In 2003, the engineers at ChemBio Shelter, Inc. began working on a shelter design to protect people in the event of a chemical terrorist attack. This work was prompted by government officials instructing the public that, in the event of a terrorist attack, you should put duct tape and plastic sheeting on your windows.

Unfortunately, this will only provide minimal protection for about 4 hours. Even so, home improvement and hardware stores could not re-stock their shelves fast enough with duct tape and plastic sheeting.

The ChemBio Shelter engineers designed a system that encloses people in an airtight, hermetically sealed shelter and then processes the air inside the shelter, essentially undoing what human respiration does to the atmosphere. In this way, people are able to stay inside the shelter for extended periods of time without breathing a breath of outside air and still not suffocate. The shelter becomes a large re-breather which people breath tthe same air over and over after the carbon dioxide has been scrubbed and oxygen injected.

In January 2006, as the ChemBio Shelter engineers were finishing up the design of the shelter, a terrible accident occured at the Sago Mine in West Virginia. Eleven men lost their lives and one was seriously injured. The news coverage of the accident got the engineers thinking. If the men at Sago would have had one of the shelters, would they still be alive?