I catagorized this thread under "preps". The only place I can post this is here, in a protected forum with other ... unique ... people such as myself... :)

We've been told in the press by the military over and over that terrorists could make even a nuclear strike on this country could be carried out. We've been told for years that many pounds of fissionable material has gone missing from labs all over the world. We had our own little brouhaha at Los Alamos, where important harddrives grew legs and began to scuttle about and hide behind copy machines.

Ok, folks. How many of you are prepped for fallout protection? I'm not talking about overpressure protection from a blast. I'm only talking about fallout right now.

Cresson Kearny's book "Nuclear War Survival Skills" is available online. I'm link impaired, so someone will have to link it for me, or you'll have to search for it yourself. You can download it and print out the parts you need.

On the first pass, it seemed hopelessly difficult to me. I kept reading it a little at a time, reading the same parts over and over until they made sense, and over time I was able to absorb quite a bit of knowledge about how to protect my family from fallout.

Chances are, if a nuclear explosion is set off by terrorists, it'll be on or near the ground with a suicide bomber. That means a lot of dust will be thrown up and a lot -- a LOT -- of fallout will be generated.

Chances are, they'll do it in or near major cities, maybe one at a time, or maybe all at once.

So I'm asking you to think about the nearest large city upwind of you. How far away is it? How much time would you likely have between a blast and the arrival of fallout? Do you have a fallout shelter? Do you have a plan?

I don't think the government is too eager to bring up the subject of this type of preparedness for obvious reasons. There's no way they can successfully evacuate an area subject to fallout -- think about all the times people get stuck on the road trying to escape a hurricane. And it would be pointless to scare millions of people about a boogey man event that may or may not take place.

Fallout is survivable. I just wondered if we could talk about this subject and help each other come to terms with it.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

Answers

Helen, I'll link it if you'll give me a url.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

Nuclear War Survival Skills

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

There are several mirror sites out there. The book is free to download and there are order forms online to purchase the hardcopy fairly cheaply.

http://www.ki4u.com/free_book/

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

Thank you, darlings.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

All you ever wanted to know about potassium iodide, including sources

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

To give you an idea:

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

helen, I think you've been working towards this for some time now, and my impression was that you had a pretty good set up. There will always be the element of luck and timing. I'm variably in a position to deal with at least light to moderate fallout. Not gonna worry about a nuclear ground zero.

My bet has been that it would happen at night and my radiation detector would alert me. I have a millirad detector (Radalert 50 - www.medcom.com) which I think ran close to $300. I have been running it every evening, and sometimes forgetting to turn it off during the day, for over a year now. (Minor occasional glitches in the display, but I think it will be ok for a while.) My theory is that the fallout will take a little while to drift in and the meter, being so sensitive, will energize me to make the move to the basement.

I also bought the Bruce Beach package from last year, so I have a dosimeter and meter that measures rads. The dosimeter is very small, and I carry it with me as a sort of rabbits foot in my emergency bag. As I recall, millirads aren't a health problem, but the RadAlert would tell me when to go inside and when it might be safe to go back outside. (Although there was some speculation that major fallout, rads worth, might destroy the RadAlert, that it would stop functioning. OK by me if that theory is never tested. I also carry a small bottle of KI with me. If things develop while I'm at work, I'll take a dose and probably try to give the rest of that bottle away to friends with children. It won't get them very far, but maybe a few days would make a difference.

My basement is nominally set up. Almost all the y2k (e.g., food and water) supplies are down there. I purchase a couple inflatable mattresses and I have a cot. The problem being I have to make my ancient parents comfortable. I wouldn't be surprised if they say the h@ll with it and just march back upstairs for whatever awaits them. I did stash a set of clothes for them, so they just have to grab their slippers and their favorite pillow. No way I can intentionally herd the cats, but if they think they are missing out on something, they'll show up.

I also have a list of phone numbers of the people I will want to be sure to call first thing. If it really does come in the middle of the night I figure I better be set up on automatic, I won't be in a condition to think things through from scratch. (My plan was to busy myself for an hour or so and then go back to sleep. Yeah, sure.)

There are small windows along 3 sides of the basement. I won't be blocking them off with dirt or equivalent. However, there is quite a collection of large bags of cat litter and boxes of books, so I might be able to put together some kind of smaller shelter. (The parents being once again the problem. I don't forsee any cuddling.) Also, I have worked out which window faces which metropolitan area. If I know where the fallout is coming from I can adjust our crouching areas accordingly.

I have lots of heavy plastic for sealing various things off. I have yet to cut it into appropriate sizes. Other than windows and doors, if there is time and it is light out, covering the vegetable garden in plastic has always struck me as an important exercise.

The biggest issue will be how long to remain in the basement and how to convince the troops to stay there for that long.

Ok, folks, your turns. What are you doing and what corners are you cutting?

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

We have no basement and the crawl space is not suitable. Does radiation get through brick? Brooks, you mentioned thick plastic. It doesn't penetrate thick plastic?

Also, you can give the potassium iodide to your pets--same dose as for an infant, 1-3 months, I would guess.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

Ok, Git, please read the book, as it has so much more info than I can give you in one post.

Fallout is radioactive dust. Radiation is stopped by the density of the material between you and it. If you put only plastic between you, it won't help much, but it's better than nothing.

Dirt and concrete and water in containers stop far more radiation than plastic or wood, and the thicker the layer, the better.

This isn't in the book, but you can fill plastic grocery store bags with dirt and pack them into a wall just like sand bags. Since you in particular don't have a crawl space, think of a small room toward the middle of your house. It sounds weird, but you could pack dirt bags around and over a sturdy table and take shelter under that. (Make sure your floor can take the load, if not, find a place outside and do it.

Another idea not in the book is to take heavy wire fence panels and bend them into an inverted "U" shape. Cover it with plastic, then pack dirt bags as deep as possible all around and over it.

The book gives specifics for quick emergency shelters that can even be made with your car parked over a ditch. This is not my idea of a place to spend two weeks or more, so this is why I wanted people to start getting serious about prepping for this.

I'll post more on mine, which is NOT ready, later. I tried very hard to set up last year, but my family ridiculed me and refused to help at all. NOW they're interested in helping me. I'll post what we're doing as we do it.

When the attack happened, I was at work. I stayed there instead of grabbing my kids and running for the hills. I went to the store on the way home for a few basics like milk and bread and saw the crowds lined up for gas and filling the stores in panic.

I moved too slowly, like I was in shock, like as long as I didn't quite believe it then it couldn't be true. And I'm a doomer! This is why I want people to think about it ahead of time. I felt paralyzed, and I was already well prepared. I'll bet I have the same reaction next time unless I do some serious "talking it over" with you.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

Git, "water in containers" might also implicate cases of canned goods. Bound to be a variety of things you could pack around you.

The idea of the plastic on the veggie gardens is to keep the soil out of contact with fallout. It doesn't matter (I don't think) if the ground is eradiated. Well, the worms might take issue with that. But you can still use that dirt after you have carefully removed the plastic. It's the fallout that keeps giving and giving... So, plastic on the windows will help keep fallout outside as well.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

Helen, Sweetie has a bad back and I have some physical incapacities. Digging heavy clay to put in bags is not an option. We have a brick house and I'm more interested in what I can do here, in place. That's why I asked about the brick and plastic. We have a crawl space, but it IS a crawl space, like in a Marine crawl. Obviously, we can't prepare for a nearby blast, which I doubt we'd have anywhere near here anyway--the suitcase nukes being talked about apparently would affect "only" a four-mile area, must get more info on that. So I figure we can prepare for fall-out.

I'd like to read the book in toto but will have to get Sweetie to print it off at work tomorrow or Monday, since my computer keeps hanging up.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

Helen,

I'm still in denial about fallout because I feel that my area is more prone to chem/bio attacks since this is a very large (5+ colleges) student area with few tall buildings or military targets worth nuking. I've been trying to get myself to snap out of it. To that end, I have cut plastic for the "safe" room (no basement or crawl space, either), and I have stores and a radio in there (with a recently replaced battery!)

I will read the material at the link OG kindly provided and, hopefully, that will get my rear in gear to do more.

Hard core survivalists are trying to get me to move to a rural area. They are right about the risks of where I am, but I know that during a recession/depression (or time with expensive or limited gas), I'm within walking distance of dozens of places where I could be employed (I can work in several different fields). That's not true in a rural area, and in the immediate future, I can see myself getting stranded out there without enough income to keep up with the taxes.

But fallout? I'm still working on that one.

One other thing: I was recently in LA. I don't lay claims to any major psychic powers, but I felt great sadness when I was along the coast -- future dead zone? -- If I lived there, I'd be job hunting back East. Fallout seemed more possible there for some reason.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

We know that any assistance comes first to those who live in urban areas. Unless I already lived in a rural area and was prepped to the hilt with medical supplies, water, and the rest, I wouldn't move right this minute. Too many new things to learn and there might not be time.

BTW, I read that the potassium iodide, properly stored, has a 10-year shelf life so I guess we're okay on that.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

They only need to nuke one place to really mess things up for the whole country in terms of morale and the economy. They probably don't have many of them, IF they have any at all.

I hate the mixed signals we get from the government telling us that an attack could occur any day, but we should get on a plane and go to Disney World anyway.

So it's a crap shoot whether any of us live in a fallout zone from a possible nuke. That's why I hate to urge anyone to make permanent shelters unless you just always wanted one.

Meemur, your point about having a job is valid -- we've just about starved out of our rural area.

Git, stacking your preps around yourself is a great idea. And I didn't mean to imply that plastic over your windows is a bad idea. It's a very good idea to keep as much dust out of the house as possible.

more later

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

we don't have a basement, but a lower level family room. yeah yeah I know..I told hubby..a basement is a MUST..and we still bought this place.!!! I am still trying to get a "Faraday cage type room in the Family room, but all he says is if we get nuked..we don;t want to live anyway.... my outlook is I will live till I die. I am prepped, I am a survivor..but I am like Meemer..I can't let my self think on this one..I have animals I would have to humanely destroy, and that is not an option.

For y2k I went to 3 different drug store chains, asked for the potassim Iodide..got laughed out of all three. A--holes!

will find some time this week end to read the link.. been having a busy time.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

SAR, when I checked the potassium iodide sources at that link, they just about all had sold out but were expecting more within two weeks which was not completely spoken for. I believe it, I mean, I don't think it's a ploy. I don't know these people but given the circumstances, I would tend to believe what they say and go ahead and place an order.

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2001

SAR, there's always Shane for potassium iodide. (Don't know what his supply situation is like at the moment, though.)

I think that organizing yourself so that you could stay inside for maybe 3 weeks is a good goal for a number of issues, including contagions not just light fallout. Just figure on also being able to seal off windows, doors and vents with plastic. Your standard y2k supplies will take care of most of it.

Heavier fallout is where you need to start thinking about a very dense shield between you and whatever direction that is. Even so, you can tolerate quite a bit of radiation. I would be more concerned about long-term food supplies. The Chernobyl area is still poisoned.

SAR, I'm very thankful that my cats are indoor cats. I won't have to round them up, and I will be able to bring them all inside. Even so, my .22 is available for who/whatever may need it in my home. That's worst case, for me.

I don't think all the countries with nuclear capability would fire on us. You have to rule out those that might have some interest in our clean water and soil.

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2001