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Books as an expedient fallout shield

7K views 24 replies 14 participants last post by  OceanDweller 
#1 ·
Does anyone know to what extent that books can be used as an expedient fallout shield? This might be useful info for those who have lots of books and bookshelves, but no basement or other suitable fallout shelter...

I have searched this forum (also via site:survivalistboards.com + search term), and Googled myself silly looking for the answer.

Years ago, I saw a chart outlining the shielding factors of various materials, including books and newspaper), and now I cannot find it!
 
#3 ·
I think you are confusing fallout (heavy radioactive dust particles falling from the sky), with radiation (line of sight Gamma and other high energy rays ).

A wet down bed sheet draped across an air inlet will guard against the former.
The latter is only important if you are near the blast. Best protection there is a hillside or something that is massive. Books would not help to a significant degree.

There is a bunch of info on nuke shelters in the downloads section of this website. Might be where you saw the table.
 
#4 ·
Thank you Cavedweller & JustMe11.

Exactly what I was looking for. And thanks, JustMe11 for clearing my addled brain and setting me straight on my terminology blunder. I should know better.

I like the wet sheet trick, too.

Passing this info on to city folks I know. (They're also digging into a few nuclear prep books, but of course, not being in the city is a better idea.)
 
#7 ·
#9 ·
Most nuclear bombs are designed to go off at about 5000 feet above ground level and that will reduce the amount of fallout. Of course the fires started by the bomb will send contaminated smoke a very long way. Being underground is the best place to be. The deeper the better. Knowing where any "ground zero" would be could give you information on your chance of survival.
 
#10 ·
Water is said to be a pretty good shield for ionizing radiation. I'm thinking 55 gallon drums filled with water and placed in the center of a structure to create an enclosed space that you could spend most of your down time in to limit your exposure. You still would want to remove any radioactive dust particles from the air and surfaces inside of the structure. I found that the high allergen furnace filters in my home air handler were effective at removing radioactive dust particles from the air during the Fukushima fallout days. I'm assuming that electricity would be out after a nearby nuke event but maybe a charged deep cycle marine battery or car batteries would still hold power and run a DC fan which could be rigged into a cardboard box with a filter installed over the intake of the box.
 
#16 ·
My home is in coastal Florida so like many others I have no basement and my floor is a concrete slab right on the ground. No structural issues with water barrels on concrete slab. In order to put a lot of weight over the barrels to create a cave of sorts would require the span above the barrels to be very short with strong plywood (maybe storm shutters) or even 2x lumber to create a roof that weighty material could be piled on. Maybe soil.


Perfect protection wouldn't be the goal in a improvisation scenario. The goal just being as much a radiation reduction as was possible with what you have to work with. The roof of the building being several feet above you would do some of the work of keeping the intensity of radioactivity lower- down at ground level inside of the space. Removing radioactive dust particles from the air inside the space would also be a priority I think.
 
#17 ·
Radioactive "dust" isn't really a concern with nuclear weapon fallout. Consider this. When the blast goes off, the fission products and soil are vaporized in the fireball. This hot gas mixture rises to altitudes of 20k to 100k feet where it cools and condenses into sand-like particulates.



Once the cloud stabilizes, the soil, now mixed with radioactive materials, drops out of the air. Anything light enough to float around (like a light dust) will take a long time to come back down (months to years to decades). The fallout that makes it to the ground in the first 24 hours is the stuff that is heavy enough to not be kept aloft by air currents. This is the stuff that'll hurt you. The fallout that comes down from that point on is less lethal because it has had time to decay and it gets dispersed or spread out over greater distances. So it's less concentrated.

This is what fallout looks like:






It's closer to the consistency of sand or iron filings than it is to snow, or "dust" which is usually how Hollywood portrays it. This is why I say that if you don't have a problem with sand or dirt blowing into your home or shelter through closed doors and windows, you won't have a problem with fallout floating/blowing in either. Also, think of the pictures above as in order from closest to the explosion to most distant. The closer you are to the detonation, the larger the particulates will be... and the more dangerous. These large particulates fall out of the air faster (less decay time) and are larger (more radioactive material).
 
#20 ·
Both are good questions but neither have easy answers.

Rain can wash fallout out of the air if the detonation is small enough where much of the cloud stays at or below the level of precipitation. This is bad if you’re in the area it’s raining in because it can lead to more concentrated fallout than may have occurred otherwise. On the other hand it’s good for those further downwind because a portion of the fallout they would have received gets rained out. Before you get too excited, most modern nukes blast their debris clouds above most rain storms. So the effect on fallout is negligible with modern warheads.

As for how long the fallout is “dangerous”? That depends on how much/how bad the fallout is initially, and what you consider “dangerous”. If by dangerous, you mean that it will kill you through acute radiation syndrome, you’re probably looking at 24-48 hours. After that, it becomes much harder to accumulate a lethal dose fast enough. The problem is that most of what “we” know about radiation injury is based on acute exposure to radiation, that is large doses that occur in a few seconds to minutes. When you spread the doses out over longer periods, it becomes more difficult to predict what will happen. Unless you have a way to measure the ambient radiation levels, there’s no way to really know. Even if you can measure them, once you get out past the first 48 hours to two-weeks, it becomes a statistics problem. For example, We don’t know exactly how much radiation it takes to cause cancer. What we know is if you expose a large number of people to X amount of radiation, statistically Y number more cancers should show up. But there’s no way to know exactly what an individual person’s threshold is. You and I could be exposed to the same amount of radiation and one, both, or neither of us might develop cancer.

The bottom line is that if you don’t have any means of receiving information like a radio or measuring equipment. Try to hunker down for at least the first 48 hours. That allows the radiation levels to drop by 99%. 2 weeks is more ideal if you can store that much food and water. After that, most areas should be safe to leave shelter long enough to do some work outside, evacuate, etc. The hardest hit areas, like those in and around ICBM fields, it could be a month or more before it’s “safe” to spend extended time out of shelter.

Clear as mud, right?
 
#21 ·
My employer, back in the 60s got a hold of some fallout. Test fallout. Someone with DCPA ordered up tons of sand graded similar to what they saw from existing above ground nuclear tests. We for example dumped a few hundred pounds on the roof , washed it off with fire hoses, and inspected how much got retained in the roof drain piping. While most washed out of the building, areas near the roof drains would be “ no linger” zones. These tests also verified that the fire pumps were adequate to was off the roof. Apparently they really had to dial the flow back, to get the low pressure stream needed.

While the basement was underground, with 18” walls, there was only a minimum of 6” of concrete in the first and second floor, so minimizing the fallout on the roof was important.

As for ventilation, commercial buildings with makeup air can ingest fallout, due to the much higher velocities in the air intakes- really not analogous to single family dewellings at all.
 
#22 ·
You are right when it comes to using 55 gallon barrel of water as shielding every 8 inches of water depth is a shielding factor 1/2 , then 1/4, 1/8. 1/16, 1/32, 1/64 so if 48 inches depth shielding factor of 6. so that would mean 1/64 the original outside dose rate was would be multiplied by 1/64 so if 100 rads an hour was dose rate multiply by 1/64 in decimal equals approx 0.0156 or round up to 0.02 so the total dose inside the shelter is.
100 rads/hr x 0.02 Shielding factor = 2 rads/hr total dose per hour.
 
#23 ·
Does anyone know to what extent that books can be used as an expedient fallout shield?
You will likely have to engage in some rational thought. While I am sure there are plenty of guides and one of them will say 'X amount of books', but what books? Really it is about three things: 1) putting 'mass' between you and the bad stuff, 2) putting space between you and the bad stuff, and 3) putting time between you and the bad stuff.

In your case you are asking about mass. The standard that gets tossed around that is a decent starting point is three feat of dirt as a barrier. This is considered to stop about 1/1000 of your exposure. So, in your case, when asking about what extent books do the job just ask the question 'how many books, in mass/weight, do I need as a barrier to equal three feat of dirt'. Make sense?

Of course, if that standard is good for you will depend entirely on your location and exposure. If there is almost no exposure, then that three feat of dirt is way over kill. If you were, however, say in Seattle then it likely would be far less than you would need.

Probably the real answer to any such question is 'more', if we are being honest. Rather than saying 'I got this, I am safe'. You might be better off just adding what you can until you can't add any more.

Honestly though, it all will come down to the scenario and your location. Which is really where all of these discussions should begin.
 
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