Got bomb shelters? In light of recent tensions, this Montebello businessman has your back

MONTEBELLO >> While the world watches the threatening maneuvers North Korea is making — and President Donald Trump’s tweets about that country’s nuclear capabilities — business is perking up for a local businessman who sells a rare product in these post-Cold War times: bomb shelters.

Ron Hubbard, no relation to Scientology’s founder who started Atlas Survivor Shelters in 2010 after years in the steel manufacturing business, said interest in his product has risen the past few days from potential customers wanting to know how and when they can purchase a shelter — not to mention all the calls he’s been fielding from national and international media outlets.

• Photos: Go inside bomb shelters built in Montebello

On Friday, he handily navigated in-person interview after interview inside his cramped office at 7407 Telegraph Road.

“I’ve had calls from people who think they need a shelter like yesterday,” Hubbard said.

Yesterday isn’t going to happen. Neither is tomorrow. Orders, on average, would take about eight weeks, depending on which of the 14 shelters a customer wants, Hubbard said.

The shelter business is feast or famine, he said, and right now it’s clearly in feast mode.

The bunkers, which can be used to protect against bombs or tornadoes, cost from $10,000 to $110,000. The smaller ones can be built in six to seven hours; the higher-end ones can take a month, Hubbard said.

They have all the amenities denizens of the 20-teens would expect: light fixtures, laminated wood flooring, showers, toilets, furniture and big screen TVs.

“It’s a mini-apartment,” said James Crowley, a contractor who on Friday was painting the interior of a 50-foot by 10-foot shelter with a culvert piping exterior. He helped install one of the shelters recently in the backyard of a San Bernardino residence.

Bomb shelters are placed 20 feet underground; structures installed with tornadoes in mind are placed at half that depth, Hubbard said, adding he’s used to the attention his odd line of work is attracting.

He went through a similar craze in 2012, during the Mayan Calendar doomsday phenomenon.

“I went on a lot of talk shows, but there wasn’t a lot of sales,” Hubbard said.

Three years ago, he said, when there was talk of ISIS getting its hands on a dirty bomb, Hubbard had another moment in the spotlight.

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This time around, however, feels different.

“This is the new normal,” Hubbard said of the nuclear tensions.

“What is going in right now between us and North Korea is this generation’s Cold War, but this time it’s hot,” Hubbard said.

“We have a playground with two bullies, with one of them who will push too hard and the other one is going to do something,” he said of Trump and North Korea President Kim Jong-un.

As waves of interest in the past, current sales don’t match the intense attention, but Hubbard was surprised earlier this week when a Compton woman bought a $60,000 shelter.

“I tried to talk her into a lower-priced one, but she was set on that one,” Hubbard said.

As for the future of his industry, tornado shelters are providing steady sales.

Meanwhile, Hubbard said, the bomb shelters’ fate is in the hands of the politicians.

“Trump is good for bomb shelter sales,” Hubbard said. “But if Kim Jong-Un is gone, my business is dead.”