Practical questions about prepping for nuclear fallout shelter

[newproblemnewname]

OK, recent news is making me think once more about adding to my prepper stash, which I started when Trump first got elected.

I've got a cellar under the house, with loads and loads of junk in it including lots of camping gear, so far so good. Got 50 litres of bottled water and a few tins, cous cous etc down there.

The cellar gets damp and has air bricks in it i.e. HOLES in the walls to let fresh air in. I guess I need to hang covers on the walls near the air bricks which I can put in place to seal the place up if we know there is going to be fallout. Any ideas how to do this? What sort of materials should I use given that I can't really stick massive bits of stone or brick to the wall? How to best get them air tight?

What dose of iodiene tablets should I and my 2 year old take, and are you supposed to take them preventatively?

Am I right in thinking that fallout is like dust, so will blow in and settle on things much like dust does? But a cotton sheet, for example, isn't enough to protect against it - would it go through a sheet or destroy the sheet? Anything to help me visualise the stuff please, I can't get my head around it. I assume it is invisible?

I also need more ideas for non-perishable things to eat cold please, although if the electricity is still on I may be able to bring the microwave down there on an extension lead. Don't know if I should assume I'd be able to pop back up to the kitchen for things like that or not...

Why would you want to survive it.
Only prep I would do is to make sure we were bang underneath it.

Fuck no. Me and the DCs will be out in the garden hoping Enola Gay is right above us.

Have you not seen Threads? You will never leave your cellar

XPost with Agnes see you in our garden!

I used to live near nuclear reactors. The advice was to shut your windows and doors and stay inside if the sirens went off (they never did, this was during the cold war though) . If it was bad enough they barricadinc yourself in the house wasn't enough, then you don't want to survive anyway.

The infrastructure necessary to survive then thrive is massive and almost impractical on an 'individual' basis. Your cellar and sticky tape is nothing.
Totally sealed enclosure with air cleaner/recirculation, water, food the list goes on. I worked in such a space in Switzerland (under the basement of a housing block) and it is grim and I was only there a week and had the doors open most of the time. There was a certain satisfaction to closing the 6 inch thick, steel reinforced concrete door though!

Honestly my anxiety is fine, been busy with other stuff all day not thought about it again until now.

I'm not really imagining being very near the actual blast, more like if a bomb hit anywhere in Europe we'd all be worried about the direction of the wind, wouldn't we? And yes, I'd expect my electricity to still be working then.

I can imagine everyone panic buying tins and bottled water like during the fuel blockade, and I don't drive so would have no chance of getting any if I didn't plan ahead. People panic buying is one of the emergencies I prep for! Also riots, floods, power cuts, water being cut off etc, all of which have happened here since I've lived here!

Talk of nuclear bombs in the news has just made me think if I could usefully add a few things on to cover more situations, that's all.

You seem to have it pretty well in perspective. I'd just carry on as you've been doing - but I would definitely consider at least thinking about no-power strategies. Those may well be your likeliest problem.

True, that's why i asked about things to eat cold. It's just that the food options with a microwave are SO much better than without. It wouldn't be safe to cook in the cellar with anything else, and I've got loads of pasta, cous cous etc to use in other scenarios.

Light is the main thing if the electric is off, isn't it?

I would assume that the power was out in that scenario. I would also be avoiding using water to cook with unless you were planning on drinking it as well.

In that scenario the meal doesn't have to be great it just needs to supply energy

Light would be the main thing. I would assume that you would be in your basement for 8 days. As it takes about 8 days for the radiation levels to return to a safe level. So candles and battery lanterns.

8 days you'd be on protein bars and cold beans surely?

The reality is that these weapons have been used before and life goes on around it and so unless we are looking at total world participation the OP is right. Japan is still here and whilst 130,000 people died in the immediate hit zones and surrounding areas, the vast majority of its inhabitants survived with limited affects.

I agree actually, most people would carry on and try to avoid radiation exposure if it did happen. You wouldn't immediately top yourself if you lived in Yorkshire and London was bombed. You'd batten down the hatches and sit out the panic whilst trying to keep your family safe.

2/3 weeks is nothing in terms of food and bottled water. I genuinely wouldn't bother with hot food for that amount of time since you don't want to be using a camping stove etc in a small space, but the easy solution if you are thinking about a scenario where your part of the UK isn't perhaps directly affected and so there is some degree of normality is an electric socket in the cellar. That wouldn't be expensive. Its possible that some services would still be running but there would be a massive strain on the systems and so I wouldn't anticipate normal service by any means. The grid struggles to cope with a few days of snow.

If you have any natural light then I'd be thinking about solar battery packs and I'd also have a large store of normal batteries down there plus some large capacity battery storage packs. I have a couple which can keep my laptop and phone running for a very long time. You'd want to know what is going on outside. Wind up radio, wind up torch, battery powered lights, glow sticks etc all helpful. Landline corded phone more useful than mobile so you might want an extension socket down there. Then you need ways to help you sit it out: books, games etc.

I agree that there would be panic buying of food and water and so I actually don't think you're being silly as some have implied.

Story in the independent today about the Japanese panic buying bomb shelters.

Learn about basic survival, that is all you NEED.
Think of those in Syria and any other of the worlds war zones now, anything above eating grass is a major bonus.

prices of potassium iodide tablets have more than doubled over the past week..

However they will prefer military targets so the U.K. Couldn't retaliate

The UK's nuclear 'deterrent' is trident, which is fired from submarines (If the Yanks give us permission to use them). The idea of May, or any of the other current members of the government, being in charge of firing them off is more scary than Trump or NK - they been bound to fuck it up and have them hit targets here!

You wouldn't immediately top yourself if you lived in Yorkshire and London was bombed. You'd batten down the hatches and sit out the panic whilst trying to keep your family safe.

^ This! I'm not planning to try to survive a direct hit here, that would be silly. But even if my nearest city were bombed directly we're far enough away to stand a very good chance of survival, as long as we didn't go wandering about the bloomin streets for a while. And we're not that far from the nearest city.

Anyway this is the Preppers bit of the site, please feel free to have "is she nuts" conversations in AIBU while I ask here about batteries

If I were to try to sort out some sort of battery, what should I look for exactly? Do they lose their charge over time? do they have a 3 pin plug to recharge from the mains and a 3 pin socket to plug things into to use with them? Where can you get them?

The reality is that these weapons have been used before and life goes on around it

Not the ones they have now. They have not been used before.

Yes, I'm afraid they do lose charge over time. What would you be planning to use them for?

Not the ones they have now. They have not been used before.

True. But also the most likely targets are very far away from us. Nobody is going to try to blow up the whole world in one go.

Yes, I'm afraid they do lose charge over time. What would you be planning to use them for?

So could I recharge them say once a year and then forget about them until I need them? This really isn't something I think about a lot, so this may mean it's not really worth me investing, useful as it would be.

Phone would be the big thing I guess because it's so multifunctional so I could use it to entertain myself and the toddler as well as hopefully find out what was going on outside, but also a radio (winding the wind up ones is very hard work!), a light?

I use an inverter hooked up to a car battery. It's pretty cheap and has one plug socket in it. I use it for camping and if there is a power cut to run the freezer or the snake tank. Depends on where we are in the year.

You can get more powerful inverters that run tellys and whatnot. The beauty of them is they're silent compared to a generator. Run a generator you're a sitting duck.

But also the most likely targets are very far away from us. Nobody is going to try to blow up the whole world in one go

Yes and no. Once the first nuke flies, all bets are off. Nobody really knows what could happen.

I'm going to prep a bit and I never have before. I'm American and if someone doesn't muzzle or neuter that rabid dog some idiots in this country were thick enough to vote in, who knows what will happen.

I don't believe I'll have to USE any of the things or that it would come to much good if I did, but my (very rare but quite triggered in this case) anxiety needs to feel I've got a plan, or it will never go.

I've read that actually a cellar/basement can help quite a lot as long as you stay in.

ifailed - you seriously ask people to refer to a fictional book to get an idea of what life would be like after a nucleur attack?

I think the chances of a mobile working well enough to provide you with any sort of entertainment are close to zero. I wouldn't be banking on that as entertainment. You'd be better off with books, games, colouring stuff and small characters for role play games. Back to the old ways! If you can get a signal you'd be trying to get news, either in general or of loved ones. Remember that if you're in a panic and in your cellar, the likelihood is that most other people will be too. They won't be at work giving us functional services. Watch blackout on the channel 4 website. it's about a power failure (far more likely than nuclear war thank goodness). Its astonishing how quickly things turn very nasty. I'd get some very large internal bolts for that cellar door if its your emergency safe area.

All prepping advice talks about corded landlines as being the best possibility for communication since power is likely to be heavily disrupted at best.

Solar panels are a good longer term option if you have the ability to detach from the grid. I think you need a specific off grid set up though to do this.

We have a longer term plan (approx 3-5 years unless we have a major recession) to convert our current attached double garage to living space and build a separate detached double garage with a room over it. I'm toying with the idea of having a room under it too. We'd also look at solar panels for the roof and a tesla battery wall.

I've mentioned it before under a different username but we once viewed a house with a panic room and a bunker. The bunker was enormous, about the size of four double garages with two small rooms leading off. They had fake windows with landscape scenes painted on the walls. You entered it via a metal sliding wall at the back of the real garage above. It was a 1950/60s house and the bunker was original (but had been improved and maintained over time).

We so should have bought that house

gamerchick can you link to the type of inverter that you're referring to? I think you did before when you were buying it but I can't find it.