History Main / FalloutShelterFail

* The ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E68TheShelter The Shelter]]" features a suburban doctor and his family readying the fallout shelter in their basement, believing that a nuclear attack is imminent; however, trouble occurs when neighbours try to get into the shelter as well. There's only enough space and resources to sustain three people, and fighting breaks out over what little is available -- to the point that the neighbours try to batter down the shelter doors. [[spoiler:And then the whole thing turns out to have been a false alarm.]]
* In the ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'' episode "Shelter Skelter," a CrazySurvivalist by the name of Harry Dobbs builds a state-of-the-art fallout shelter under his house, complete with radiation gauges and a communication antenna. When WorldWarIII arrives, he and his friend Nick are safe there... but because they didn't retract the antenna before the blast, their radio is useless, and Harry is too paranoid of violent scavengers to call for help when he hears voices upstairs. Also, for some reason, the gauges are still reporting lethal radiation levels weeks after radioactivity ''should'' have dropped to safe levels. By the end of the episode, Nick is dead of radiation poisoning after daring to venture out, and the shelter is littered with garbage and running on emergency lighting. [[spoiler:It's then revealed that the apocalypse never happened: a nuclear accident at the nearby air force base leveled the town, forcing the US government to erect a concrete dome over the ruins in order to contain the radiation. The "scavengers" he heard were a survey team looking for survivors to evacuate before the dome was built, but because Harry hid away from them instead of making contact, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard nobody knows he's down there]], and without the antenna, [[AndIMustScream no-one ever will]]. The man has been, for all intents and purposes, BuriedAlive.]]

** With a nuclear war with China inevitable, the U.S. government contracted the Vault-Tec Corporation to build a series of underground shelters to protect chosen members of the population until it was safe to begin repopulating the planet... or at least, that was the cover story. The unfortunate reality was that the overwhelming majority of the vaults weren't meant to save anyone: most of them were actually research facilities where the population was used as guinea pigs for whatever Vault-Tec and the government wanted to study in preparation for [[TheElitesJumpShip an exodus]] to colonize space. Hallucinogenic gasses were pumped into the ventilation, psychological experiments turned neighbour against neighbour, sonic weaponry was tested on musicians, recovering drug addicts were forced back into their old habits, residents were dosed with the Forced Evolutionary Virus, and a single inhabitant was locked in a vault with no company except for a box of puppets. The ones that ''weren't'' were merely [[NoControlGroup the control group]]. Consequently, of the hundred and twenty-two known vaults constructed by the company, the ones that were successfully opened and emptied without nightmarish results can be counted on one hand. Plus, even if the inhabitants weren't slated for fatal experiments, a few vaults ended up failing anyway due to hardware failure, supply shortages, or sheer bad luck. A few examples can be found below:

*** [[VideoGame/Fallout1 Vault 12]], located in Bakersfield, was constructed with a faulty lock mechanism on the door, preventing the Vault from sealing properly. This was done by Vault-Tec with the intent of studying the effects of radiation exposure and led to the inhabitants of the Vault being mutated into Ghouls. By the time ''Fallout 1'' takes place, Bakersfield has been renamed Necropolis, the City of The Dead [[note]]despite Ghouls not actually being undead, just hideously mutated humans[[/note]].

*** [[VideoGame/Fallout3 Vault 112]] is a virtual reality playground under the control of [[PsychopathicManchild Dr Stanislaus Braun]], with every resident brainwashed into serving his sadistic whims. Only a case of this trope gives the player an opportunity to stop him: one of the memory chips used to brainwash the residents is offline, allowing Mrs Dithers to help you out when you enter the simulation.

** The Boston Mayoral Shelter from ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' was constructed by the mayor of Boston shortly before the Great War, with the intent of sheltering his family, a few servants... and no one else. What's worse, not only did he use taxpayer money to finance it, but the shelter was ''much'' bigger than one family could possibly need, and included things like several bedrooms, a gym, and even a basketball court. After the bombs fell, civilian survivors ended up breaking into the shelter, overrunning security and killed everyone inside, with the mayor committing suicide in the hopes that his death would satisfy the survivors and spare his wife and children.

->''"How many times did I say it, Harold? How many times? 'Make sure that bomb shelter's got a can opener - ain't much good [[NoCanOpener without a can opener]],' I said."''

* ''Film/InTheMouthOfMadness'': [[spoiler: The film concludes with an apocalypse ensuing as a result of [[MadArtist Sutter Cane]]'s [[TomeOfEldritchLore madness-inducing final novel]], forcing anyone who hasn't read the book to seek shelter in improvised shelters for fear of the "infected" individuals and [[EldritchTransformation the monsters they gradually mutate into]]. Shortly after he leaves the now-abandoned mental hospital, Trent hears an emergency broadcast from one such group of survivors attempting to provide advice over the airwaves. Unfortunately, given that the broadcasters still have no idea of what caused the apocalypse, it's clear that the efforts to take shelter are all in vain, especially given that the [[EldritchAbomination Old Ones]] are returning thanks to the book as well. As such, the broadcast abruptly cuts out a few minutes after it begins, presumably due to the shelter being compromised.]]

* Discussed in ''Film/TheDayAfter'': in the face of WorldWarIII, guards at a missile silo opt to hide in the now-empty silo, mentioning that it's built like a bomb shelter and stocked with enough supplies for the next two weeks... but one of them points out that a direct hit from the nukes targeting the launch sites will easily destroy the silo regardless of how fortified it is. As such, it's not so surprising that [=McCoy=] decides to risk leaving the base in the hopes of reaching his family. His fellow guards are never seen again, so it's a safe bet they didn't make it. [[spoiler:Tragically, neither does [=McCoy=]: his family is killed in the bombardment, and fallout sickness eventually kills him as well.]]

* The ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' fanfic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6115555/1/The-Way-Is-Shut The Way Is Shut]]" delves a little deeper into the fate of North Korea when investigators uncover tunnel entrances in the DMZ. One of the sealed vault doors they encounter is leaking stagnant black water contaminated with chunks of decomposed flesh, which indicates two very nasty things: first, the pumps that would normally keep the UndergroundCity dry are either inoperable or unmanned, meaning that the complex is probably flooded. Second, several corpses are ''rotting'' on the other side of the door, some of them zombies, some of them humans. [[NothingIsScarier Nobody knows exactly what happened]], but [[RoomFullOfZombies the implications]] aren't good. [[spoiler:None of the doors are opened, but the investigator fears they may not need to: North Korean construction efforts are notoriously shoddy, and with water building up pressure, [[LeakingCanOfEvil it's only a matter of time before whatever's on the other side of the doors is released]].]]

* In ''[[Literature/TheAdversaryCycle Nightworld]]'' some friends of Literature/RepairmanJack have evacuated to a nuclear bunker out in the boondocks to escape the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s erupting out of a portal in New York's Central Park. Then another portal opens nearby, but everyone thinks they'll still be safe in the bunker...until they see what appear to be [[WormSign giant mole tracks running out from the portal]], then curving around to make a beeline for their bunker. Sure enough, they end up having to defend against worm-like creatures who start gnawing away at the bunker from all sides until they break through.

* Invoked on ''Series/{{Elementary}}''. A state-of-the-art bunker turned out to be a scam to rip off billionaires afraid of the apocalypse.

* ''TabletopGame/TheEndOfTheWorld:''

** In the epilogue of the ''Revolt of the Machines'' scenario "Nanopocalypse", the survivors of a GreyGoo situation flee to Antarctica, where the cold disables any pursuing nanobots. Here, Antarctic research stations become the shelters of choice... but it soon becomes clear that there isn't enough food to go around in storage, and once the hunters run out of game, wars between other stations and even [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty cannibalism]] become common. Worse still, it's clear that with the rest of the world stripped bare by the nanobots, this is one case of this trope that's going to end with the human race ''extinct.''

* In ''VideoGame/TheBunker,'' it's eventually discovered that the eponymous government fallout shelter was just one of a whole series of botch jobs: because nobody ever believed there'd be a nuclear war, construction went to the [[HonestJohnsDealership lowest possible bidder]] and was polished off in about six weeks, meaning that the shelters started falling to pieces almost immediately after they were occupied. All the others have already failed by the start of the game, with final reports mentioning filtration problems, radiation leaks, and fights over dwindling resources. [[PlayerCharacter John]]'s bunker seems to be the exception: it manages to hold together for at least thirty years before experiencing faults in the filtration system, and there's enough supplies to keep John going until external radiation levels are safe for him to leave the bunker. [[spoiler:However, this is only because [[MamaBear his mother]] got wind of the limited supplies and [[WellIntentionedExtremist fatally poisoned all the other residents]], not only reducing the stress on the internal systems but also leaving enough food to sustain the two of them for the next three decades.]]

* In the finale of ''VideoGame/MassEffect1,'' the mysterious planet of Ilos is found to be home to a vast underground facility: once a secret research base for the [[{{Precursors}} Prothean Empire]], it was repurposed into a sanctuary for the scientists when [[MechanicalAbomination the Reapers]] began harvesting all advanced life, with the inhabitants hoping to remain preserved in stasis until the invaders had finished culling the galaxy and returned to Dark Space. However, though they left the [[BenevolentAI VI Vigil]] in charge, nobody had anticipated just how long it would take for the harvest to be complete, and the facility began to degrade over the years: in the ensuing power triage, Vigil was forced to sacrifice non-essential personnel in the hope of preserving more valuable inhabitants, until only a handful of scientists survived to see the end of the war -- and they were too few to repopulate. [[spoiler:However, they ''were'' able to use their research to create a back door into the Citadel, sabotaging the Reapers' control of the station and preventing them from springing their usual surprise attack on the galaxy ever again -- hence why Sovereign had to go about recruiting Saren and the Geth this time.]]
* One of the last gambits of the Protheans to survive the Reaper invasion in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' involved building a sheltered stasis vault to store a million of their people until the Reapers finished harvesting all advanced life in the galaxy, with the intent of rebuilding their Empire with these survivors and fortifying it against future harvests. Unfortunately, the vault was nowhere near as lucky as the one on Ilos: it was discovered by Indoctrinated Protheans and critically damaged before it could be activated, with only a few hundred stasis pods surviving. To make it worse, the systems for automated reawakening were disabled, so only one Prothean lasted long enough to be awoken -- and not until the Reapers returned at that.

* In ''VideoGame/SixtySeconds'' the shelter is built well enough to survive the nuclear attack and the aftermath, but you failed to stock it with the necessary supplies ahead of time. You only have 60 seconds to grab your family members and any supplies you have around your house before you have to lock the hatch. If you do not get enough supplies or missed some key items, you are in for a rough time: you'll have to send family members out to scavenge and the people who stay behind might go insane from boredom. Your shelter will fail sooner or later, and your only chance is to last long enough for the army to come and rescue you.

** Zig-zagged in the ''Treehouse of Horror VIII'' short "The Homega Man": when Homer heard about the threat of Springfield being nuked by the French, he built a "fallout shelter" that is nothing more than a cardboard box with an umbrella over it and "USA #1" painted on the sides, which Lisa and Marge point out is utterly useless as a shelter and order him to go buy a proper shelter. The city is nuked when Homer is inside the "Withstandinator" eating all of the food and he initially thinks he is the only person still alive in the city, and he discovers near the end that the rest of his family survived because he painted the house with so many layers of lead paint that it worked as perfect shielding.

* ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'': Discussed in "Things Left Unsaid Part 2". ConspiracyTheorist Wylie discusses real-life bomb shelters and government bunkers that became abundant during the Cold War and thoroughly mocks how most of them provided little real defense against a chemical or nuclear attack. He points out they radiation takes a while to go away, most bunkers can only hold so much food, and even if a bunker survives an initial explosion, radiation or airborne diseases can still get in with the air. He notes that there are only three bunkers he is aware of that were really designed to ride out a storm, and [[spoiler:at least two of those bunkers, Thunder Mountain and the Valhalla Sector, have no way to stop the spread of the Big Death virus once a single person brings it inside. The otherwise secure Valhalla Sector (which does at least last 15 years after the original outbreak) suffers especially badly since the time-controlled lock on its doors keeps anyone from having a chance of getting out in time]].

* ''Film/{{Matinee}}'' is set during the Cuban missile crisis, and the manager of the local theater, Howard, financed the construction of a bomb shelter for himself in the basement. Unfortunately, he didn't account for people besides himself blundering inside: the door lock mechanism isn't labeled, leading some ignorant teenagers to activate it while investigating the shelter, trapping two inside without the air filtration being turned on. Furthermore, it doesn't prove difficult to break them back out again, so it's unlikely that it would have stood up well to an actual nuclear strike.

* ''Literature/TheCityOfEmber'' centers on an underground city named Ember, meant to keep a segment of the populace safe from a nuclear cataclysm for at least 200 years. Two critical circumstances drive the plot: 1) the lockbox containing the exit protocols was passed down to a mayor who died without indicating what the lockbox was for; and 2) the central generator that powers everything is succumbing to age, as blackouts are becoming longer and more frequent. After generations in Ember, its citizens have forgotten an outside world exists. Adapted into the film ''The City Of Ember'' in 2008.

->''"How many times did I say it, Harold? How many times? 'Make sure that bomb shelter's got a can opener - ain't much good without a can opener,' I said."''

Whether it's a hundred million-dollar government bunker made from reinforced concrete concealed deep beneath the ground or just a humble basement with cots and crates of canned food, the shelter is your first line of defence in the event of an apocalypse. Regardless of whether the cataclysm is nuclear, bacteriological, environmental, supernatural, or something else entirely, this place has everything you need -- from strong walls and water supplies to canned food -- to wait out the apocalypse in safety, if not comfort. By all appearances, it should be the ideal refuge in the event of Armageddon...

Whether it's a hundred million-dollar government bunker made from reinforced concrete concealed deep beneath the ground or just a humble basement with cots and crates of canned food, the shelter is your first line of defence in the event of an apocalypse. Regardless of whether the cataclysm is nuclear, bacteriological, environmental, supernatural or something else entirely, this place has everything you need -- from strong walls and water supplies to canned food -- to wait out the apocalypse in safety, if not comfort. By all appearances, it should be the ideal refuge in the event of Armageddon...

Unfortunately, fallout shelters aren't always as safe or functional as they initially appear: maybe there's flooding, cave-ins, or structural failures due to the sheer scale of the disaster. Maybe the shelter's been contaminated by something from the outside world, a disease or a ZombieInfectee. Maybe there isn't enough food, water or medicine to keep the population healthy. Maybe there's not enough security to keep out hostile survivors from outside the shelter. Or maybe, in especially cynical situations, the shelter is completely useless and never would have helped anyone -- either through incompetence or by ''design.''

* ''Manga/DragonballZ'': In a filler episode before the Cell Games, Gohan comes across some people trying to get into a bunker headed by a sketchy businessman named Mr. Borbonne, claiming it would protect them from Cell should he win the games. After confronting him and scaring off Mercenary Tao, who was in Borbonne's employ, Gohan blows up the bunker before anyone can go in. Citing if ''he'' could do that easily, than Cell would destroy it ''and'' the people inside without batting an eyelash.

* Discussed in the documentary ''Film/TheAtomicCafe'', which points out how the kind of fallout shelters that were popular when a fear of nuclear war was high would be futile in the face of a nuclear blast.
* Early in ''Film/DawnOfTheDead2004,'' the security guards at a shopping mall are found using the building as their own personal refuge where they can ride out the ZombieApocalypse in comfort, soon being joined by Ana and several other survivors. Despite the growing horde of zombies outside, the mall provides the characters with enough food, shelter, and luxury to be illustrated in a GoodTimesMontage. Unfortunately, with civilization still in free fall it's not long before power to the mall goes out, forcing the survivors to descend into the zombie-infested garage in an insanely risky attempt to start the mall's emergency generator. The fallout of this incident ultimately prompts the survivors to begin making plans to escape the mall and make a new shelter for themselves on one of the islands in the nearby lake...

** An emergency council is assembled in the basement of Sheffield Town Hall in the hopes of managing the situation if the worst comes to the worst: the makeshift bomb shelter has food, water, a portable generator and communications equipment, so despite the confusion, the council ''seems'' well prepared. Unfortunately, when World War III ''does'' break out, the nuclear attack causes the entire town hall to collapse on top of the shelter, trapping the council inside; forced to wait until the army can dig them out, the council can only sit tight, [[NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering argue frequently]], and try to manage the rapidly-deteriorating situation by radio. Worse still, the blocked air vents begin to cause breathing difficulties for some of the council members. [[spoiler:By the time the army reaches them, the entire council has suffocated to death.]]

* In ''Brother in the Land'' by Robert Swindells, people in fallout shelters (nicknamed "badgers") are smoked out of their shelters by other survivors, who then kill them and take the supplies they had stashed. The main character, Danny, hears two men discussing digging out some "badgers", but thinks the men are talking about actual badgers and goes along with one of them, only to find himself having to smoke a family (which includes a young child) out of their shelter. This particular family manage to escape with their lives, but many other "badgers" do not. Danny thinks they are being killed not only for their supplies, but also for their selfishness.

* The protagonist of ''Literature/ThePostman'' mentions finding fallout shelters whose owners didn't make it every so often, hoping that the prior occupants stocked up on non-perishable food instead of useless stuff like gold. There are also mentions of all sorts of survivalist outposts: most of them became endless battlefields between current owners and people who wanted to take it for themselves; regardless of who won, they were soon attacked by new invaders, until there was nothing left worth fighting for.

** During the ZombieApocalypse, the people of North Korea retreated to a vast UndergroundCity beneath the country; here, Kim Jong Il could rule over a population dependent on him to provide food, water, air and even light. After years without a single sign of life in the entire country, the interviewee for this segment speculates that something might have gone horribly wrong: after all, all it would take to destabilize the entire complex would be one ZombieInfectee among the inducted populace... and perhaps the underground settlement is now populated entirely by undead horrors [[SealedEvilInACan just waiting to be released]].

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': As revealed in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace The Ark In Space]]", solar flares threatened to wipe out all life on Earth during the 30th century, and many humans flat out abandoned the planet, either travelling deep into space in the hopes of finding a new home, or accepting cryogenic suspension aboard the Ark in orbit above Earth. However, many others opted to enter shelters, hoping to simply weather out the lethal radiation. The colonists succeeded well enough that, after several thousand years, they had forged a massive empire in Andromeda; aside from a [[BigCreepyCrawlies Wirrn]] infestation nearly killing them all, the Ark was a success. The shelters, by contrast, failed so badly that for millennia the earth was considered uninhabited.
* ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'': Discussed in "Things Left Unsaid Part 2". ConspiracyTheorist Wylie discusses real life bomb shelters and government bunkers that became abundant during the Cold War and thoroughly mocks how most of them provided little real defense against a chemical or nuclear attack. He points out they radiation takes a while to go away, most bunkers can only hold so much food, and even if a bunker survives an initial explosion, radiation or airborne diseases can still get in with the air. He notes that there are only three bunkers he is aware of that were really designed to ride out a storm, and [[spoiler:at least two of those bunkers, Thunder Mountain and the Valhalla Sector, have no way to stop the spread of the Big Death virus once a single person brings it inside. The otherwise secure Valhalla Sector (which does at least last 15 years after the original outbreak) suffers especially badly since the time-controlled lock on its doors keeps anyone from having a chance of getting out in time]].

** With a nuclear war with China inevitable, the U.S. government contracted the Vault-Tec Corporation to build a series of underground shelters to protect chosen members of the population until it was safe to begin repopulating the planet... or at least, that was the cover story. The unfortunate reality was that the overwhelming majority of the vaults weren't meant to save anyone: most of them were actually research facilities where the population were used as guinea pigs for whatever Vault-Tec and the government wanted to study in preparation for [[TheElitesJumpShip an exodus]] to colonize space. Hallucinogenic gasses were pumped into the ventilation, psychological experiments turned neighbour against neighbour, sonic weaponry was tested on musicians, recovering drug addicts were forced back into their old habits, residents were dosed with the Forced Evolutionary Virus, and a single inhabitant was locked in a vault with no company except for a box of puppets. The ones that ''weren't'' were merely [[NoControlGroup the control group]]. Consequently, of the hundred and twenty-two known vaults constructed by the company, the ones that were successfully opened and emptied without nightmarish results can be counted on one hand. Plus, even if the inhabitants weren't slated for fatal experiments, a few vaults ended up failing anyway due to hardware failure, supply shortages, or sheer bad luck. A few examples can be found below:

*** [[VideoGame/Fallout1 Vault 13]] was intended to stay closed for 200 years regardless of conditions outside, but was only issued one water chip, a vital component to provide clean drinking water to the inhabitants. (In-game documents and conversations reveal that the vault was expected to rely on a nearby aquifer... which was promptly irradiated beyond use by one of the bombs.) The staff managed to make it last for 80 years, until it irreperably broke down, forcing the Overseer to send someone into the outside world to try and find a new one. This man was [[TheHero The Vault Dweller]], setting up the events of the entire franchise.

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': Featured in "[[Recap/DuckTales2017S2E13RaidersOfTheDoomsdayVault Raiders of the Doomsday Vault]]" Professor Ludwig Von Drake built the titular doomsday vault in the artic to house every type of seed and plant imaginable, so they could be used to restart the world in the event of the end of civilisation by disaster. However, despite preparing for a variety of fantastic doomsday scenarios (including Werewolves and "hyper intelligent hairless apes") he didn't take global warming into account, thus in the present the Vault is in serious danger of breaking down due to the ice melting.

* In the ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'' episode "Shelter Skelter," a CrazySurvivalist by the name of Harry Dobbs builds a state-of-the-art fallout shelter under his house, complete with radiation gauges and a communication antenna. When WorldWarIII arrives, he and his friend Nick are safe there... but because they didn't retract the antenna before the blast, their radio is useless, and Harry is too scared of violent scavengers to call for help when he hears voices upstairs. Also, for some reason, the gauges are still reporting lethal radiation levels weeks after radioactivity ''should'' have dropped to safe levels. By the end of the episode, the shelter is littered with garbage and running on emergency lighting. [[spoiler:It's then revealed that the apocalypse never happened: a nuclear accident at the nearby air force base leveled the town, forcing the US government to erect a concrete dome over the ruins in order to contain the radiation. The "scavengers" he heard were a survey team looking for survivors to evacuate before the dome was built, but because Harry didn't call out to them, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard nobody knows he's down there]] -- and without the antenna, [[AndIMustScream no-one ever will]]. The man has been, for all intents and purposes, BuriedAlive.]]

* As quoted above, ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' has one strip in a fully-stocked post-nuke bomb shelter where a woman is berating her companion for forgetting the most critical item.

* In ''Literature/ConsiderPhlebas'', the final act of the book takes place on a GhostPlanet called Schar's World, in a deep-underground network of subterranean railway lines known as the [[ElaborateUndergroundBase Command System]]. The System was intended to keep the a superpower's political and military elite safe from a nuclear war, but the planet's [[SpaceColdWar Cold War]] concluded with the use of [[SyntheticPlague powerful bioweapons]] instead, which the System wasn't equipped to defend against, allowing the plagues to kill everyone in the planet.

* In ''Film/TheseFinalHours'', an asteroid will hit in twelve hours and eliminate all life on Earth, so James' second girlfriend Zoe builds a bunker for them and her brother to survive. [[spoiler:James harshly points out that it isn't deep enough and thick enough for them to live, and also states that even if it ''was'' and they survived, there won't be any food left once they run out of rations since the Earth will be completely uninhabitable. Zoe completely breaks down once this realization hits her.]]

Whether it's a hundred million-dollar government bunker made from reinforced concrete concealed deep beneath the ground or just a humble basement with cots and crates of canned food, the shelter is your first line of defence in the event of an apocalypse. Regardless of whether the cataclysm is nuclear, bacteriological, environmental, supernatural or something else entirely, this place has everything you need - from strong walls and water supplies to canned food - to wait out the apocalypse in safety, if not comfort. By all appearances, it should be the ideal refuge in the event of Armageddon...

Unfortunately, fallout shelters aren't always as safe or functional as they initially appear: maybe there's flooding, cave-ins, or structural failures due to the sheer scale of the disaster. Maybe the shelter's been contaminated by something from the outside world, a disease or a ZombieInfectee. Maybe there isn't enough food, water or medicine to keep the population healthy. Maybe there's not enough security to keep out hostile survivors from outside the shelter. Or maybe, in especially cynical situations, the shelter is completely useless and never would have helped anyone - either through incompetence or by ''design.''

Whatever the case, the shelter is a death trap, and the best thing to do is to leave and look elsewhere - and if that isn't an option, pray for a swift, merciful death...

* The ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' episode "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho162ProtectAndSurvive Protect And Survive]]" features Ace and Hex getting stranded in an alternate timeline where the Cold War turned nuclear. Forced to stay with an elderly couple by the name of Albert and Peggy Marsden, they help them build a fallout room in their cellar using boxes of soil to absorb radiation - all in accordance with leaflets provided by the local government. Hex reflects that these are largely there to keep people calm and they probably won't be much help in the event of a ''real'' nuclear blast. Sure enough, when a nuclear ICBM wipes out the local RAF base, the radioactivity of the strike zone renders all their preparations completely useless and all four of them end up being exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. [[spoiler: However, it turns out that the timeline is actually a pocket dimension on a GroundhogDayLoop: Albert and Peggy are [[HumanoidAbomination Elder Gods]] sentenced to experience every horrific aspect of the apocalyptic war they started right up to the moment of their deaths, [[ResurrectionDeathLoop only for time to rewind and return them to the day before the apocalypse]] - dooming them to do it all over again until they finally learn their lesson.]] For good measure, it's a ShoutOut to ''ComicBook/WhenTheWindBlows'' (see below).

* At the start of ''ComicBook/WhenTheWindBlows,'' the British government provide instruction on how citizens can build their own fallout shelters out of doors and cushions. Not realizing that this advice is shoddy placebo-based rubbish designed to keep him, Jim Bloggs takes the leaflets seriously and builds his "inner core or refuge" right in the middle of the house - [[TooDumbToLive declining to use the root cellar]]. Combined with the limited supplies and the simple fact that the Bloggses don't really understand the threat of radiation, the shelter is ''hopelessly'' inadequate. [[spoiler: Even before Jim and Hilda make the mistake of leaving the shelter two weeks early, they've already been exposed to a lethal dose of fallout, and the book ends with the two dying of radiation sickness.]]

* The ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' fanfic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6115555/1/The-Way-Is-Shut The Way Is Shut]]" delves a little deeper into the fate of North Korea when investigators uncover tunnel entrances in the DMZ. One of the sealed vault doors they encounter is leaking stagnant black water contaminated with chunks of decomposed flesh, which indicates two very nasty things: first, the pumps that would normally keep the UndergroundCity dry are either inoperable or unmanned, meaning that the complex is probably flooded. Second, several corpses are ''rotting'' on the other side of the door, some of them zombies, some of them humans. [[NothingIsScarier Nobody knows exactly what happened]], but [[RoomFullOfZombies the implications]] aren't good. [[spoiler: None of the doors are opened, but the investigator fears they may not need to: North Korean construction efforts are notoriously shoddy, and with water building up pressure, [[LeakingCanOfEvil it's only a matter of time before whatever's on the other side of the doors is released]].]]

* Invoked on ''WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant''. After a nuclear strike is accidentally called on the town, Kent Mansley, [[spoiler:who called said attack]], suggests going to a nearby shelter, but General Rogard tells him point blank that there is no way to survive a direct hit from a nuke. [[spoiler: Fortunately, they are all saved by the Giant's HeroicSacrifice.]]

* Discussed in ''Film/TheDayAfter'': in the face of WorldWarIII, guards at a missile silo opt to hide in the now-empty silo, mentioning that it's built like a bomb shelter and stocked with enough supplies for the next two weeks... but one of them points out that a direct hit from the nukes targeting the launch sites will easily destroy the silo regardless of how fortified it is. As such, it's not so surprising that [=McCoy=] decides to risk leaving the base in the hopes of reaching his family. His fellow guards are never seen again, so it's a safe bet they didn't make it. [[spoiler: Tragically, neither does [=McCoy=]: his family is killed in the bombardment, and fallout sickness eventually kills him as well.]]

** An emergency council is assembled in the basement of Sheffield Town Hall in the hopes of managing the situation if the worst comes to the worst: the makeshift bomb shelter has food, water, a portable generator and communications equipment, so despite the confusion, the council ''seems'' well prepared. Unfortunately, when World War III ''does'' break out, the nuclear attack causes the entire town hall to collapse on top of the shelter, trapping the council inside; forced to wait until the army can dig them out, the council can only sit tight, [[NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering argue frequently]], and try to manage the rapidly-deteriorating situation by radio. Worse still, the blocked air vents begin to cause breathing difficulties for some of the council members. [[spoiler: By the time the army reaches them, the entire council has suffocated to death.]]
** Following government advice, the Kemps attempt to build an inner refuge out of doors and mattresses. This probably wouldn't have been much use even if they'd finished it in time, but thanks to sheer bad luck, their house is on the edge of a strike zone: the building is almost completely destroyed, rendering the inner core largely useless; [[spoiler: Michael is instantly crushed to death in the rubble, Rita suffers fatal burns, and Bill is left to slowly die of radiation sickness.]]
** By contrast, the Becketts have a basement and are lucky enough to own a house situated well outside the blast zone. Though they have to endure a death in the family and Ruth runs away from home soon after, [[HopeSpot it appears as though her parents have all the supplies they need to survive the apocalypse]]. Unfortunately, the one thing they skimped on was security: [[spoiler: a gang of looters break in and murder Ruth's parents for their food.]]

** Another chapter of the book discusses how a coalition of various American celebrities built a zombie-proof luxury compound on Long Island where they could live out the apocalypse in safety and comfort. Well-stocked with provisions and protected by armed guards, it looked to be perfect... up until the celebrities broadcast their activities and location on national TV as a "reality show". Not long after they start broadcasting, the compound was attacked and overrun - not by zombies, but by other survivors looking for food and shelter.

* The ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E68TheShelter The Shelter]]" features a suburban doctor and his family readying the fallout shelter in their basement, believing that a nuclear attack is imminent; however, trouble occurs when neighbours try to get into the shelter as well. There's only enough space and resources to sustain three people, and fighting breaks out over what little is available - to the point that the neighbours try to batter down the shelter doors. [[spoiler: And then the whole thing turns out to have been a false alarm.]]
* In the ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'' episode "Shelter Skelter," a CrazySurvivalist by the name of Harry Dobbs builds a state-of-the-art fallout shelter under his house, complete with radiation gauges and a communication antenna. When WorldWarIII arrives, he and his friend Nick are safe there... but because they didn't retract the antenna before the blast, their radio is useless, and Harry is too scared of violent scavengers to call for help when he hears voices upstairs. Also, for some reason, the gauges are still reporting lethal radiation levels weeks after radioactivity ''should'' have dropped to safe levels. By the end of the episode, the shelter is littered with garbage and running on emergency lighting. [[spoiler: It's then revealed that the apocalypse never happened: a nuclear accident at the nearby air force base leveled the town, forcing the US government to erect a concrete dome over the ruins in order to contain the radiation. The "scavengers" he heard were a survey team looking for survivors to evacuate before the dome was built, but because Harry didn't call out to them, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard nobody knows he's down there]] - and without the antenna, [[AndIMustScream no-one ever will]]. The man has been, for all intents and purposes, BuriedAlive.]]

** In ''Zombie Apocalypse'', the scenario "Under The Skin" features an ancient PuppeteerParasite being [[DugTooDeep accidentally unearthed by miners]] and infesting millions of people worldwide, forcing governments to hastily build underground shelters, evacuate as many uninfested people as they can, and then nuke the surface in an attempt to destroy the parasite. As the post-apocalypse segment of this scenario makes clear, life in one of the shelters is anything but pleasant, and it's possible for a shelter to fall in certain plot events: in one case, the screening process on new arrivals drops the ball, letting in a parasite-infested scientist; in another, characters are tasked with digging a new tunnel to expand the shelter - [[HereWeGoAgain only to accidentally uncover another dormant parasite]].

* Invoked in ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension: Ascension'': the scenario "The Earth Will Shake" features the fate of the planet being decided not by the Traditions or the Technocracy, but by a colossal meteor dubbed "Typhon." Screwing up this scenario will naturally result in an apocalyptic collision - and the book specifically notes that the meteor is so large that even the best-reinforced bunkers on Earth will collapse on impact, killing everyone inside just as surely as everyone else on the planet.

* In ''VideoGame/TheBunker,'' it's eventually discovered that the eponymous government fallout shelter was just one of a whole series of botch jobs: because nobody ever believed there'd be a nuclear war, construction went to the [[HonestJohnsDealership lowest possible bidder]] and was polished off in about six weeks, meaning that the shelters started falling to pieces almost immediately after they were occupied. All the others have already failed by the start of the game, with final reports mentioning filtration problems, radiation leaks, and fights over dwindling resources. [[PlayerCharacter John]]'s bunker seems to be the exception: it manages to hold together for at least thirty years before experiencing faults in the filtration system, and there's enough supplies to keep John going until external radiation levels are safe for him to leave the bunker. [[spoiler: However, this is only because [[MamaBear his mother]] got wind of the limited supplies and [[WellIntentionedExtremist fatally poisoned all the other residents]], not only reducing the stress on the internal systems but also leaving enough food to sustain the two of them for the next three decades.]]
* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': The desperate people of the future send a man out of the shelter and through a KillerRobot-infested dome-city to find food (they have a machine that can supply their needs, but you still feel hungry after using it); by the time he gets there, it turns out the crates weren't airtight and the food went rotten. He died there, but when the [=PCs=] find him, he is clutching a seed - which they bring back to the people in the first dome: they decide to try caring for the seed.
* During the penultimate chapter of ''VideoGame/EverybodysGoneToTheRapture'', Stephen Appleton is found to have holed up in an underground bunker as he enacts a last-ditch plan to stop [[EldritchAbomination the Pattern]] from spreading outside Yaughton - [[spoiler: an air strike]]. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, and the rest of the world soon goes silent. For a time, Stephen's left hiding in the shelter as he struggles to calculate the full scope of the disaster, trying to reach someone on the CB radio - [[EverybodysDeadDave without success]]... and then he finds out that the bunker does nothing to keep out the Pattern. [[spoiler: He douses himself in petrol and sets himself alight rather than allow the Pattern to assimilate him.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Exmortis}} 2'', the eponymous demons have long since laid waste to the Earth in an apocalyptic war, but a few isolated rural communities have managed to avoid notice, many of them making their basements into improvised shelters complete with stockpiled supplies and CB radios. Unfortunately, these shelters were useful only as hiding places: if the Exmortis got curious or the survivors couldn't hide in time, the defences wouldn't be able to keep the invaders from breaking in and torturing the inhabitants to death - as the Colby family found out the hard way. [[spoiler: It's for this reason that [[FamilyAnnihilator Mr Lochear opted to kill his family]] and [[MurderSuicide then himself]] once he saw the bulk of the Exmortis horde approaching.]]

* In the finale of ''VideoGame/MassEffect1,'' the mysterious planet of Ilos is found to be home to a vast underground facility: once a secret research base for the [[{{Precursors}} Prothean Empire]], it was repurposed into a sanctuary for the scientists when [[MechanicalAbomination the Reapers]] began harvesting all advanced life, with the inhabitants hoping to remain preserved in stasis until the invaders had finished culling the galaxy and returned to Dark Space. However, though they left the [[BenevolentAI VI Vigil]] in charge, nobody had anticipated just how long it would take for the harvest to be complete, and the facility began to degrade over the years: in the ensuing power triage, Vigil was forced to sacrifice non-essential personnel in the hope of preserving more valuable inhabitants, until only a handful of scientists survived to see the end of the war - and they were too few to repopulate. [[spoiler: However, they ''were'' able to use their research to create a back door into the Citadel, sabotaging the Reapers' control of the station and preventing them from springing their usual surprise attack on the galaxy ever again - hence why Sovereign had to go about recruiting Saren and the Geth this time.]]
* One of the last gambits of the Protheans to survive the Reaper invasion in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' involved building a sheltered stasis vault to store a million of their people until the Reapers finished harvesting all advanced life in the galaxy, with the intent of rebuilding their Empire with these survivors and fortifying it against future harvests. Unfortunately, the vault was nowhere near as lucky as the one on Ilos: it was discovered by Indoctrinated Protheans and critically damaged before it could be activated, with only a few hundred stasis pods surviving. To make it worse, the systems for automated reawakening were disabled, so only one Prothean lasted long enough to be awoken - and not until the Reapers returned at that.

* Following an apocalyptic [[CometOfDoom Impact Event]] in ''VideoGame/{{SOMA}}'', the underwater PATHOS-II station managed to escape the collision relatively unharmed and was repurposed as a shelter for the company employees. Apart from the depression of being the last people alive on Earth, the base personnel coped decently enough... and then the station's [[AIIsACrapshoot Warden Unit]] decided to take drastic steps to preserve the human race, resulting in the complex being quickly overwhelmed by insane robots and mutant monsters intent on incorporating the survivors into the WAU's LotusEaterMachine. Worse still, the WAU's expanding presence in the local wildlife meant that there was progressively less food to go around, resulting in the personnel at [[EldritchOceanAbyss Tau base]] starving to death. [[spoiler: By the time Simon arrives, there's only one unaltered human left in all of PATHOS-II - hooked up to life support - and she wants nothing more than to die.]]

** The inhabitants survived - in a way, as twisted experiments turned them into mutated horrors attacking whatever they can find...

** Narrowly averted in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E14BartsComet Bart's Comet]]". When a comet is headed on a collision course for Springfield, the whole town crowds into the Flanders' bunker though Ned states they'll likely die of suffocation before the comet hits and there's no food for all of them but he allows it because [[GoodSamaritan he just can't refuse to help]]. Indeed, it's very comically crowded and filled to the breaking point, to the point where Ned himself is forced out. Eventually everyone leaves to face their demise together, but luckily the comet burns up in the atmosphere and is reduced to a small rock, which bounces off the bunker - causing the whole thing to ''[[EpicFail instantly crumble on impact]]''.

* In ''Brother in the Land'' by Robert Swindells, people in fallout shelters (nicknamed "badgers") are smoked out of their shelters by other survivors, who then kill them and take the supplies they had stashed. The main character, Danny, goes on one of these raids after he hears two men discussing smoking out some "badgers" but thinks the men are talking about actual badgers. The family in that particular shelter manage to escape with their lives, but many other "badgers" do not.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Narrowly averted in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E14BartsComet Bart's Comet]]". When a comet is headed on a collision course for Springfield, the whole town crowds into the Flanders' bunker though Ned states they'll likely die of suffocation before the comet hits and there's no food for all of them but he allows it because [[GoodSamaritan he just can't refuse to help]]. Indeed, it's very comically crowded and filled to the breaking point, to the point where Ned himself is forced out. Eventually everyone leaves to face their demise together, but luckily the comet burns up in the atmosphere and is reduced to a small rock, which bounces off the bunker - causing the whole thing to ''[[EpicFail instantly crumble on impact]]''.

* In ''Brother in the Land'' by Robert Swindells, people in fallout shelters (nicknamed "badgers") are smoked out of their shelters by other survivors, who then kill them and take the supplies they had stashed. The main character, Danny, goes on one of these raids after he hears two men talking about "badgers" but thinks the men are talking about actual badgers. The family in that particular shelter manage to escape with their lives, but many other "badgers" do not.

* In the introductory chapter of ''Children Of The Dust'', Sarah and her family are able to improvise a fallout shelter from their living room just before an all-out nuclear bombardment of the United Kingdom. As their house is a significant distance from the blast zone, they survive for some time... up until [[OhCrap Sarah realizes that they forgot to block the chimney]]: radioactive fallout has been pouring through the fireplace and into their water supply... and by now, everyone except her younger sister Catherine has ingested a lethal dose.

* Discussed in ''Film/TheDayAfter'': in the face of WorldWarIII, guards at a missile silo opt to hide in the now-empty silo, mentioning that it's built like a bomb shelter and stocked with enough supplies for the next two weeks... but one of them points out that the nukes targeting the launch sites will easily destroy the silo regardless of how fortified it is. As such, it's not so surprising that [=McCoy=] decides to risk leaving the base in the hopes of reaching his family. His fellow guards are never seen again, so it's a safe bet they didn't make it. [[spoiler: Tragically, neither does [=McCoy=]: his family is killed in the bombardment, and fallout sickness eventually kills him as well.]]

* In ''VideoGame/SixtySeconds'' the shelter is built well enough to survive the nuclear attack and the aftermath but you failed to stock it with the necessary supplies ahead of time. You only have 60 seconds to grab your family members and any supplies you have around your house before you have to lock the hatch. If you do not get enough supplies or missed some key items, you are in for a rough time: you'll have to send family members out to scavenge and the people who stay behind might go insane from boredom. Your shelter will fail sooner or later and your only chance is to last long enough for the army to come and rescue you.

** The shelters actually worked... for a time, until food ran out and the inhabitants turned on each other. At least the computer logs of that society's last ditch efforts at survival will help your empire's research...

* ''WebAnimation/TheCyanideAndHappinessShow'': In "The Shelter", a family is seen moving into a fallout shelter to survive a nuclear apocalypse, with a pantry stocked with enough cans to feed the family for decades. Until the father opens a can, and realizes the cans he'd stocked up on were not cans of food, but [[VisualPun canned laughter]]. Cue an unseen StudioAudience laughing uproariously as the family suddenly finds themselves in danger of starving to death. [[FromBadToWorse Then]] a mutant [[DropInCharacter pops in]] through the apparently unlocked door with a one-liner, with the credits showing the family screaming in fear as it advances on them.

** The second is an offshore oil rig where libertarian tech millionaires were hoping to escape the apocalypse through seasteading. Unfortunately for them, the oceans had long since been fished almost to depletion and what remained was polluted with microplastics, leaving them without a viable food source. Worse still, the rich inhabitants were so non-inclusive that they were dependent on their virtual assistants to get anything done, leaving them helpless when said assistants rebelled and killed them all; in the present, the rig's populace is dead except for one abusive virtual bartender.

Whether it's a million-dollar government bunker concealed hundreds of feet beneath the Earth or just a humble basement, the shelter is your first line of defence in the event of an apocalypse. Regardless of whether the cataclysm is nuclear, bacteriological, environmental, supernatural or something else entirely, this place has everything you need - from strong walls to canned food - to wait out the apocalypse in safety, if not comfort. By all appearances, it should be the ideal refuge in the event of Armageddon...

Whatever the case, the shelter is a death trap, and the best thing to do is to leave and look elsewhere - and if that isn't an option, pray for a swift death...