u/Hello-America

I had to fly today, super early in the morning (first offense) and then I just hate flying anyway, squished in there with no dignity, everything taking forever. I don't know why because I didn't really need them but something was telling me to put on my sunglasses and well what do you know, I was totally emotionally regulated!

I'm like a bird when you put the cover on its cage and it calms down in the dark.

I wear my sunglasses inside a lot because they're prescription and I often forget my regular glasses or don't feel like putting them on, but I don't think I realized it was soothing me haha.

I spent many years in the construction industry, working on lots of large-scale public projects. I'm seeing a lot of freakout around the internet that he's building this ballroom to be his bunker after he doesn't want to leave office; setting aside the fact he doesn't have to AGREE to hand over the presidency, I wanted to reassure people that the ballroom will not be able to serve this function.

It can't get built in time without many many many things going exactly right. It can't get built into a security behemoth in this time at all. There are not a lot of details available (I doubt it's actually been fully designed to the point construction can really start), but based on the approximate size and the features they're fantasizing about to the press, this is a project you'd probably consider five years to be a fast track situation.

Doomer rebuttal: but they're not gonna get permits or take their time or design it, or do it correctly - they'll just start!

Response: yes they probably will! By skipping permitting (which really means blowing off a lot of the design, report, and inspection process), and cutting corners in construction, they will be causing themselves more delays down the line. Anything from structural failures to contractors not having accurate information to financially plan/order the right supplies/give accurate timelines and coordinate with each other.

They also are talking about doing something highly specialized if they want to make it this panic room or whatever. I've never worked on something like that but it's likely there are very few builders in the country familiar with how to build something like that. Now normally detailed construction drawings would help with that - they are essentially instructions for builders. But since they are probably cutting corners on that...

The unpredictability due to poorly thought out design and inexperienced people working on the project will mean contractors will do lots of change orders (which means they are charging extra from their original quote, very common in fast tracked projects). ... Do you think they're going to get paid in full and in a timely manner by Trump?

You also have a liability situation, although I don't know exactly the parameters but I'm giving my best guess here: every licensed professional who touches this will risk the rest of their career. Not because there's no permit and it's technically against rules or whatever, not like it's a matter of the federal government giving them permission, but because they carry insurance that assumes liability for failures on their end and those policies likely will not cover any failures; if they do, they'll drop these people afterward and no other insurance companies will cover them. This goes from structural engineers down to electricians. And if someone gets hurt, doubly so. All these people know this.

So it's not that he wouldn't find willing professionals; it's that his pool is limited to dumbasses, which is not gonna get this thing built, especially not this sci fi bunker.

Now all of what I said above would happen in this kind of scenario anyway, but add onto it that Trump is not going to pay anyone on time, they're gonna make a bunch of last minute changes because things haven't been thought through or trump gets in a mood, and they're definitely laundering money through this.

My prediction is that we will end up with a barely partially built ballroom with no bunker or bulletproof walls or anything like that.