So I just read a great book on post nuclear disaster so I am wondering, is there a way that an average person with a descent stockpile of cash build a feasible nuclear fallout shelter? What would it consist of? Could I protect myself from the blast and fallout?
Well, for goodness sake, make sure you have an extra pair of reading glasses.
There are probably a lot of homes built in the 1949-65 time frame which have a fallout shelter, perhaps adapted since for other purposes.
Gen. Groves was once, and famously, quoted: “There’s only one sure way to survive an atomic bomb explosion: be somewhere else when it goes off.”
Sure, so long as you build it on Fiji.
Your very best bet is to have a location far away from likely targets that you and your family can go (independently if needed) as soon as the news hits that nuclear strikes are imminent. Unless you live in Washington D.C. or New York City (in which case you are basically screwed no matter how you play it) you should be able to get away from a primary blast radius in time to have other options. Combined with that, portable survival supplies including food and water can be loaded into a car on a moments notice.
I have duly noted that my house is just far enough away from Boston to be outside of the immediate blast zone for any nuclear weapons that hits Boston as is my kid’s daycare. We have plans in place for me to get the kids at any cost without any other word and then take them to a family farm in New Hampshire if there is ever a nuclear strike or something similar. Others will have to find their way there. I think nuclear shelters are often overrated because the best bet would usually be to stay on the move until you get to a safe area. A true doomsday scenario that makes this impossible may not be the best thing to live through anyway.
From the UK the famous (infamous ?) “Protect and survive” leaflets:
http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/atomic/
Though my understanding is that by the 1980s these were pretty much just to make the public feel better. Given the size of the UK, its population density, and number of nukes aimed at it, the vast majority of the population where pretty much SOL in the event of nuclear war.
There are basically three things to worry about in the event of a nuclear attack:
First, there’s the explosion itself (in which category I’m including the shockwave, the thermal bloom, the radiation flash, and any other immediate effects). The only ways to protect against this are to either be far enough away when it happens, or to be very deep underground (probably hundreds of feet) with lots of shielding above you. The latter is practical for things like the command bunkers I presume are underneath the White House and the Pentagon, but probably not for the average citizen. Being far enough away, though, may or may not be practical. If you’re living in Backwater, Kansas, you won’t need to worry about this at all. If you’re living on the outskirts or in the suburbs of a major city or near a military base, you’ll want to have plans to get yourself and your family away at the first warning. If you’re living in downtown Manhattan, don’t bother reading the rest of this post, since there’s nothing you’re going to be able to do anyway.
The second threat is fallout. Fallout is basically just radioactive dust kicked up from the debris by the blast. For the most part, external contact with such radioactive material won’t be too dangerous (it’ll mostly be alpha sources, with little beta, and almost no gamma), but it’s bad news if it gets inside you somehow (inhaled or eaten, mostly). There are two defenses, here: First, you can try to live in a place, or evacuate to a place, that is upwind from likely targets. The fallout will still get to you eventually, but the longer it takes to get there, the less dangerous it’ll be. Second, you can install good dust filters and traps in your home or evacuation location. As long as the dust isn’t airborne and inhalable, it’s largely harmless.
The final worry is what’s going to happen to the rest of society in the even of a nuclear war. Estimates on this vary wildly, from roaming bands of savage nomads pillaging everything they see, to life going on (where it does go on) more or less as normal. If you’re worried about this, I suppose the solution is to keep an adequate supply of firearms and plenty of ammunition, food and other supplies to last for however many years you expect chaos to last, and make sure that your walls and doors are strong and secure.
Your best bet is almost never to stay on the move until you get to a safe area. If you aren’t in a safe area when the bomb goes off then moving is a death sentence. As Chronos points out, the problem is one of fallout, which degrades fairly rapidly and which gets stuck down after a few showers of rain. If you can hole up somewhere for just two weeks your chances of survival are actually pretty good. If you attempt to keep moving you will die, no question.
Nuclear shelters aren’t primarily intended to protect people from the blast. They are intended to provide protection from both the initial radiation and a safe refuge from the radioactive dust. Even sitting in the hallway of a regular building provides reasonable protection from fallout since the dust largely settles out in the still air inside the building. But if you try to walk (or drive) around outside during those first two weeks you will inhale the dust and you will die.
So as I said, if you aren’t in a safe area when the bomb goes off you need to seek immediate shelter. Do not move under any cirrcumstances for at least a couple of weeks. The dust in the air is deadly, and even if you have a respirator it will coat you clothes and skin and kill you when you remove the respirator, which you will be forced to do.
I disagree with this. Being in a WWII style bomb shelter built in the garden when the blast goes off would be a great help in protecting you from the explosion. I will agree that at some point the blast will be so close that this will not help but there is a significant area where to be in such a shelter when the blast went off would be much better than being inside a normal single family home or office building.
Apparently by the time hydrogen weapons became commonplace, the whole fallout shelter and Civil Defense infrastructure became obsolete. Now and then you can see the “Fallout Shelter” signs on public buildings. None are maintained anymore, of course. At least in those days the attempt was made unlike today where it is quite obvious we are literally on our own. You may find this page useful:
Yes, they’ve just replaced the old civil defense logo with something that would look more at home on a monthly phone bill.
I’ve wondered about this idea, and would like some opinions on it:
If one lived in a sub-urban coastal area (relatively close a major target, but not down-town Boston) one could quickly load a large sail boat with enough supplies to last for three or four weeks, and escape onto the open ocean (which is presumably devoid of targets). Of course this hypothetical person would need to know how to navigate back to shore, and this leaves out all questions of “The Days After the Blast”.
A slit trench is excellent protection from the immediate effects of the blast, and if covered, can provide some protection from fallout.
I was talking about a slightly different scenario that is real-life to me and is far from unique. Many people have young children or other dependents that need to be accounted for immediately. If you have to rush to pick up that child somewhere else and you are already reasonably far away from the major city (say 30+ miles), there is no reason to rush back in your house to live in a bomb shelter. I fully plan to head into open country which isn’t far away and then make my way to a family farm that is in the middle of nowhere and shouldn’t be affected directly by most events. This is an all-purpose disaster plan, not just for nuclear strikes.
I am a Louisiana native and the sociology of this type of thing comes into play. I don’t think that anyone could say this type of situation wouldn’t become a Katrina on a massive scale and I wouldn’t want to be near it even days or weeks later.
The OP doesn’t make clear what sort of nuclear attack we’re talking about. Global thermonuclear war, with hydrogen bombs crisscrossing the planet? A single terrorist-detonated, old-school Hiroshima-type nuclear device? A multi-city terrorist strike? A so-called “suitcase nuke”?
I imagine there are huge differences in the utility of a shelter depending on what sort of nuke (and how many) you’re up against.
I guess I’m pretty screwed. Oahu with Pearl Harbor (etc) has to be fairly high on the list. It’s a 44 x 30 mile island, so I’d imagine most of the island is in the blast radius.
On the (very) bright side, it may not be so bad. I probably wouldn’t know what hit me.
The ocean is largely devoid of targets, but it isn’t devoid of wind and rain. If the wind is blowing offshore then you are going to be exposed to fallout. In areas where the prevailing winds are offshore you are going to be far better off heading inland, away form the main fallout areas offshore.
The ocean does have an advantage as a longer term refuge because there is no dust. All that nasty fallout rapidly sinks to the bottom. In contrast on land the dust pollutes the uppermost areas of soil and as the dust gets stirred up by vehicles, winds, ploughing and so forth you breathe it in. So for the first couple of years the ocean has a distinct advantage in that regard.
Yes, there is: fallout. The fallout begins to fall out within minutes of the initial blast, often accompanied by rain. If you are exposed to that dust or contaminated rain you will die. 30 miles downwind should allow you at least 15 minutes before the first of the fallout started descending, maybe as much as a few hours. That is a very good reason to rush back to your home. If you can get back to your bomb shelter before that fallout descends, or at least minimize the time exposed to it, you increase your risk of survival drastically. However if you spend and hour or more heading out of the city you and your children will be exposed to the very worst of the fallout and you will suffer from radiation sickness with an almost certain guarantee of dying.
This is one of the things people often fail to grasp about nuclear bombs. The air becomes filled with dust and the dust is poisonous. Every minute that you spend outside breathing in that dust increases your risk. Unless you know exactly what the weather conditions are like and what the prevailing low and mid levels winds are and can thus calculate the fallout zones the very best thing you can do is rush back into your house to live in a bomb shelter. After the first fortnight you might want to risk making a run out into the country but until then get indoors as fast as you can and stay there.
These are valid concerns of course, but you need to assess risks. With basic preparations the risk of being killed by looters in two weeks is fairly minimal, after all the death toll from looters post Katrina was what, maybe half a dozen?. In contrast the risk of death if you are caught in the fallout cloud within a couple of hours of detonation are extremely high. If you don’t; want to be near a scene of social decay weeks later you certainly don’t want to be in a fallout cloud hours after detonation.
duck and cover under a desk and the radiation will pass right over you.
That has been replaced by the new and improved “put you head between your knees and kiss your arse good-bye”