New Member - lost on the forum! (but now found!)

[rainingcatzanddogs]

OK, let's try again!
Hi all! I am Harkin from the great state of Georgia.
My wife and I and our three other founders (all of us engineers!) have just retired at the beginning of this year so that we could work on our facility full time. All of us are in our 60s except for one who is retired at 39! Damn kids!

My goal here is to hopefully bounce ideas off you and give engineering advice if anyone wants to hear what I think?
In the summer of 2018, my wife and I made the long drive to Edgemont, South Dakota.
Our mission was to visit and learn what we could about Vivos xPoint where over 500 families each have their own hardened concrete shelter.
We met a lot of super nice folks who proudly showed us their setups.
It was a sharing community for sure and yet everyone was on their own in a very remote and environmentally hostile location.
Remote is what they wanted and that's what they have.
I could see huge potential for some, but it was just too remote for us.
I'm glad we did it and was super inspired to go back and share what I'd seen with my partners.

We haven't got to see it yet, but in a few weeks we have arrangements to visit Dave V's 125,000 square foot survival facility in nearby Florida.
I could deal with Florida winters a lot better than I could with South Dakota's!
Also on our bucket list is to try to get permission to go see :
--An owner modified Atlas Missile Silo.
--Trident Lakes development in Dallas.
--Trump's huge government built underground bunker under his Mar A Lago golf course!
--Cheyenne Mountain!
--The bunker at White Sulphur Springs resort in West Virginia (supposedly open to public tours. Anyone been??)
--Raven Rock near the Blue Ridge Summit in Pennsylvania.
--Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center near Bluemont, Virginia
--The facility below the Denver Airport

Welcome from Texas! What kind of engineer are you?

 

[Harkin]

Welcome from Texas! What kind of engineer are you?

Thanks!
I'm a Civil Engineer (bridges) and my partners are Electrical, Mechanical, and Computer Engineers. In principle, we figure we have a lot of the mechanical know-how covered but hope to learn about the psychological aspects of running a community from those willing to share your experience.

 

[GeorgiaPeachie]

You are exactly right, we would totally geek out if we got to see Cheyenne Mountain etc. but we joint-own a property between our 4 families, so we have utilitarian reasons to see as many other places as possible so we minimize how long it takes to become operational. We want to try to capitalize on the successes of others and avoid mistakes they may be willing to share. Now that we're retired, we are accelerating our build. I think the facility in Florida has everything we could want to emulate. The anticipation is almost painful. I think you are correct, the time may be short.

Make sure to buy lots of food now and have a place where you can garden and raise animals for the long term. What is coming is not going to be over in a year to two.

 

[Danil54grl]

Haha. . . Love the new introduction. Welcome to the forum from a Texan gal.

 

[Danil54grl]

Thanks!
I'm a Civil Engineer (bridges) and my partners are Electrical, Mechanical, and Computer Engineers. In principle, we figure we have a lot of the mechanical know-how covered but hope to learn about the psychological aspects of running a community from those willing to share your experience.

My dad was a mechanical engineer and sis is an engineer that works with the oil rigs.

 

[DrHenley]

My father was a geological engineer working as an oil scout for Conoco, I taught chemical engineering at Auburn and Tuskegee. and my daughter is an electrical engineer with UL.

 

[Harkin]

Engineers all around!
My father was a hydrologist who studied aquifers and my mother was a nurse.

 

[Holly1]

Hello to Harkin.
My very best wishes to you from south coast UK. I doubt I know as much as you do but if I can be of help or service and you have any questions, then I'll certainly try my best for you.

Glad to meet you, friend.

 

[Harkin]

Hello to Harkin.
My very best wishes to you from south coast UK. I doubt I know as much as you do but if I can be of help or service and you have any questions, then I'll certainly try my best for you.
Glad to meet you, friend.

Thanks Holly, glad to meet you as well!
I guess we're in very different locations, but we share the need to get as much prepping done as soon as we both can! My wife and I am fortunate to have the help of three other couples who share our goals and values. In a couple weeks we'll all be driving to Florida to tour what I believe is the most advanced and possibly the largest survival facility on the US east coast, so I'll let you know what we learn!
Also, we haven't set the date yet because we want to coordinate all of us going, but we also plan (probably this summer?) to tour the Greenbrier bunker at White Sulphur Springs Resort in West Virginia!
https://www.greenbrier.com/Activities-Events/Bunker-Tours-(11).aspxWe will probably spring for the private tour so we can learn everything we want to know. We'll let you know what we learn there as well!

 

[Harkin]

While I was off at a local building supply company this morning, my wife was making inquires at Greenbrier to see about reservations for this summer. Apparently the cheapest room we'll be able to get is $359/night! That's now but maybe we can lock in that "low" price if we reserve it soon?

After doing a little more reading, tours of their bunker require that you leave your phone and camera behind so yet another tour that sadly we'll have to commit totally to memory. Understandable for the Florida facility, but not so much at Greenbrier where thousands tour yearly. I'm a little down to not be able to have photos that we can share and pour over at a later time.

 

[Harkin]

On 2nd look, there's a Fairfield Inn about 7 miles away from Greenbrier that's $107/night. That's a lot more reasonable than #359/night!

 

[Harkin]

Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center is near Purcellville, Virginia and about 50 miles from DC. Supposedly most of the congressional leadership were evacuated to it immediately following 9/11. It sounds like it's still operational. It would have been on the way to Greenbrier, but I made a couple inquires. It's apparently not available to tour. Bummer.