Terrorist Activity Increase Sparks Demand for Underground Storage

Terrorist activity in recent years has sparked business demand for the services of Underground Vaults and Storage Inc.

The firm is the final resting place for business records considered so vital that the company’s 15,000 international and national clients want them stored 650 feet below the earth’s surface.

For 25 years, UVS has conducted most of its business in the abandoned mine shafts of the Carey Salt Co. The past 10 years have seen a major boost in accounts, sparking a heady expansion program.

The company, which reached $1 million in revenues in 1983, expects to take in $2 million this year and is doubling the 10 underground acres it operates, said company spokeswoman Margaret Johnson.

Terrorists Are Strange

“Industry is very, very conscious of the increase in terrorism,” Michael Gingerich, UVS president, said. “It is a less predictable hazard than even the civil disturbances in the ‘60s, because these people (terrorists) are strange.”

The high costs of above-ground facilities and the fear of natural disasters that could wipe out vital business records stored in those facilities also have prompted companies to look 54 stories below the ground for storage, Gingerich said.

One of the more unusual UVS clients taking advantage of the safety of the salt mines is MGMUA Entertainment Corp., which has about 2,000 films in storage, as well as business records. MGMUA has been storing films, including priceless prints of “Gone With The Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz,” with UVS for about 20 years.

Although most of UVS’ clients are businesses, including banks, hospitals and major oil companies, the caves have provided temporary storage for private collections of books, paintings and stamps.

“At one time, we had the largest collection of space artifacts outside the Smithsonian Institute,” Johnson said. “We housed those here for a little over a year before they went into the (Kansas) Cosmosphere and Discovery Center (in Hutchinson.)

“I had a client that stored about 80 cubic feet of silver that went back to the 1400s,” she said. “These were utensils--ladles, coffee pots, silver tea sets--just phenomenal silver.”

The company also stores 1,700 Bibles for the American Bible Society, each in a different language or dialect, and a book on satanism for a psychiatric clinic. The book was printed in the 1500s.

People also have stored mementos, such as wedding dresses, Johnson said. One person even asked if the company could store a full-size, stuffed moose, “but it wouldn’t fit in the elevator,” she said.

The demand for records storage, however, is what’s fueling the company’s current expansion program, officials said.

Next month in Topeka, Kan., UVS will open the first of a number of above-ground storage facilities planned for major metropolitan areas, Gingerich said. They will serve customers who want to store records outside of their buildings but may still need daily access to those materials.

He sees UVS’ underground storage facility eventually becoming a haven for business records that companies seldom need to retrieve, such as incorporation papers and original contracts.

Permanent storage rates cheaper than the competition have helped UVS, Johnson said.

It’s far cheaper to blast out a new area in the salt mines when more storage space is needed than to build a new warehouse, she said.

Also, temperature and humidity are regulated by the natural properties of the salt mines, producing optimum conditions for storing paper, magnetic computer tape and films without adding to utility bills.