DEFCON

Brigade XO wrote:There were Civil Defence locations scattered around New Haven. I knew what they were but not much about them (remember I was in perhaps 3rd grade) and we had been given the talks and movie. You would see the CD symbol- and did for many many years after, well past the time when any of the materials put in them in the locations would have been of much if any use. I recall cardboard barrels with the CD labels. Empty barrels. Also remember in my teens trying to find the locations in buildings so marked but no luck.

As last as the early 90s the local high school still had an extremely faded Fallout Shelter sign on the courtyard wall of the library. I was never able to get down there, but reportedly one entrance was off the machinery area below the library and another was backstage of the school's theater. Some theater kids apparently had access. But by that point it was just overflow storage - nothing had been stocked down there for civil defense in probably decades.
At some point before 2000 that old sign finally disappeared.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:DUCK AND COVER was and remains a tremendously effective defensive tactic. Most deaths and injuries will be the result of thermal burns rather than direct nuclear radiation or shockwave. It is easy to protect from thermal radiation. One foot of concrete or masonry will reduce nuclear radiation by about 90%. Given a reasonable amount of steel reinforcing rod consistent with modern earthquake standards, concrete and masonry buildings can survive a near miss from even modern nuclear weapon.

You're describing a bunker.

Regular buildings aren't made of masonry or concrete throughout. They're drywalls with thermal insulation. And they have windows.

The average timber frame and drywall structure are residential buildings and small offices. Virtually all commercial buildings are, depending on size, either reinforced concrete or reinforced cinderblock construction.
The optimum altitude to cause various types of damage varies depending on the damage wanted. A 1 Mt warhead detonated over the Washington Monument at 1.82 km altitude will destroy or heavily damage strongly build concrete buildings out to 2.82 km. The same type of damage against residential buildings is at a distance of 6.96 km and 3.12 km altitude. The distance at which windows shatter is 21.7 km with 4.67 km altitude. The UNSHIELDED distance at which
a person a 5% chance of radiation induced death within 60 days is 2.89 km. At this distance you have a 3% long term chance of dying from cancer. The distance at which the thermal pulse is weak enough to not cause burns is 28.1 km.

I'm surprised that the notion of fallout shelters seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur. How many people are even aware of the location of the few fallout shelters that are maintained? How many ARE maintained? Have we given up on the survivability of a full scale nuclear attack? Well, we still need them in the case of full scale nuclear accidents of the Chernobyl kind.

Is there a fallout shelter in your neck of the woods?

Our fallout shelter is the Southern Hemisphere. Nothing in this world is certain, but if there ever is a nuclear incident (terrorist attack, Chernobyl accident, nuclear war limited or not) it is extremely likely to be in the Northern Hemisphere. As a secondary likelihood filter it is more likely in the vicinity of a major city or military establishment, and in the territory of one of those nations tussling for the lead.
If someone lets a nuke off near me I'll apologise and admit my error, or perhaps not.

cthia wrote:I'm surprised that the notion of fallout shelters seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur. How many people are even aware of the location of the few fallout shelters that are maintained? How many ARE maintained? Have we given up on the survivability of a full scale nuclear attack? Well, we still need them in the case of full scale nuclear accidents of the Chernobyl kind.

Is there a fallout shelter in your neck of the woods?