Lisa Bedford is one of the new survivalists. She’s a normal mom, but is very concerned about the things she’s seeing. Her family is preparing for the worst.

Do you have a sense that something is wrong? Are you thinking that you need some kind of survival kit for an emergency?

If you feel that you need to do something then put together a kit that will keep you afloat for a few weeks should a disaster strike.

I am been researching this problem for several years. I had originally planned a fallout shelter and storing enough food so that my family could live for up to 5 years. Additionally, I was planning to store over one thousand gallons of water, and enough water filtration capacity to last our entire lives. Then I trashed the entire plan, except the ability to survive for 30 days with my own food and water.

What happened?

I asked two simple question: What happens after the food runs out? And what are some of the unknowns that I will have to confront?

I was planning for a nuclear war scenario. In this scenario, once the food runs out I’m screwed since I have no idea how to farm.

What are some of the unknowns that I might be confronted with?

After the dust settles from a nuclear war, I could be confronted with people and/or gangs trying to steal my food. There is the possibility of a small scale foreign invasion such as Mexico retaking the Southwest. It is likely that Canada and Mexico will be no help at all. Also, it may not be possibile to leave the United States after a nuclear war. In effect there are a huge number of potential long-term survival problems that need to be addressed after a nuclear war.

Then there are the unknowns that I’m not smart enough to think about. These could easily overwelm me.

My new survival strategy is to leave the United States before an major crisis hits. There are three possible countries to consider: Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. By using this one simple strategy, all of my after-crisis problems go away.

For those worried about a major crisis, I would say that your feelings are correct. I’ve posted over 9,000 articles on this website which point to a major crisis soon. Probably before 2015.

When should you leave? It’s probably not a bad idea to leave now, but you have a year or two before you need to leave. Pay attention to world events and listen to your feelings.

In the next year or two the Middle East is going to blow up into a major war with millions dead. I will announce a yellow alert at this time. That means you need to get out of the United States, but there is time to do so in an orderly manner. If you can get out before the next Spring following this event then that would be good.

As I continue to watch foreign events, I will eventually announce a red alert probably 1 to 3 years after the Middle East blows up. At this point retaliation will be coming to America.

They call themselves ‘preppers.’ They are regular people with homes and families. But like the survivalists that came before them, they’re preparing for the worst.

Lisa Bedford is what you’d imagine of a stereotypical soccer mom. She drives a white Tahoe SUV. An American flag flies outside her suburban Phoenix home. She sells Pampered Chef kitchen tools and likes to bake. Bedford and her husband have two young children, four dogs, and go to church on Sunday.

But about a year ago, Bedford’s homemaking skills went into overdrive. She began stockpiling canned food, and …

…

“Over the last two years, I started feeling more and more unsettled about everything I was seeing, and I started thinking, ‘What if we were in the same boat?’” says Bedford, 49.

Rise of the Preppers: America’s New Survivalists – Newsweek.com

Local officials taking inventory of bomb and fallout shelters

While the possibility of a nuclear attack in Los Angeles seems almost unthinkable, local officials are inventorying hundreds of old bomb and fallout shelters as part of their preparations for a “radiological or nuclear event.”

Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas are drafting emergency plans while federal agencies study how to prepare the public for what county public health Director Jonathan Fielding describes as a “low-likelihood, huge-consequences event.”

Preparing for a ‘nuclear event’ – LA Daily News

In the 1950s and early 1960s, the buzz word in American homes was “fallout shelter.”

A fallout shelter was a civil defense initiative intended to reduce casualties in a nuclear war. It was designed to allow occupants to avoid exposure to harmful radioactive fallout from a nuclear blast and its likely aftermath of radiation until radioactivity dropped to a safer level.

Fallout shelters were the rage in the ’50s and ’60s | Hudson Star-Observer | Hudson, Wisconsin

Thanks, to North Korea’s recent antics, Russia is planning to reactivate the 266 shelters which surround the Eastern city of Vladivostok.

With rockets flying just a few hundred kilometers away, Russian officials find it necessary to keep these shelters operational.

Vladivostok has more bunkers than any other city in the country, but only half are judged to be of use if a nuclear strike would occur. One of the shelters was reserved for top officials and used to boast oak doors and expensive furniture.

Russian Bunkers Back in Business : WCJB

The bomb shelter business is booming. At least that’s the consensus of the men and women who design, construct and install underground sanctuaries. They attribute the growth in business to Kim Jong Il’s erratic missile lobbing, the intransigent Iranian clerics hell-bent on getting nuclear weaponry, the impending total collapse of the global financial system, and the end of the world in 2012, as predicted by the Mayan Calendar.

“For whatever reason—and we’re not totally sure ourselves—but business is incredible,” Brian V. Camden, an engineer at high-end shelter builder Hardened Stuctures, says. “Twenty-twelve, the financial collapse: I just had to hire a new architect Tuesday. Right now we’re doing a lot in Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania. All through Appalachia, it’s people who share a similar mind-set.”

6 Top Bomb Shelters – Fallout Shelters You Can Buy Now – Popular Mechanics

Latvia figured out that these shelters were pointless. They will only accommodate 5 percent of Latvia’s population, so why bother?

Why is it that Western countries never built that many nuclear bomb shelters, and the few they did build have fallen into disrepair?

Why is it that both Russia and China are focusing on building underground bomb shelters?

If you are on the receiving end of sneak attack, then just how are you going to get people into the shelters in time?

National underground bomb shelters are pretty much a waste of time, unless of course, you plan to launch a surprise attack someday. In that case you’ll be ready to herd people into shelters before counterattacking missiles have time to land.

From the article:

Deep below the ground in Latvia runs a vast labyrinth of 311 bomb shelters, dating back to an era when Communist Party bosses built thousands across the Soviet Union in case of nuclear attack. But now Latvia can no longer afford to maintain the shelters, at a time when the government can barely pay public servants and is begging for help from the International Monetary Fund.

Read More…

The Red Square, St. Basil`s Cathedral, Tretyakov Gallery, the Bolshoi Theatre are amongst the “standard” must-see attractions in Moscow for a foreign traveller. However, there are a number of places in Moscow foreign tourists are rarely shown. One of them is restricted USSR military object – Secured Command Post «Taganskiy» (GO-42), located 65 meters underground.

Kotelnicheskii Pereulok in Taganskiy district of Moscow is a street many citizens have walked down thousand times but few people know that deep under their feet the long tunnels of the Secured Command Post «Taganskiy» are situated. The entrance to the formerly secret object is carefully masked in an ordinary-looking 2-storey yellow building.

Read More…

More articles:

Third World superpower, or what to expect from Russia
Russians – hard-working alcoholics (Russia-IC poll results)
Purely Russian notions
Russia in pictures

Check out the fallout shelters from Safecastle. They make big metal boxes that are then buried several feet underground. This looks like an inexpensive way to to. Although, it’s still not cheap. I’ve listed information from their eBay ad further down the page.

Nuclear / Biological / Chemical Fallout Shelters

Exterior view of 6′ X 7′ X 20′ Fallout Shelter with 12′ long extension

Safecastle prefabricated fallout shelters are made of steel up to 7/16″ thick. The primary differences between our storm shelters and our fallout shelters are found in modifications to the door, steps, and air vents to make them virtually impervious to radiological, biological, or chemical contamination.

NOTE: Our fallout shelters come standard with a 12-person Swiss-made chemical and biological air filtration system with both electrical and hand-powered capability. We also offer larger systems at additional cost.

To some extent, our shelters also provide blast protection, depending upon proximity to and power of a blast. As with all our shelters, your NBC / fallout shelter is made to your size specifications.

Fallout Shelter with Hatch Door or Entry Door
The most inexpensive approach to installing a Safecastle fallout shelter is to opt for a shelter with a 32″-square blast-door hatch. The door base is built in a way so that you can put two layers of boards and two layers of sand bags to prevent radiation from penetrating that hatch entrance “weak point.” The rest of the shelter is already adequately protected from fallout radiation by the dirt/fill shielding on top of the shelter.

A popular alternative is to install a 30″ x 72″ door which extends 30″ above the top of the shelter.

Reference to our Door Bases
Our fallout shelters come with a standard door base 30″ tall. This will put the door entrance just above the ground level. The top of the shelter will be approximately 30″ below ground. Any door base that extends above the top of the shelter more than the standard 30″ base, has to be hauled separately from the shelter. This door base over 30″ tall will have a door 32″ wide and 32″ long with ladder type steps going down into the shelter.

Visit our Nuclear/Biological/Chemical Fallout Shelters Gallery for pictures and descriptions of options and features.

Check out their eBay ad:

Details on the high-quality fallout shelter offered here as a “Buy Now” opportunity for $29,900 as of 7/12/2008:

• Your shelter is an underground model, 7′ tall, 7′ wide, 20′ long.
• Built out of plate steel, from 3/16ths to 7/16ths of an inch thick, with integral heavy-duty channel iron bracing.
• Is designed by a structural engineer to withstand tremendous physical forces, to include up to 330 mph winds (while many competitors’ are made for 250 mph winds, if at all).
• Meets or exceeds all F.E.M.A. guidelines for N.B.C. shelters (nuclear, biological, chemical).
• Topped with a blast door approximately 32″x32″ with heavy duty latches, hinges, and lift cylinders to make the door easy to lift and lower.
• Steel non-slip ladder-type steps going down into the shelter.
• Includes a leading-edge VA 40 Filtration System with hand crank and AC electrical function; with ventilator, crank handle for electrical failure, emergency light, cover and set of rubber hoses, chemical/biological gas filter, intake and exhaust blast valves–all mounted in the shelter. This filtration unit is rated for up to 12 people. Larger units are available.
• Includes prepackaged magnesium anodes for corrosion protection that adds many years to the already long life expectancy of these shelters and delivers triple the expected life span of some others’ shelters. The exterior is also double coated on the outside for flawless moisture protection.
• It offers the optional security vault feature, adding to the value and functionality of the shelter and the types of protection it will offer your family. The door going into the vault section of the shelter is made of heavy-gauge steel. The door has a heavy-duty, pick-proof, hardened-steel, dead-bolt lock that can only be opened with your key. (The door can be opened from inside the vault without a key, in case you accidentally lock yourself in.) These vaults can protect you and your valuables.
• Includes the optional safety feature of an 8-ton hydraulic jack in case anything like a fallen tree or debris blocks the exit door. It will lift the door in excess of 20 inches to facilitate your escape.
• The shelter is to be installed so that the roof is approximately three feet below the surface of the ground above it.
• The interior is primed, painted, and carpeted.
• A seal-able opening is provided to allow for your home’s heating and air conditioning to maintain comfort in the shelter (consult with your local HVAC professional).
• There are inlets for electrical lines and openings for TV cable, telephone, cell phone antennae, etc. A small circuit box is included and attached to the wall, as well as fixture and switch boxes. There are hooks on the ceiling to hang lanterns, lights, etc.
• Three fold-up bed frames, with mattresses, are welded to the wall.
• An advanced sewage system, an additional escape hatch, and entryway extensions are available at additional cost.
• Of course, the space is utilitarian – it also makes for excellent additional storage space or a room for your workshop.

The cost of delivery and installation in most areas of the U.S. is included in this price. Before buying, please email us so that we can confirm that you are in an area that this company will deliver to.

Read More…

Fallout Shelters

A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defence measures during the Cold War.

After a nuclear explosion, matter vaporized in the resulting fireball is exposed to neutrons from the explosion, absorbs them, and becomes radioactive. When this material condenses in the cloud, it forms dust and light sandy material that resembles ground pumice. The fallout emits both beta particles and gamma rays. Much of this highly radioactive material then falls to earth, subjecting anything within the line of sight to radiation, a significant hazard. A fallout shelter is designed to allow its occupants to minimize exposure to harmful fallout until radioactivity has decayed to a safer level.

Shielding
A basic fallout shelter consists of shields that reduce gamma ray exposure by a factor of 1000. The required shielding can be accomplished with 10 times the amount of any quantity of material capable of cutting gamma ray effects in half. Shields that reduce gamma ray intensity by 50% (1/2) include 1 cm (0.4 inch) of lead, 6 cm (2.4 inches) of concrete, 9 cm (3.6 inches) of packed dirt or 150 m (500 ft) of air. When multiple thicknesses are built, the shielding multiplies. Thus, a practical fallout shield is ten halving-thicknesses of packed dirt, reducing gamma rays by 1024 times (210).

Usually, an expedient purpose-built fallout shelter is a trench, with a strong roof buried by ~1 m (3 ft) of dirt. The two ends of the trench have ramps or entrances at right angles to the trench, so that gamma rays cannot enter (they can travel only in straight lines). To make the overburden waterproof (in case of rain), a plastic sheet should be buried a few inches below the surface and held down with rocks or bricks.

Climate control
Dry earth is a reasonably good thermal insulator, and over several weeks of habitation, a shelter will become too hot for comfort. The simplest form of effective fan to cool a shelter is a wide, heavy frame with flaps that swings in the shelter’s doorway and can be swung from hinges on the ceiling. The flaps open in one direction and close in the other, pumping air. Attach a rope, and take turns swinging it. (This is a Kearny Air Pump, or KAP, named after the inventor.)

Unfiltered air is safe, since the most dangerous fallout has the consistency of sand or finely ground pumice. Such large particles are not easily ingested into the soft tissues of the body, so extensive filters are not required. Any exposure to fine dust is far less hazardous than exposure to the gamma from the fallout outside the shelter. Dust fine enough to pass the entrance will probably pass through the shelter.

Locations
Effective public shelters can be the middle floors of some tall buildings or parking structures, or below ground level in most buildings with more than 10 floors. The thickness of the upper floors must form an effective shield, and the windows of the sheltered area must not view fallout-covered ground that is closer than 1.5 km (1 mi).

Contents
A battery-powered radio is very helpful to get reports of fallout patterns and clearance. In many countries (including the U.S.) civilian radio stations have emergency generators with enough fuel to operate for extended periods without commercial electricity.

It is possible to construct an electrometer-type radiation meter called the Kearny Fallout Meter from plans with just a coffee can or pail, gypsum board, monofilament fishing line, and aluminum foil. Plans are in the reference “Nuclear War Survival Skills” by Cresson Kearny.

More fallout shelter information from Wikipedia.

Fallout Shelter Kit