× Prepping, emergency plans, shelters etc

Ad-hoc fallout shelter

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8 years 1 month ago - 8 years 1 month ago #2560 by mw0uzo
I'd say most of us don't have a basement or fallout shelter. So I challenged myself to see if I could make (in my head) an ad-hoc fallout shelter in a relatively small house with under stairs compartment with no basement, with little preparation and a short amount of time.

Given that fallout might be 1000R/hr as fallout settles would it be possible to make an ad-hoc shelter from household junk and crap, furniture, anything with mass? The final dose for 14 days could be no more than 125R. If you could stack 1-1.5m off general crap up the stairs and around the hallway, would it provide enough shielding to survive? Would there be enough time to seal holes from blast damage before the fallout settled? So many questions.

I think it can be done, with a little luck.

Here is my fb post on it, feel free to add to it, discuss etc

let's say you were lucky and had warning of an attack, (maybe even managed to collect family somehow) took shelter e.g under the stairs. You had a small amount of time to prepare, a battery powered radio, that geiger counter (heh), filled a large container with water and grabbed whatever food was available and a waste bucket. You closed all the doors around, and reinforced anything with wood that might block your exit. You saw the indirect flash and braced for the blast with your fingers in your ears, eyes tightly closed to avoid damage from the overpressure. You were far away enough and shielded enough to avoid a fatal direct dose from the detonation. Then you were slightly unlucky with the blast, it damaged the roof, windows, doors. There was damage from flying debris, but the house remained standing. Before the fallout settled, you could just about seal the holes with cardboard, plastic and tape, whatever you had to hand to prevent the bulk of fallout getting in. You collected the remaining supplies you had . You were unlucky with the fallout, the house and surrounding area was covered and there was significant gamma radiation, your counter indicated it. Under the stairs, you would be shielded by at least one or two brick walls, so you would need to cover the stairs and the hallway with anything and everything you could find to provide some shielding. I reckon you could stack enough material to maybe provide the same level of protection as 1/3m-1/2m of soil. This and the maximum time spent surviving on whatever you had would reduce gamma dose and allow the fallout outside to decay to safer levels. Alternatively, in the most undamaged downstairs room, you could make a shelter from a table and stack everything you could find around and above it. It's my opinion that even unprepared but resourceful persons could survive without a dangerous accumulated gamma dose. At least, that is the direct danger dealt with.
Last edit: 8 years 1 month ago by mw0uzo.

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8 years 1 month ago #2561 by Bert490
Replied by Bert490 on topic Ad-hoc fallout shelter
I agree, shielding with as much mass as you can manage is key for gamma protection. My recent experiments are showing only a partial drop in background gamma even with 3/4" / 18mm of lead. So if you had some warning before the initial blast, have the whole group lie down as low as possible, kids in the middle. This would at least minimize your cross section for the initial blast.

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