An RV Park for the End of the World

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Robert Vicino is converting the majority of a 60-acre former military bunker into a post-apocalyptic resort because he feels called to do so.

Among other things, Vicino is the designer of Otto the Autopilot from the 1980 comedy movie “Airplane,” Vice.com says. But he’s completely serious about this project, which he says was inspired by a spiritual message he received that warned of an “extinction event.”

For the past five years, Vicino has been developing locations to ride out the end of the world. There are six in various stages of completion, Vice says, each designed to hold 1,000 people or more.

The newest one, Vivos Survival Shelter & Resort, is being developed about 50 miles northwest of Kansas City and will hold about 5,000 people in its more than 2 million square feet, FastCoExist.com says. It’s for families with recreational vehicles, who will be able to park them inside. And by inside, I mean 130 feet underground.

Vicino described it as “a turnkey four-star underground hotel slash cruise ship” to Fox Business News. The Vivos website calls it “a virtual fortress with full-time security and protection devices, drive-thru blast doors that can withstand a nuclear blast from mere miles away, filtration systems for nuclear radiation and fallout, biological pathogens and chemical war gases.”

There are renderings of the layout, and lists of planned resort activities available underground and above ground (assuming nuclear fallout or a depleted ozone layer doesn’t preclude them, I guess).

The cost? A one-time membership fee of $1,000 per each foot of the RV’s length, plus $1,500 per person for a year’s supply of food, the site says. After lockdown, association fees are expected to be about $3 a month per foot.

That’s if you qualify. Vivos screens applicants based on their profession, education, expertise, skills, health, and other criteria. But “discrimination of any sort [will] not be allowed or tolerated,” the site says.

Planned amenities include a wine bar, helipad, hair salon, meditation areas, and hydroponic gardens, FastCoExist says. Those who have paid are welcome to visit any time, the Vivos site says — no need to wait until doomsday, which “can happen at any time, without notice, in 2013, 2019, 2029, 2036, or even 100 years from now.”

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