Nuclear War Survival Skills

“Proper Shelter Preparations”

Evacuation Checklist

            Survival Information Tools Shelter-Building Materials Water Peacetime Valuables Light Clothing Sleeping Gear Food Sanitation Items Medical Items Miscellaneous

Shelter, the Greatest Need

     Adequate Shelter Shelter Against Radiation, Flash Blindness, Fire, And Skin Burns

Ventilation and Cooling of Shelters

• • • • • • Supply enough air to carry away all the shelter occupants’ body heat Move the air gently, so as not to raise its temperature Distribute the air quite evenly throughout the shelter Provide occupants with adequate drinking water and salt Wear as few clothes as practical Keep pumping about 40 cfm of air per person through the shelter both day and night during hot weather

Protection Against Fires and Carbon Monoxide

 Dr. A. Broido, a leading experimenter with fires and their associated dangers, reached this conclusion: "If I were building a fallout shelter I would spend a few extra dollars to build it in my backyard rather than in my basement, locating the intake vent as far as possible from any combustible material. In such a shelter I would expect to survive anything except the close-in blast effects."

Water

    4 quarts of water per day per person and 1 tablespoon (10 grams) of salt Polyethylene trash bags make practical expedient water containers Siphoning is the best way to extract the water from the bags Sodium hypochlorite (bleach) is used to disinfect drinking water (1 tspn/10gal.)

Food

     Food for babies (including milk powder, cooking oil, and sugar) has the highest priority Compact foods that require no cooking are preferred Include at least one pound of salt, available vitamins, a can and bottle opener, a knife, and 2 cooking pots with lids (4-qt size preferred) For each person: one cup, bowl, and large spoon. Also, a bucket stove, or minimum materials for making a bucket stove: a metal bucket, 10 all wire coat hangers, a nail, and a cold chisel or screwdriver To maintain physical strength and morale, persons in shelters ideally should have enough healthful food to provide well-balanced, adequate meals for many weeks

Fallout Radiation Meters

  Human beings cannot feel, smell, taste, hear, or see fallout radiation With a reliable dose rate meter you can quite quickly determine how great the radiation dangers are in different places

Light

  In a crisis, it is especially bad not to be able to see at all Flashlights, candles, materials to improvise cooking-oil lamps (2 clear glass jars of about 1-pint size, cooking oil, cotton string for wicks, kitchen matches, and a moisture proof jar for storing matches.

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Shelter Sanitation and Preventive Medicine

Metal and strong plastic containers with tight lids protect food best All cooked food be eaten promptly Insect repellents on the skin and clothing are generally helpful Wash off sweat and dead skin Wash or disinfect clothing as often as practical Avoid infection from toilet seats by disinfecting with a strong chlorine solution and then rinsing Wear shoes or sandals when walking about Adequate ventilation would help in disease prevention

DISPOSAL OF HUMAN WASTES

    Use a 5-gallon paint can, a bucket, or a large waterproof wastebasket to collect both urine and excrement If only one container is available and is almost filled, periodically dump the wastes outside unless fallout is still being deposited People who plan to stay in a shelter should dig a waste-disposal pit if they do not have sufficient waste containers for weeks of shelter occupancy Use a hose-vented, 5-gallon can or bucket lined with a heavy plastic bag: cover tightly with plastic when not in use

DISPOSAL OF DEAD BODIES

  One solution is to put the corpse outside as soon as the odor is evident Place it in a bag made of large plastic trash bags taped together and perforated with a few pinholes

Surviving Without Doctors

   Information about first aid and hygienic precautions can be obtained from widely available Red Cross and civil defense booklets and courses This knowledge, with a stock of basic first aid supplies, would reduce suffering and prevent many dangerous illnesses Adequate shelter and essential life-support items are the best means of saving lives in a nuclear war

Potassium Iodide

   An extremely small and inexpensive daily dose of the preferred non-radioactive potassium salt, potassium iodide (KI), if taken 1/2 hour to 1 day before exposure to radioactive iodine, will reduce later absorption of radioactive iodine by the thyroid to only about 1% of what the absorption would be without this preventive measure Potassium iodide, when obtained in the crystalline reagent form and used as recommended is safe, inexpensive, and easy to administer Prudent individuals should obtain and keep ready for use an adequate supply of potassium iodide well in advance of a crisis

Expedient Shelter Furnishings

   More people can occupy a properly furnished shelter for weeks Cleanliness, health, and morale are better if well designed furnishings are used Persons occupying a shelter made relatively comfortable by its furnishings are more likely to stay in the shelter long enough to avoid dangerous exposure to fallout radiation

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Improvised Clothing and Protective Items

Trap "dead" air Use windbreaker materials Prevent excessive heat losses by conduction Insulate the whole body with newspapers or paper bags Any clothing that keeps fallout off the skin helps greatly Fallout Masks greatly reduce the risk of radiation particles entering your body

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Permanent Family Fallout Shelters for Dual Use

Having a permanent, ready-to-use, well supplied fallout shelter would greatly improve millions of American families' chances of surviving a nuclear attack The illustrated shelter room has 106 square feet of floor space room enough for 5 adults and the survival essentials they will need for long occupancy 12-inch-thick concrete wall between the landing at the foot of the stairs and the end of the shelter room Most of the radiation will not strike shelter occupants if they place containers filled with water and other shielding material against the door Below-ground shelter of the type specified in official Federal Emergency Management Agency pamphlets costs about $100 per square foot of floor space If needed, a grid of 1/2-inch rebars, spaced at 12 inches, usually is adequate when constructing in clay Big savings in shelter construction costs are made by using salvaged and/or used materials

Wet Shelter Prevention

     Shelter walls sometimes crack due to settling and earth movements Put a layer of gravel or crushed rock in the bottom of the excavation, and install perforated drainage pipes if gravity drainage is practical Cover the gravel or crushed rock in the floor area with a plastic vapor barrier before pouring a concrete floor Coat the outer surfaces of roof and walls with bituminous waterproofing or other coating that has proved to be most effective in your locality Backfill with gravel or crushed rock against the walls, to keep the soil from possibly becoming saturated

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A Good Permanent Shelter Has Two Ventilation Systems

The primary ventilation system of a small permanent shelter should utilize a manually operated centrifugal blower The multi-week and/or emergency ventilation system of a permanent shelter that has an emergency exit should depend on a homemade KAP Do not use air intake hoods on a permanent shelter's pipes, because hoods are not as effective as goosenecks in preventing fallout particles from entering ventilation pipes Never install any screen inside a gooseneck or air intake hood, because spider webs and the debris that sticks to webs will greatly reduce airflow

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ADEQUATE STORAGE SPACE FOR ESSENTIALS

About 20 square feet of shelter floor area per family member is needed for: Shelter furnishings and to store adequate water for a month, A year's supply of compact dry foods, cooking and sanitary equipment, blankets, tools, and other post-attack essentials To store the most supplies in a shelter, you should install shelves after you know the heights of the items to be stored

Instructions for an Expedient Fallout Shelter

    The most difficult to build expedient shelter should take no longer than two days to construct Read all the instructions and study the drawings before beginning work Sharpen all tools, including picks and shovels Wear gloves from the start

Whenever Practical Select a Building Site That:

    Will not be flooded if heavy rains occur Is in the open and at least 50 ft away from a building or woods that might be set afire by the thermal pulse from an explosion tens of miles away Has earth that is firm and stable Has a sufficient depth of earth above rock or the water table

Expedient Instructions Cont.

     Before staking out the shelter, clear the ground of brush, weeds and tall grass over an area extending about 10 ft beyond the planned edges of the excavation Stake out the complete shelter, and then dig by removing layers of earth Pile all earth about 8 ft away from the trench Never risk a cave-in by digging into lower parts of an earth wall Make sandbags out of the excavated dirt with pillowcases

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Cut and Haul Poles and Logs More Easily By Doing the Following:

Take time to sharpen your tools before starting to work no matter how rushed you feel When sawing green trees that have gummy resin or sap, oil your saw with kerosene or diesel fuel After a tree has been felled, trim off all limbs and knots so that the pole or log is smooth and will require no additional smoothing It usually is best first to cut the poles exactly two or three times the final length of the poles to be used in the shelter Drag the logs rather than trying to carry them on your shoulders

Expedient Instructions Cont.

   Make a reliable canopy over the shelter entry Take to your shelter enough window screen or mosquito netting to cover its openings Work to complete (1) an expedient ventilating- cooling pump (a KAP) and (2) the storage of at least 15 gallons of water per person

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An Example of an Expedient Shelter

The room of this 6-person shelter was 3-1/2 feet wide, 4-1/2 feet high, and 16-1/2 feet long. A small stand- up hole was dug at one end, so each tall occupant could stand up and stretch several times a day

Door-Covered Trench Shelter

  Protection Factor – 250 The shelter illustrated is roofed with 3 doors and is the minimum length for 3 persons

Pole-Covered Trench Shelter

  Protection Factor 300 The shelter illustrated is the minimum length recommended for 4 persons

Small-Pole Shelter

  Protection Factor 1000 Capacity - 12

Making and Using Homemade Shelter-Ventilating Pump

  In warm weather, large volumes of outside air MUST be pumped through most fallout or blast shelters if they are crowded and occupied for a day or more The KAP (Kearny Air Pump) is a practical, do- it-yourself device for pumping adequate volumes of cooling air through shelters with minimum work

The Pump Frame and Its Fixed Support

              Boards for the frame (1st) 22 ft of 1 X 2-in. boards (2nd) Boards of the same length that have approximately the same dimensions as 1 X 2- in. and 1 X 1-in. lumber (3rd) Straight sticks or metal strips that can be cut and fitted to make a flat-faced KAP frame Hinges (1st) Door or cabinet butt-hinges (2nd) metal strap-hinges (3rd) improvised hinges made of leather A board for the fixed horizontal support (1st) A 1 X 4-in. board that is at least 1 ft longer than the width of the opening in which you plan to swing your pump (2nd) A wider board Small nails (at least 24) (1st) No. 6 box nails, about 1/2 in. longer than the thickness of the two boards, so their pointed ends can be bent over and clinched) (2nd) other small nails

The Flaps

         Plastic film or other very light, flexible material -- 12 square feet in pieces that can be cut into 9 rectangular strips, each 30 X 5-1/2 in.

(1st) polyethylene film 3 or 4 mils thick (3 or 4 one thousandths of an inch) (2nd) 2-mil polyethylene from large trash bags (3rd) tough paper Pressure-sensitive waterproof tape, enough to make 30 ft of tape 3/4 in. to 1 in. wide, for securing the hem-tunnels of the flaps (1st) cloth duct tape (silver tape) (2nd) glass tape (3rd) scotch tape (4th) freezer or masking tape, or sew the hem tunnels

The Flap Pivot-Wires

   (1st) 30 ft of smooth wire at least as heavy and springy as coat hanger wire, that can be made into very straight pieces each 29 in. long (nine all-wire coat hangers will supply enough) (2nd) 35 ft of somewhat thinner wire, including light, flexible insulated wire (3rd) 35 ft of smooth string, preferably nylon string about the diameter of coat hanger wire.

The Pull Cord

   (1st) At least 10 ft of cord (2nd) strong string (3rd) flexible, light wire

The Flap-Stops

      (1st) 150 ft of light string (2nd) 150 ft of light, smooth wire (3rd) 150 ft of very strong thread (4th) 600 ft of ordinary thread, to provide 4 threads for each stop-flap.

(1st) 90 tacks (not thumbtacks) (2nd) 90 small nails. (Tacks or nails are desirable but not essential, since the flap stops can be tied to the frame.)

The Frame

Completing the Frame

The Pivot-Wires and Flaps

End View of Flap

Top of the Frame

Hinge is Attached So the Pump Can Swing 180 Degrees

More Ventilating

The Final Idea

Reference

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Nuclear War Survival Skills

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Cresson H. Kearny Original Edition Published September, 1979,

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by Oak Ridge National Laboratory,

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a Facility of the

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U.S. Department of Energy

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Published by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

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Cave Junction, Oregon

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Copyright (c) 1986 by Cresson H. Kearny. The copyrighted material may be reproduced without obtaining permission from anyone, provided: (1) all copyrighted material is reproduced full-scale (except for microfiche reproductions), and (2) the part of this copyright notice within quotation marks is printed along with the copyrighted material."