In Time of Emergency | Page 7

fallout shelter near your home, prepare a
permanent or preplanned family shelter at home.
DURING AN EMERGENCY
1. When you are warned of an enemy attack, go immediately to a
public fallout shelter or to your own home shelter, unless your local
government has given you other instructions.
2. Stay in shelter until you receive official notice that it is safe to come
out.
FALLOUT SHELTERS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
After a nuclear attack, fallout particles would drift down on most areas
of this country. To protect themselves from the radiation given off by
these particles, people in affected areas would have to stay in fallout

shelters for 2 or 3 days to as long as 2 weeks. Many people would go to
public fallout shelters, while others--through choice or
necessity--would take refuge in private or home fallout shelters.
IDENTIFYING PUBLIC SHELTERS
Most communities now have public fallout shelters that would protect
many of their residents against fallout radiation. Where there are still
not enough public shelters to accommodate all citizens, efforts are
being made to provide more. In the meantime, local governments plan
to make use of the best available shelter.
Most of the existing public shelters are located in larger buildings and
are marked with this standard yellow-and-black fallout shelter sign.
Other public shelters are in smaller buildings, subways, tunnels, mines
and other facilities. These also are marked with shelter signs, or would
be marked in a time of emergency.
LEARN THE LOCATIONS OF PUBLIC SHELTERS
An attack might come at any hour of the day or night. Therefore you
should find out now the locations of those public fallout shelters
designated by your local government for your use. If no designations
have yet been made, learn the locations of public shelters that are
nearest to you when you are at home, work, school, or any other place
where you spend considerable time.
This advice applies to all members of the family. Your children
especially should be given clear instructions now on where to find a
fallout shelter at all times of the day, and told what other actions they
should take in case an attack should occur.
A HOME SHELTER MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE
Public fallout shelters usually offer some advantages over home
shelters. However, in many places--especially suburban and rural
areas--there are few public shelters. If there is none near you, a home
fallout shelter may save your life.

The basements of some homes are usable as family fallout shelters as
they now stand, without any alterations or changes--especially if the
house has two or more stories, and its basement is below ground level.
However, most home basements would need some improvements in
order to shield their occupants adequately from the radiation given off
by fallout particles. Usually, householders can make these
improvements themselves, with moderate effort and at low cost.
Millions of homes have been surveyed for the U.S. Office of Civil
Defense by the U.S. Census Bureau, and these householders have
received information on how much fallout protection their basements
would provide, and how to improve this protection.
SHIELDING MATERIAL IS REQUIRED
In setting up any home fallout shelter, the basic aim is to place enough
"shielding material" between the people in the shelter and the fallout
particles outside.
Shielding material is any substance that would absorb and deflect the
invisible rays given off by fallout particles outside the house, and thus
reduce the amount of radiation reaching the occupants of the shelter.
The thicker or denser the shielding material is, the more it would
protect the shelter occupants.
Some radiation protection is provided by the existing, standard walls
and ceiling of a basement. But if they are not thick or dense enough,
other shielding material will have to be added.
Concrete, bricks, earth and sand are some of the materials that are
dense or heavy enough to provide fallout protection. For comparative
purposes, 4 inches of concrete would provide the same shielding
density as:
--5 to 6 inches of bricks. --6 inches of sand or gravel . .\ May be packed
into bags, cartons, boxes, --7 inches or earth. . . . . . ./ or other
containers for easier handling. --8 inches of hollow concrete blocks (6
inches if filled with sand). --10 inches of water. --14 inches of books or

magazines. --18 inches of wood.
HOW TO PREPARE A HOME SHELTER
If there is no public fallout shelter near your home, or if you would
prefer to use a family-type shelter in a time of attack, you should
prepare a home fallout shelter. Here is how to do it:
* A PERMANENT BASEMENT SHELTER. If your home
basement--or one corner of it--is below ground level, your best and
easiest action would be to prepare a permanent-type family shelter
there. The required shielding material would cost