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Thread: FYI.....Shelters. Civil Defense 1950's Shelters

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Default FYI.....Shelters. Civil Defense 1950's Shelters

    Hearing more chatter about the possibility of nuke being used...
    Who knows?...but I did find the shelter idea interesting.

    Came across some 1950'sCivil Defense plans for different shelters.

    http://www.civildefensemuseum.com/so...tshelters.html

    http://www.dahp.wa.gov/sites/default...terDesigns.pdf

    I was more looking at it more as a "tornado storm, root cellar, and secure room for supplies...."
    The Place does not have an basement or under ground shelter...so was considering to include one in a side hill dug out.

    3 sides earth bermed....and secure roof (?)....built inside a "Ag building" (garage)....8X10 ft poured of reinforced block walls and railroad tie sized timber roof.

    Secure door (steel).....
    If this is stocked and earth bermed, controlling temps above freezing should be a a lot easier that a shed.

    Just a FYI.....

    In light of this.....as a young man....I can recall 3 or 4 people built underground nuke shelters...In our small town.
    Even then, it was noticed that the people who did were affluent enough, to have the money and room to do it.

    Problem was...all of them were A wholes......BIG a wholes
    Possibility meaning that the only survivors or TEOTWAWKI....won't be who we would want to survive with anyway.
    Last edited by hunter63; 09-14-2017 at 09:40 PM.
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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    What I remember about that era was the number of times the CD went to inspect those shelters and they were found deficient.

    People would build them from concrete blocks and fail to fill the cavities in the blocks and they almost never piled enough dirt on the berm to stop radiation. What they wound up with was an expensive root cellar.

    If I remember correctly it takes 12 inches of solid concrete, or 3 feet of packed earth, or one inch of lead to stop gamma rays.

    My wife worked in the medical lab at the biggest local hospital and it was in the basement with the X-ray lab on one side and the MRI lab on the other and both units were lined with 1 1/2" of lead in addition to the poured concrete walls. One wall was against the earth and the other wall faced a similar unit backed up to the ground. The cafeteria was just down the hall.

    She had a plan. When the alarm sounded she was heading to the cafeteria for food and taking it back to her office. She worked in the lab computer records section in an office with a bank vault door!

    Where I live I am out of the blast and gamma ray effective radius of any target of value. Cincinnati is 30 miles away but the North Koreans never heard of Cincinnati, and if they did blowing up the cesspool would be a waste of a perfectly good nuke!

    I would have to worry about some fallout but staying inside for 2-3 weeks would be possible. I have all the gear to seal up the house. Plenty of food and water. I would just wind up reading everything in the book shelf all over again.

    My greatest concern is the Union Carbide breeder reactor in Peducah, KY. If something hit that place the fallout would take out everything in KY and VA between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic coast. It would make Fukashemia and Chernobyl look like a kindergarten picnic.
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    Senior Member natertot's Avatar
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    I assume the chatter is regarding NK and the USA. From my understanding is that NK is extremely limited to their capabilities and as such, is forced to merely intimidate US territories and protected islands. Kim likes to stroke his ego, but he is not a dummy either. He knows if actually made an act of war he would not end up on top. He and his regime would be wiped out, the people liberated (and fed), and a new govt instituted. He can stroke his own ego, but that's where it stops.

    That being said, the discussion of shelters is intriguing. The construction challenge isn't so much the sufficient material to block radiation, but to have proper ventilation. Getting good breathable air in while keeping the radiation out is no easy (or cheap) feat.

    As with Kyrat, I too am in the cincinnati area and agree that a nuke here would be a waste. The only thing it would accomplish is taking out the corporate headquarters for a few dozen national companies. The bright side of this area is that one can reach 50% of the US by car within 18 hours drive, not to mention much of canada. Instead of holing up, I would simply drive the opposite direction and have a nice unplanned vacation which would be undoubtedly cheaper than the cost of a bunker.
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  4. #4

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    Where does the ground contamination go after 2-3 weeks?

    I have a feeling, that right now, the only thing NK could do is point the thing and light the fuse. I doubt there is much steering potential or ballistics calculations involved. They are saying that last ICBM could possibly hit Boston. Where it might actually hit is anyone's guess. Like firing bullets into the air though, it would be most fitting if the thing went straight up, and come straight back down.
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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Korea is saying they can hit Boston (Is that a bad thing?), the rest of the scientists in the world are estimating a 4,000 mile range, which would not place the west coast in range.

    The accuracy potential is also in question. It could reach Hawaii, but could it hit Hawaii.

    In turn, it could reach Alaska, which is a bigger area and a sure hit, but not have a specific target in its sights.

    Japan would be an easy target and with its dense population mass any hit would be devastating.

    Of course they could punt the thing like a football and take out South Korea.

    It is not just the continental US Alaska and Hawaii to worry about. We have treaty agreements under the SEATO treaty we have to consider. All our allies, all our protectorates.

    Russia and China have said if N Korea attacks the US first they are on their own, but how will they define an attack on one of our allies.
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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    I guess my purpose of this thread was more to look over, evaluate and possibly use these 1950's ideas for a practical "storm shelter" no matter what kind of storm.
    Did find it interesting and as I was of that generation ...memories some not so good... still crop up....

    But the subject has come up again, in light of the NK threat.....Discussion has to include thoughts and opinions of our personnel needs.

    That said......
    'As I do not have basement at "The Place"......I still would like to end up with some sort of shelter for tornadoes, semi-secure storage, and insulated conditioned area for over wintering storage of freezable goods.

    Was looking at the above ground version....but built inside a outside building....cut into the hill and bermed on north and west sides.

    http://www.civildefensemuseum.com/so...ans/h-12-2.pdf

    Their plans appear to be for a 24 ft X 12 ft building.....half of a 24X24 garage/Ag building.

    Just thinking out loud.
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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Hunter, all politics and EOTWAWKI issues aside if you want a safe and usable structure, and you have a hill with deep soil, why not consider one of the old "underground home" types of construction?

    We are both from the era where they were all the rage in MEN and other publications.

    Dig into the hill, lay a slab, build up block walls and waterproof them, span it with a strong roof and cover with waterproofing and then plastic, then berm the dirt on top and all around. Plant over it and it will blend into the hillside.

    In my area I would not even need a building permit as long as I kept it 10x12 or smaller.

    Problem is at our age we would have to pay for every bit of the work at every step of the process. 20 years ago we could have done it all our self with a little help from a friend with a bobcat.

    With south facing windows temps inside will vary. With only a steel door it should show the ambient temp of the ground around it.

    Should be storm proof and freeze proof just like in the old days.

    Good for storage, storm shelter or bomb shelter as needed.
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    In FL most of us would need an aboveground shelter. With the power of the nukes now, the proximity of military bases like Jax and the Cape, my neck of the woods would be a serious health disaster, if not instant vaporization. That's with more that NC and us going at it. Like the big kids fighting. So do I want to wander a nuclear wasteland slowly dying of radiation sickness... nope.

    Nuclear war may happen. But it is way down the list of why I have food, water, and ammo.

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Seems I have come full circle.
    I was a big fan of MEN Magazine...and the life style....and have every issue back to Issue 1,... Only just stopped my subscription a year or so ago...
    DW would send in money every time a notice showed up.....but not knowing she was actually buying advanced issues for a long time.
    Many magazines are like that....anyone should check the status of the subscriptions....you (our some one) may still get them 5 years after you croak

    Anyway....my ideal house was an Earth Bermed passive heated and cooled building on a South facing Hill side.

    We actually visited, camp and took in a week worth of worth shops at MEN Eco-Village Outside Hendersonville NC in 1982...along with attending the Knoxville World's Fair....part of the package.

    The village was located on Kings Way Rd....about 2 valleys over form the campground we stayed at in the 2013 WSF Jamboree.

    One of the main attractions we went to see was My Mother's House ...Magazine Project:
    http://www.motherearthnews.com/green...e-zmaz81jazraw

    We saw it, took the tour, and attended a workshop.

    THis was a the inspiration for looking for suitable land...south facing hill side.
    Found and bought "The Place...in 1989....

    Life happens. and covenants, codes and money kinda of slowed us down....AND didn't want another mortgage also had a part of the delay.

    As sometimes unanswered prayers work out for the best.

    We both lost jobs in 1999...but had not buried ourselves in debt.
    Good thing, as we would possibly lost a lot if we had been in deep.
    We have prepared for a SHTF,... most all of our lives...so were prepared pretty well

    Had decide on the location and had part of a "hole in the side of the hill" started...
    But...Project on hold.
    Back to work...and restart "The Place" plans

    At this point was more into Log cabins, at a real good price... rather than fighting city hall and a big mortgage....and went that way instead of the earth bermed version.

    So back to figuring out the shelter idea again.

    Like I said ......Full circle LOL
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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Now you can look at the underground shelter as a part of the entire homestead rather than the main structure of the homestead.

    Think small, keep the structure and the price small and still have a usable shelter.

    I would love to have an underground storm shelter with access from my house, but the expense is overwhelming. I will just have to visit OZ with Dorthy when the big wind comes. I have already lived through two very close tornado hits since I moved here. That is my greatest concern rather than nuke war.

    I have the ideal place with ground sloping away from the house at nearly 45% slope, very little rock.

    New neighbor moved in and saw the big concrete rectangle in the back yard w/two access covers. Thought she had a real deal with a built in storm shelter in the back yard.

    She was real disappointed to discover it was her septic tank, unused since the city utility was installed.
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    Bahahahaha!. Hey if it's unused...

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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Training new neighbors is a pain! Especially when they move out here from across the River.

    That was the bunch I found standing outside in the front yard waiting for the police to arrive. They had seen a coyote and called the sheriff. They had been waiting almost an hour.

    They asked me how long it usually took for police response and I told them I did not know. Neither did anyone else since no one out here ever calls the cops for something as mundane as a coyote sighting and no one was sure if the police would even respond to a coyote call.

    "What are we supposed to do?" was their reply and it was a frantic and fearful tone.

    "Do you own a firearm?"

    'No, we don't believe in them!"

    "Time to start!"

    The nest weekend they were all out in the back yard shooting their new H&R 20 gauge.

    It started another irritating trend since no one in their whole d@$n family had ever shot a gun and every time they had a visitor they were out on the back porch shooting that 20 gauge!

    I never told them that my main coyote defense was to wait until the unsuspecting critter was poking around unaware of my presence and jump out the door with a huge scream and scare it out of its fur.

    I was sitting in the car listening to the radio one night and one started poking around the car. I waited until it was up front and blew the horn. Freekin' coyote looked like a refugee from a Road Runner cartoon. Jumped 6 feet in the air!
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    Funny how a little reality (like scary wildlife...ooooo) can change "beliefs". You know they're going to ask you what to do with a dead coyote if they happen to kill one.

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    We have yotes cruise down our street ...in town on Wed. nights...Thur. is garbage day....and the do their "shopping".

    Sitting on my front porch, back in my smoking days...having a smoke, about midnight....enjoying the night (you know, I do miss that)...

    Anyway...
    Wiley and Ms Wiley stopped for a drink out of my "water feature"..DW watches HGTV... about 10 ft away...
    I hollered, HEY ...didn't know they could run that fast.
    I'll ship the pizza and beer story this time.

    At "The Place".. 'yotes are a nightly occurrence....
    You can tell when the neighbor is around...as he is outside with his latest AR project and a spotlight.

    Like the septic idea.........you might live,.....but would be stinky...
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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by madmax View Post
    Funny how a little reality (like scary wildlife...ooooo) can change "beliefs". You know they're going to ask you what to do with a dead coyote if they happen to kill one.
    Or Ms Rich lady PETA person....has her "protected" geese crapping in her pool....."
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    Senior Member kyratshooter's Avatar
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    Yea that old girl was a vegetarian.

    In the summer I grill out about every night for supper and her husband would slip over for a little taste test of whatever was on the grill. I learned to put an extra bit on the grill for him. Felt sort of sorry for him getting fed rabbit food all the time. A grown man needs some nourishment.

    He made a killer vegetable stew and would bring me over a half gallon at a time. I would add beef to it and catch him in the yard with the wife gone and takes a bowl back to him.

    He killed a deer, had it commercially processed and gave the whole thing to me with the instructions to save him a bit whenever I cooked some of it.
    Last edited by kyratshooter; 08-13-2017 at 04:06 PM.
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    A grown man sneaking behind his wife's back to eat meat... I have no words.

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    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    Yes you do and you'd use them if your wife would let you.

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    The only thing I hide from my wife anymore is a gun... or two...

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    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Well I don't have that problem...beef roast cooking right now......
    And DW shoots a Ruger .44 mag carbine when deer hunting.
    Has been awhile, though.
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