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Doomsday bunker business soars since Trump's election

Posted at 5:26 PM, May 24, 2017
and last updated 2017-05-24 17:25:59-04

Inside an unassuming warehouse in eastern Texas is where Clyde Scott has made a business and millions out of assuming the worst.

"Since Trump came into office, I'd say (within) the first 30 days our sales probably went up 300 percent," Scott said.

Scott owns Rising S Company which started off building underground steel storm shelters. Scott said over the years world events and world leaders attracted a different clientele.

Larger, more intricate, secure and expensive doomsday bunkers became his bread and butter.

"I'm talking survival shelter," Scott said. "Bomb shelter. The North Korea talk going on right now, the Russia talk going on right now ... there's a lot of crazy folks in this world and if you've got a safe place to go in a bunker underground, you, your family, your loved ones are safe."

Starting around $50,000 and going all the way up to $10 million, the bunkers are backordered six months to one year.

The boom in business is bucking the trend many of his neighbors predicted when President Obama left office.

"When Trump took office everyone around my neighborhood and my small town here in East Texas were talking about 'his business is going to slow down.' I said 'no it's not,'" Scott recalled. "I said 'Hillary Clinton was going to be our slow painful death. Donald Trump is going to be our fast quick death.'"

Scott said prior to Trump's inauguration he would get one order approximately every two weeks. Since the president took office Scott says he's received up to seven orders in a week.

Scott said he gets emotionally invested in each project, and maybe even more so after recently seeing how much of a lifesaver his bunkers can be.

On April 29 multiple tornados touched down in and around Canton, Texas.

Two of those tore through his property as he was hosting a wedding.

The nearly three dozen people were too far away from his personal shelter when the first twister touched down. Scott's father-in-law was killed in that storm.

By the time the second tornado touched down he had 34 people, including first responders, sheltering in his bunker.

"It's pretty important to know if I save one life, everything I do in my whole life was worth doing," Scott said. "Just because you buy a bunker and you prepare for the worst, that don't make you crazy. To me, that makes you somewhat of a genius."