr. Briedis, took it really seariously.