I was invited to a barbecue at the house of a friend who had just retired as chairman of a large company. He wanted to show me his garden, lake and putting green where he’d be spending all his free time.

Between the house and the putting green was a curious looking hump in the ground I almost tripped over. I asked him what it was. With a dismissive nod he said, “Oh that’s just our root cellar.”

I knew about root cellars from trips to places like Mount Vernon and Monticello, where such underground dugouts were used for the cold storage of food before the turn of the 20th century. But why would someone in the 21st century be using a root cellar when you had a refrigerator in the kitchen?

A friend who knew about the root cellar said that it was actually an old bomb shelter that my friend installed in the 1960s during the Cold War scare but didn’t like to talk about it since it seemed so out of place now.

Then I read an item from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) saying that homeowners must also be prepared for terrorist incidents.

Could this be the starting point for a new segment of the residential security market?

Man and Nature Bring Terror Home
If we’re to believe DHS, we actually have an exposure to terrorist events in our homes. What are we supposed to do about that?

Then there is the threat that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita brought to light: If we live in hurricane, tornado and earthquake zones, we are exposed to a not-so-deliberate terror from mother nature. Are the two linked in any way?

Suppose a suicide terrorist with a backpack full of explosives managed to walk into a power station. The resulting attack could remove all electricity to that part of the power grid.

There would be no power for recharging phones, lights, computers, furnaces and air conditioning.

It turns out this is the kind of havoc nature brought on in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

Residential Market Needs a Look Up
Is the bomb shelter an anachronistic joke anymore? Or is DHS right, suggesting a home security/preparedness market may be emerging in the post-9/11 world? I believe DHS is right, but it will become a slowly developing market until another event occurs — and that video and generators will be part of it.

We’ll be starting from a very low base — at least as far as security-product producers are concerned. As the chart on this page shows, home security is considered by manufacturers to be the weakest of all their end–user markets. The baseline is even lower when it comes to remote monitoring.

Perhaps this is where an opportunity lies for an aggressive and innovative dealer located near big cities in disaster-prone zones.

 

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our FREE digital newsletters!

Related Content