Basement bunkers - for fallout protection

[Fushigi Ojisan]

My parents house in Southern MD/Western Charles was a "Builder's House" circa 1955 that includes a block fallout shelter underneath the back porch concrete slab as part of the basement. Ironically it has a thin vented door, I guess they never got around to installing a serious door. Need to check but I think it has a spigot for water, definitely has electricity.

Would love to buy a vault door to put on there and make it a ginormous gun safe, just sayin'

 

[boule]

Watching the news about a couple enemy countries on the verge or have recently become nuclear capable. If nukes get dropped anywhere in the world fallout could become a serious threat to anyone anywhere in the world.

Aaand there is the big issue - radiation is usually poorly understood.

Usually, if someone somewhere in the world has a limited nuclear exchange (say India-Pakistan), most of the northern hemisphere will have slightly elevated levels of radiation but nothing that will require you to seek shelter or take special precautions. Think along the lines of "we already used 500-ish nukes on the surface and all that we got was scientists having a hard time finding steel for their extremely sensitive instruments".

What you are realy looking for is the fallout from local explosions. A lot of that depends on the type of bomb used (fission, fusion, multi-stage fusion etc.), the yield and the position of the detonation. After that, products tend to get carried by prevaling winds, washed down by humidity and condensation and will get incorporated into the food chain or deposited in the ground at some point. If you are looking at accidents with nuclear powerplants - those produce a lot less short-lived isotopes than nukes. If a power plant goes, you should be going fast and upwind since sheltering in place will require much more time for radiation to drop.

If you want to build a bunker, the general idea is:
- will I need to weather the initial radiation burst or blast wave?
If that is the case, you are quite close to an important target (think downtown DC, major military bases, harbors etc.). In case of "boom" you need to have sufficient warning to be in the bunker and you want to have something structurally sound and especially an extra escape route since you are facing debris etc. after a hit. And yes, you need a certain amount of lead, concrete or just packed dirt to aviod the intial gamma burst as well as radiation from the fallout.

- am I worried about local fallout from a nearby detonation?
You are looking at the classic cold war scenario that someone just nuked DC and you want your pet rat to live. Well, the good news is you have plenty of time to get to your shelter since it takes 20-30min for the actual fallout to condense and start coming down, more so if it needs to be blown your way by wind. You need to consider two things: a) the actual ambient radiation from the fallout and b) ingesting particles. The most active stuff will have the consistency of fine sand (very much like volcanic ash) and inhaled particles seem to be less of a problem than ingested ones. Depending on the protection factor of your building (masonary or concrete walls) you might be safe enough staying inside your home or just upgrade your basement. The seven-ten rule tells you when it should be reasonably safe to leave the shelter but as a general idea, plan for about two weeks in place plus whatever you need to make the trip out of the fallout zone. There is plenty of cold war era reading material for these issues concerning construction, necessary wall thickness, expedient air filters etc.

- am I worried about global fallout from a nuclear explosion?
If it is a single blast - meh, you will be fine unless you are in its way. If you are looking at a major nuclear exchange between superpowers there are two options. a) you are in a target area so you may now perform the following maneuver: bend over, place your face between your cheeks and kiss yo ass goodbye. b) you are living way off the exchange: increased cancer risk from fallout may pose an issue later in life. Right now things like "global supply chains" and "civil unrest" may be your bigger concern.

Summary:
If you are afraid of localized fallout, a shelter is the right way to go but you need to understand what actually protects you from which radiation and how to determine when it is safe to travel.

 

[Docster]

Good discussion here but to have a "poll" with multiple votes allowed is senseless and makes the poll worthless. I won't bother to vote but will follow the discussion.

 

[Sirex]

I think where I am in MD, I am screwed. I am relatively close to DC, Ft Meade, Ft Deitrich, Camp David, Camp Frettered, Andrews AFB, etc. Would the Russians waste a nuke on Baltimore? Who knows. I do have some supplies in my house, and if the bomb is imminent, I plan to wait it out in the basement, duct tape windows and cracks, have a little bit of food and water, and we'll see how bad it is. If I can survive, I will do what I can to survive. Not perfect though.

 

[lazarus]

I think where I am in MD, I am screwed. I am relatively close to DC, Ft Meade, Ft Deitrich, Camp David, Camp Frettered, Andrews AFB, etc. Would the Russians waste a nuke on Baltimore? Who knows. I do have some supplies in my house, and if the bomb is imminent, I plan to wait it out in the basement, duct tape windows and cracks, have a little bit of food and water, and we'll see how bad it is. If I can survive, I will do what I can to survive. Not perfect though.

Keep in mind with all of it, it depends on how much they want to ice those targets as well as any failures in them. If their nukes run like their cruise missiles and short range ballistic missiles, well yeah they might be missing by miles. Russian nukes are generally bigger than American nukes. But most are still high hundreds of KT range. Not MT range. Sitting where I am about 18 miles from the inner harbor of Baltimore, it would take a good 4-6MT nuke hitting right over the national aquarium to pose a risk of flattening my house. And that’s not taking in to account terrain where I am a mile on the backside of a low ridge in respect to Baltimore. So I’d probably lose windows, but that would probably be it. Now if they missed by several miles to the west, I’d probably be okay in the under porch storage room.

Smaller nukes are more like a 6-8 miles “knock your house down” radius, supposing terrain isn’t in the way.

HoCo is a lot of things, but not “nuke worthy”. Doesn’t mean one doesn’t miss by miles and land in my general backyard, but you’d really need to be going with blanket the area to really glass all of the state. If I was closer to DC I’d worry they might really consider just carpeting the metro area to get everything and I might be in that zone. But I think it’s about 20 miles or so just to 495 from my house. Let alone anything of real interest in the district itself.

I’d feel better 100+ miles away.

The storage room is 4” (6”?) rebar slab over it. Cinderblock walls. Earth on two sides completely sunken. Basement on the other two. Just need to be sure I can cut or break my way out if the house collapses down in to the basement blocking the exit. I doubt it pancaking could collapse the roof of the storage room. 8’x24’ space. Food. We’ll pressure tank and acid neutralizer are in there. No power, and at least there would still probably be 10-15 gallons of water in them. Plus the 12 gallons of treated water in containers. Plus buckets for…uh…when the water comes back out. Going to be dark for a couple of weeks for 5 people. But the LED lantern, battery pack, flashlight and a couple pairs of batteries would probably be enough for 2-3hrs of light a day for two weeks. Plus a plethora of chem sticks. So dark, but not pitch black (it’s like a 40 pack and they do still give enough glow to see about as well as a fairly dark night after 12hrs in the room).

Sealed tight, it’s enough air for about 2 days for 5 people. Maybe 3 stretching it. And can rig a filter at the door easily enough.

 

[NebTim]

great discussion, I've learned a few things. I think if its possible to leave long before something happens that's smart; otherwise to have a small improvised sheltered area in a basement (if lucky enough to have a basement) with enough provisions to last several days/weeks is a great idea. The poll is still open for a few more days, and any/all comments appreciated.

 

[Chat-Bot]

Have fun.