Officials provide glimpse inside bunker under East Austin house
Joe Del Rio’s story starts off two years ago. The 72-year-old man from East Austin, Texas, was woken up at 7 a.m. on a Saturday in May 2010 by a local SWAT team and fire department at his door. Why? To investigate a multilevel bunker under his home.
In the years following, Austin’s American-Statesman reports, Del Rio’s home has been condemned by the city as uninhabitable; he’s been served a $90,000 bill from the city to make the street on which he lives “safe” again (his bunker apparently made the street’s structure unsafe); and more recently set out to sue the city for unconstitutional seizure of his property without compensation.
The "actions taken by the City were done due to a public safety risk caused by the structure located on the property.”
Del Rio said the space in question started out as a Cold War-era fallout shelter — by no means uncommon at the time — which he later expanded into what he described as a work space when he took possession of the family home.
The American-Statesman goes on to report local structural engineer Jeffrey Tucker, who constructed the retaining wall, as saying he inspected the house in 2009 and at the time it seemed “structurally safe” with no signs to indicate it would fall in.
Off the Grid Survival reports some of the $90,000 bill Del Rio received from the city was for filling in his bunker with 264 tons of concrete.
Should Mr. Del Rio be compensated fairly for the City taking his home? Does he have a case? Why or why not?