Page 37 - 2011 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - January 2011

Preparing for Doomsday Preparing for Doomsday QMI Agency In the end, the downers and the killjoys warn there will be an awfully high price to pay. Our sun could have a cosmic conniption. Or a mysterious "Planet X" could swoop by. Or our world's poles could turn on themselves. Or our neighbours could turn on one another. 2 ), # ) +!&% Or, well, you get the bleak picture. And thanks to frets over the end of the ancient Mayan calendar, of December 2012 is shaping up to be -- despite the world's best scientists Eternal Love saying doomsday fears are bunk -- a notoriously gloomy destination. But if the turn of the last millennium has taught mankind any lesson -- similar to the backyard bunker craze during the Cold War -- it's people are always ready to invest in personal salvation. On March 6, 2004, Thomas Pierce, his wife, JoAnn, and his Though, be warned, Doomsday profits are never a sure thing. daughter Lisa were on the water taxi that overturned in At Costco, you could always buy too many toothpicks to ever use. Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. He lost both of them that day. But now, the American bulk-store stocks -- for $999.99 US -- an emergency one-year supply of dehydrated and freeze-dried food for one- Pierce’s account of the accident and the letter to Lisa by one of the person. On the menu, it includes six cans of whole eggs and another six cans reservists that rescued her give the reader a grim understanding of of dehydrated potato chunks. There are even taco fixings. what that day was like. But this is not a book about the accident - The online help-desk for the Canadian fleet of stores couldn't find the this book is about the power of love. Love as we know it and same deal on their racks. Though we can always stock up on toothpicks. understand it, and love that goes beyond our understanding. This Online, you can buy 2012 "survival guides" for $39. is a book Pierce never intended to write but he felt compelled to Another site offers an emergency seed bank -- for $139 -- stocked share the things that carried him through this tragedy and all the with the makings of an acre of crops. signs that helped him move on with his life. It is truly a celebration And for those who are little more laid back about end-times, there are of two lives that will go on forever. 2012 teddy bears and T-shirts that-- forecasting worries the poles will reverse -- point out "Shift Happens." Once you have read this book you will find yourself passing it on The biggest money, by far, is being sunk into a new generation of to friends and family, so that they too can share the experience of bunkers. the power of love. own. The super-rich, countless bloggers assure, have already built their www.thelastrose.com So why not average people? For Larry Hall, that means selling space in a 14-level underground "survival condo" in Kansas -- a plush refuge, that can be a primary or second home capable of peacefully drowning out the sound of hustle and bustle as well as the nagging shrill of Armageddon. The nuclear-blast-repelling shell is a former Atlas missile silo, where a minimum $900,000 will buy you half a floor of "Star Trek technology meets survival bunker." And yes, there's a workout area. "Our biggest frustration (has been) horrible luck with investors," says Hall, a Florida engineer, who has sunk $600,000 of his own money in one of the world's most advanced holes in the ground. He can get his hands on about 65% of the needed funds from committed backers to bring the project to life but other investors are hedging or having trouble liquidating assets. An Inspiring True Another concern is a matter of time. A Canadian couple from B.C., wanted to be let in, but they went Story elsewhere when they were told there would be a wait for the retrofit. "I'm almost ready to scream," says the developer, who may have to scale back the project. Robert Vicino has also seen some investor hedging. He's planning This is the Amazing but true story of Lori Dawn Cartagena, a bunkers across the U.S., and speaks about potential markets in China and glamorous young Australian Entertainer who traveled to America Russia, as well as a super-complex somewhere -- he won't say where -- in after spending over twelve months from 1968 to 1969, Europe. entertaining American and Australian troops in Vietnam during His California company, Vivos, sells a sort of doomsday time-share. the war. After surviving numerous ambushes and mortar attacks, For an initial investment of $5,000, you can reserve space in a sanctuary, Lori eventually flees war torn Asia and arrives in Canada. After a including a bunker in the desert near Barstow, California. brief affair with a handsome, charming Toronto businessman, That facility is not complete, and is being built on the strong bones she moves to Florida to join a stage show where she finds of a former emergency communications shelter. Each four-person room -- and a year of everything you would need to herself in another desperate situation. Lori discovers she is survive with the doors shut -- costs $50,000. pregnant and eventually has to make the most heartbreaking "They just need to show up with the shirt on their back," Vicino decision of her young life. as soon as her newborn son was assures. taken away from her, Lori vowed she would one day find him While his company website includes ominous music and a roadmap again. She tried several times , but to no avail. However, 34 of every conceivable terror, Vicino believes he's not trying to profit on years later-he found her. The reunion was the most wonderful scaring the beejeebers out of people. event both mother and son could only have dreamed of over "We're not providing fear, but (rather) hope," he argues. those long, agonising years. "So far, we haven't seen a profit," he offers, while adding there's www.loridcartagena.com actually nothing wrong with making a dollar. And of the ultimate cost? Someday soon, he believes: "Those that ridiculed us will be the ones shouting the loudest to 'let us in.' []