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Bomb shelter manufacturers are reporting a 700 per cent spike in sales since the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The surge in demand is making it hard for Gary Lynch, co-owner of Rising S Bunkers, to keep up.

He tells The Current's guest host Laura Lynch there's a whole new clientele purchasing bunkers these days — people he never pegged as costumers.

"This is a totally new demographic. They are the ones who voted for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders," says Gary.



Although there have been no moves towards a new nuclear arms race, Gary thinks it is just a matter of time before nuclear war breaks out.

"People have a tendency to think that nothing is going to happen because it hasn't happened," says Gary.

"How long before the schoolyard bully goes beyond just the bullying part?"

Not everyone is convinced of the efficacy of a bomb shelter in case of a nuclear strike.

There's one way to survive a nuclear bomb

A nuclear policy adviser for decades, Joseph Cirincione, of Ploughshares Fund — a public grant-making foundation that supports initiatives to prevent the spread and use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons — does not believe that a bomb shelter or any type of nuclear bunker will protect you from a nuclear strike

The commandant of the Civil Defence Technical Training Centre in Quebec demonstrates the effect of an atomic bomb exploding over Ottawa, Canada, April 1952. ( Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Cirincione, who is also the author of Nuclear Nightmares, says there's only one way to ensure you survive a nuclear bomb.

"The key to surviving a nuclear war is to stop the war from happening in the first place," Cirincione tells Laura.

Although ineffective, Cirincione thinks the spike in bomb shelter sales makes perfect sense since Donald Trump became president.

"We've rarely had a president this sort of unstable, this temperamental, this impetuous. This man who's deeply ignorant of nuclear policy and nuclear facts of life," says Cirincione."

Arm yourself with knowledge

Fred Armbruster, executive director of the Canadian Civil Defence Museum Association, doesn't think that nuclear war is going to break out any minute.

But says he'd like to see education and preparation around the threat of nuclear war revivified by the government of Canada.

"There should be a course out there, a source of educating people and helping them to be prepared for a man-made or natural disaster of any type," says Armbruster.

Did you know?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, founded by a group of University of Chicago scientists who worked on The Manhattan Project's first atomic weapons, has maintained a symbolic "Doomsday Clock" for the past 70 years.

The Doomsday Clock now stands at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight — the closest it has been since the 1950s.

Listen to the full segment at the top of this web post.

This segment was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal and Samira Mohyeddin.