When can we talk about preparing for a nuclear attack?

Last week, the Washington Senate State Government Committee convened at the King County Emergency Coordination Center in Renton to discuss disaster preparedness in the event of a nuclear attack in our state.

Currently, it is illegal in Washington state for emergency managers to even prepare for a nuclear attack.

In 1984, the state Legislature made it against state policy for emergency managers to prepare for evacuation or relocation in case of nuclear attack. Anti-nuke activists were behind the effort, arguing that citizens shouldn’t get comfortable with the idea that nuclear war could be survivable.

Now, Sen. State Government Committee Chair Mark Milosica, a Republican, says that policy was a mistake.

“An ounce of prevention … will help us do better,” he said Wednesday. “Who knows, maybe we’ll have a peaceful transition of power in North Korea and we won’t even have to worry about this anymore. But we obviously do have holes right now in our system.”

Miloscia and other senators have proposed to do away with the prohibition on nuclear attack planning.

Robert Ezelle, director of the Washington Military Department’s Emergency Management Division, said that preparing for a “nuclear event” isn’t much different than preparing for a mega-quake.

Democratic State Senator David Frockt was the lead sponsor of the 2017 state Senate bill proposed to do away with the prohibition on nuclear attack planning.  That measure did not pass and would need to be reintroduced in the 2018 session.

Meantime, if you’re impatient and want to bypass the whole “government saving us” motif, you might want to consider Vivos.

Robert Vicino is an entrepreneur turned underground survival shelter guru. Back in the 1980s when our state was closing up shop on doomsday prep, Vicino had an inspiration.

“To build a shelter for 1,000 people, deep underground to protect us from a coming life-extinction event.”

Over the past three decades, Vicino has built Vivos — a network of high-end underground shelters across the United States, Europe, and most recently, South Korea.

Vicino and his company, Terravivos, have been featured on numerous national television programs, including the History Channel.

It’s sort of like buying into a timeshare. Some of the shelter buy-in’s run $35,000 per adult, $25,000 per child with enough food, toiletries to last a year. The cheaper version is in South Dakota. It’s the shelter Vicino recommends for Seattlites.

“The closest one and the best one for Seattle residents is our South Dakota site. An 18-square-mile complex, a former military base we took over with 575 bunkers. Each one is 2,200 square feet … to accommodate 10-20 people comfortably. At $25,000 per unit, divided by 20 — so your cost is $1,200 and change per person … that’s your local Starbucks budget.”

Vicino isn’t impressed with state law.

“Just because the local Seattle population or administration may be in denial … that’s not going to stop it. As a citizen of the United States, under the Second Amendment, you are entitled to protect yourself and that includes with weapons and any other form of security. And that’s all a shelter is, it’s just a means of protection.”

Some accuse Vicino of fear selling. But Vicino says his mission is to educate people, not scare them.

“I live in a beautiful Tuscan Villa in Southern California on the ocean, this is paradise … Why would I ever want to go underground? The answer is I don’t, but I will. And that’s what Vivos is all about … the vehicle to keep you safe when all hell is breaking loose on the surface, we will be comfortable underground.”

Whether you agree with Vicino’s mission or not, he says he wants people to wake up and be prepared and not be victims waiting for the government to save them.