A Shelter to the End

Robert Vicino and his son Dante purchased a land at the base of the Black Hills in South Dakota, where 575 concrete and steel bunkers are still standing. In this fortress designed to store bombs and ammunition during the Second World War, they are hoping to build the largest survival community on earth. They call it xPoint, referring to “the point in time when only the prepared will survive.”

By early 2021, about a hundred bunkers had already been sold and a dozen families were living in xPoint full-time. Some have moved in during the pandemic. They feel safer on this grassy land, far from the cities and under the biggest skies. “These people haven’t given up on society, explains Dante Vicino, they are creating their own. Every day, they build the world they want to wake up to, if they do weather the storm.”

This work is part of a feature story published in Usbek & Rica Magazine in May 2021.