DH wants to build a bunker/shelter in the basement

[DHmad]

I wish I was kidding!

DH has decided it would be sensible to create a bunker/fall out shelter in the basement in case of nuclear war/war. I feel like he’s gone mad!

@Bornsloppy

I've got absolutely no practical skills so I'm fine with being wiped out in the blast. That sounds better than getting eaten by other survivors when they realise I'm useless at everything.

I did laugh at this comment. Im in the same boat!

It's mad but someone at work spent his weekend digging up his garden to make an Andersen shelter. I have pointed them to the employee helpline, subsidised counselling and private health insurance available through our employer.

I hope he's putting a very long drop toilet in OP of you'll be living in your own filth. IMO you'd be better off buying a gun (to use on yourselves not others!!).

@Stillfunny

Not too long ago , the Irish government issued every household with iodine tablets in case of emergency. I eventually threw them out , wish I hadn't now bit they were probably out of date if there is such a thing.

@Stillfunny I was thinking the exact same thing we threw all of ours out in circa 2015, they were on top of the press in the kitchen covered caked in dust. I wanted to open them to see what they looked like but my gran was convinced the withered tablet could be dangerous/ "gone poisonous" . I checked, they sent them out in 2002 I have a vague recollection but was in 1st year so prob seemed of very little importance compared to the far more important things going on in my life.

Look at this :-

Piss-take of nuclear war advice - as funny now as it was then.

How long would that take?

If you had a bunker, how long until it would be safe to come out?

We live in Central Europe. We have to sign forms for nursery/ school saying we give permission for iodine tablets to be given immediately in case of nuclear attack. They have an on site supply. All others under 40 will be issued free of charge from pharmacy if nuclear threat ie if one went off in Ukraine now and they assumed wind would blow this way

Having just done 8 days isolation swith covid, I think I'd be heading to the mushroom cloud to be vaporised personally

It's not like we actually get a choice of whether we die immediately or survive though, is it?

Most people are going to survive. Most humans in even the most awful situations desperately try to survive and keep their children alive.

In reality, if a bomb went off in Europe, we'd all be trying to find shelter to avoid the immediate fall out. In which case if you had a basement and a supply of water and iodine you'd be feeling pretty pleased.

@Caspianberg

We live in Central Europe. We have to sign forms for nursery/ school saying we give permission for iodine tablets to be given immediately in case of nuclear attack. They have an on site supply. All others under 40 will be issued free of charge from pharmacy if nuclear threat ie if one went off in Ukraine now and they assumed wind would blow this way

So over 40s are officially expendable?

But how is it going to help?

Let's say there is a nuclear bomb. A shelter might stop you dying in the first blast.

How do you exit? Did your house collapse on top of the exit route? Say you want to live in the bunker for a while because of the nuclear fallout up above; as pp have suggested, do you have fresh air supply, filtered air, water supply, washing facilities, etc etc?

And finally, when you can emerge...what then?

@RincewindsHat

But how is it going to help?

Let's say there is a nuclear bomb. A shelter might stop you dying in the first blast.

How do you exit? Did your house collapse on top of the exit route? Say you want to live in the bunker for a while because of the nuclear fallout up above; as pp have suggested, do you have fresh air supply, filtered air, water supply, washing facilities, etc etc?

And finally, when you can emerge...what then?

If you were far enough away to survive the actual blast, your concern is avoiding the fall out. That's what you need to shelter from for 24 hours after the blast.

Hypothetically, is Putin more likely to bomb London (where his mates have mega mansions) or Faslane?

Unless he has full NBC gear, lots of fullers earth and food and water enough to last for years then No. 🙄
We actually do have full gear and also (very nasty) tablets to supposedly protect against chem weapons, problem is that it’s been in our loft for 30 years and I’m not sure I’d want to stick around for nuclear winter anyway. On the plus side, we won’t have to worry about global warming.

Neither, it would be a smaller "London next" target. Manchester or Birmingham. Just like the yanks didn't drop the bomb on Tokyo

I’d rather die than live in a nuclear bunker under my house where we would probably starve to death any way after a few weekz

It's not as daft an idea as some seem to think.

If a nuclear bomb goes off nearby, it won't do any good - realistically nothing will.

If a nuclear bomb goes off a long way away, you might not get caught up in the initial blast or firestorm that follows. However, you are still at risk of radioactive fallout - the material that gets sucked up into the air following the blast, contaminated with radiation, will come back down to earth over the following hours and days.

Effectively it's just dust, but radioactive dust. It's important to be able to shelter for a few days or couple of weeks as protected from the dust as possible. Either by physical distance or by solid material. A basement is an ideal place to shelter, if you don't have one try to pick a room that's least exposed to the outside and use furniture/books/anything to add material between you and the radioactive fallout.

People seem to think it's a choice between being in a bunker for several years or not taking any steps to protect yourself at all.

Fallout will cause cancer and other illnesses. It doesn't necessarily kill quickly, you might survive several years before it kills you.

Crucially, when the time comes that you wish you had built a shelter, it's probably too late.

@Dottdoo first Hiroshima & Nagasaki were both very small primitive bombs & each missile contains multiple war heads (aka individual bombs) & many people died of radiation after the event some taking months to die.
The figures for Chernobyl were massively inaccurate & underreported - the number who died afterwards (which included one of the official photographers of the event) no official data of the liquidators deaths & from other data from other sources they certainly occurred. Radiation sickness can be acute (the firemen) or later onset -it was NOT in Russia interest or their secretive political set up at that time to let the information be exposed. A single modern bomb would affect a larger area than Hiroshima or Nagasaki (Russian Tsar bomb or USA Bikini Atoll bombs)
Although I know far more about bombs than most I am not worrying about this & seriously not should anybody else

tbh the most recent developments in nuclear weapons was making them smaller and battlefield "friendly"

The focus on massive blasts has long since shifted as it's fairly counter productive even if you do win the exchange

@DHmad

I wish I was kidding!

DH has decided it would be sensible to create a bunker/fall out shelter in the basement in case of nuclear war/war. I feel like he’s gone mad!

Ask you husband how his shelter is going to protect him from this

www.britannica.com/science/nuclear-winter

A "bunker" you say. With a beer fridge, flat screen and lazyboy chairs? Hmm.

If not nuclear warfare, then what about chemical warfare?

Could Putin release the stuff that was released in Salisbury on a wider scale?

@ThymePoultice - taking iodine only helps with thyroid cancer by giving you a non radioactive dose of iodine before radiative iodine arrives through fallout. It’s basically the young and sick that need to take it. Plus it’s only to prevent thyroid cancer that would start from built up in you over years. So over 40 has far less chance of ever being affected. It’s basically given to pregnant and breastfeeding, infants and children, 18-40, those ill with immune difficulties.

www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/emergencies/ki.htm

Unless he is getting engineering support from CERN, his bunker won’t actually be very effective.

And so yes a cellar would protect from fallout. Or any indoor closed space, ideally without windows.

As example the level outside if you were say 40km away, the minute it goes past you if your standing outside you would get 100%, inside maybe 5-10%. After 24hrs outside would decrease maybe to 50%, after 48hrs down to 20% dose. Gradually better over time. So even if you just stayed indoors, no windows open, for 24hrs, you would get a far far lower dose

That’s why many countries suggest a 3 day supply of food and essentials. As many risks from various things decrease over that time.