The first Halloween party that Garrett and Elaina Chynoweth went to in this city was a disaster. The tricks were scarce, he said, and laughter was even harder to find.
But both homeowners said the holiday wasn't just about offering up scares or sugary treats. Rather, it was about building community.On that day, Garrett Chynoweth vowed never to let such a great holiday go to waste. So, after countless hours of preparation to decorate their house for Halloween with only recycled items, the Chynoweths opened their house in north Colorado Springs to the neighborhood, offering visitors a few spooks, some candy and even more smiles.Vicino has always had a taste for offbeat business ventures. In 1977, at the age of 22, he pioneered the "giant inflatables" advertising medium by building a giant inflatable Jose Cuervo bottle for the liquor company to display at events. Within five years, he says, he had 200 Fortune 500 clients. After he had done everything he could do in the inflatables sector, he sold his company and began a new venture, speculating in fractional shares of resort homes from Europe to Hawaii. (A fractional share is like a timeshare, except that buyers actually own a piece of the title.)Last year, about 1,000 trick-or-treaters saw pirates mulling around the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman. This year, the neighborhood went even further, shooting Nerf cannons from the ships and offering popcorn balls to anyone who would walk the plank.The physical specifications required to assure life are striking. The Barstow bunker was built to withstand a 50-megaton nuclear blast 10 miles away, 450mph winds, a magnitude-10 earthquake, 10 days of 1,250�F surface fires, and three weeks beneath any flood. Vicino says that a soon-to-be-installed air-filtration system will also neutralize any biological, chemical or nuclear attacks. The Barstow branch will stock enough food and clothing to sustain 135 people for at least a year, and in a lifestyle that Vicino describes as compact but luxurious, like being on a cruise ship. Getting on board requires a $5,000 deposit, he says, to be held in escrow until the bunker is ready to move into, at which point the remainder is due. As of August, several hundred people had put their money down for a spot in one of his bunkers, he says; 75 for Barstow thus far.As our tour nears its conclusion, Vicino shows me an old control panel that indicates which bunker systems are still functioning. Only a few of the dozens of lights are blinking. The wiring is shot, the toilets don't flush, and the 750-kilowatt diesel generator is so environmentally unsound that California law forbids him to run it. Vicino says he will need at least three more months to get the premises up to cruise-ship standards; the other 19 bunkers could be ready in 18 months.Tutza, 47, was arrested on suspicion of burglary after officers found a bar of soap shaped like a bear near him that the residents said had been taken from their home.Garrett Chynoweth agreed. Making lasting memories is sometimes more important than worrying about the work it takes to put on such a production.The good news is that most scientists aren't predicting any immediate trouble. Regarding the Mayan prediction of a planetary alignment that would catastrophically reverse the Earth's magnetic field, Tom Bogdan, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, notes, "The planets have lined up plenty of times in the past, and we haven't detected any associated catastrophe." And in any case, no planetary alignment is expected in 2012. The only asteroid projected to come near Earth is a 1,000-foot-long rock called Apophis, and that won't be until 2029. Steve Chesley, a scientist with NASA's Near-Earth Object Program, says that even then, the odds of it hitting Earth run 250,000 to 1, adding, "There's nothing that looks particularly threatening out there." Climate change, meanwhile, will probably take several decades to create truly apocalyptic conditions, and in January the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists actually set its doomsday clock back by a full minute."Life for a lot of people is way too hard," Garrett Chynoweth said. "We try to make it the best for everyone."Until recently, the construction of large bomb shelters was mainly the work of governments. In 1962, for instance, federal authorities completed construction of a massive "continuity of government" bunker beneath the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. The nuclear-fallout shelter, code-named Project Greek Island, packed enough supplies to keep all of Congress plus another 600 staff members alive for 45 days.Officers found Troy Tutza hiding in the attic, which could be entered through a trap door in the garage.Vicino leads me into a smaller room, and the scent of old diesel recalls the bunker's Cold War vintage. Vicino points to a flip switch marked "nuclear blast detector." It activates a gamma-ray detector that will spot a nuclear blast as much as 100 miles away and instantly shut all the air vents. He had it tested before moving in. "This is the real thing," he says. "It still works!"
Call the writer at 476-1654.
Author: JAKOB RODGERS
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