North Texas bomb shelter plant sees uptick in sales

A business that forges tornado and nuclear fallout shelters says business is at an all-time high amid the tension with North Korea.

Atlas Survival Shelters has had a showroom in Los Angeles for some time and just opened a new plant in North Texas due to its central location.

Ron Hubbard launched the Sulfur Springs plant in June, but had no idea what was coming.

“I sold enough bunkers in the last few days equal probably to what I did in my third year,” he said.

Hubbard credits part of the demand to the saber-rattling between the U.S. and North Korea, hearkening back to the Cold War era nuclear threat.

“Even though we have only been there 8 weeks this factory is literally already filled so we're already looking to expand this factory,” said Hubbard.

Hubbard created the business after he says he had trouble finding a shelter for his own family. The apartment-style units can sit underground, feature an air filtration system, and claim to be fallout proof.

FOX 4 asked the obligatory question of how Hubbard responds to critics who say the business model is exploiting fear.

“You know what? This is not fearmongering. I mean, I don't think anybody's ever called people who make tornado shelters a fearmongerer. All I have done is I have taken a tornado shelter and I have made it air tight.”

In addition to Texas and other U.S. states, many of these units are going off to places like Japan. That’s where shelters are often installed on new construction homes and in a part of the world where the threat of war is very close.

“It's just kind of scary to think that that's where we are at right now, so I hope nothing ever happens but just in case people need to be prepared and they need to look at getting some sort of fall-out shelter.”