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How about an underground storage tank? They are watertight, can be buried up to 7' deep, and come up to 12' diameter.
during the Cuban Missile Crisis there were many people that bought such tanks and made shelters out of such things. I saw one guy that put one in his front yard and dumped dirt on it, fine in a warm dry climate but quite bothersome in a very wet climate, condensation is a big problem . As for recommendations I can only suggest a large basement with a fallout shelter inside it.
 
I'd be careful with shipping containers, there was a pic I remember seeing of someone burying one and the sides started to cave in. So just be careful!
 
How long do you plan to be in one? Fallout (ionizing radiation) can have half life of seconds to 25,000 years. It generally takes 10 half life cycles to essentialy eliminate the ionizing radiation. If it is not sealed air tight I do not see how it will be a safe shelter. If you are close enough to ground zero where an underground shelter would protect you from the initial blast better than a basement, or root celler, would you not be so close to a maximum amount of ionizing radiation that you are doomed anyway? I think surviving the initial blast, heat and radiation is minor compared to the long term ionizing radiation you will be exposed to.
 
I respect your right to build whatever you want for any possible event, but I'd be most interested in a shelter for solar electromagnet radiation - short term - days or short weeks. Anything that would require me living underground in a shipping container for a year+, no thanks.

I don't see nukes in my future, (TPTB want a clean Earth for themselves), but NASA was very vocal about us seeing serious solar flares in 2012 - (back in 2005/06). Plus events like these have happened before. So many damn things that COULD happen in the next few months or years it is hard to pick LOL. I see it as gambling. What are the odds, the costs, the benefits, etc. As for living in fear, no thanks. If my time is up, it is up, BFD. NASA UPGRADES 2012 SOLAR STORM WARNING - LEARN HOW TO PREPARE

The easiest way to prevent against electromagnetic event is to create a Faraday cage, what electromagnetic engineers call a shield room. It can be as simple as finding a closet in your house and lining it with overlapping sheets of aluminum foil.

Overlap and tape the seams using either conductive or regular cellophane tape. There can be no conductive penetrations into the room, or it will seriously degrade the shielding. Cover and electrical outlets, light switches, etc. with aluminum foil and lay a piece of plywood or cardboard on the floor so that it can be walked on without damaging the aluminum foil. Rooms built in this way have been shown to offer more than 50 dB of shielding up to several hundred MHz.

The thickness of the foil/anti-static material/wire frame is irrelevant. EM waves will hit the foil (covering material) and travel along outside it rather than penetrating. This is called skin effect. While you do not have to ground the cage, it can be useful to keep the cage from becoming charged and perhaps re-radiating.
 
How long do you plan to be in one? Fallout (ionizing radiation) can have half life of seconds to 25,000 years. It generally takes 10 half life cycles to essentialy eliminate the ionizing radiation. If it is not sealed air tight I do not see how it will be a safe shelter. If you are close enough to ground zero where an underground shelter would protect you from the initial blast better than a basement, or root celler, would you not be so close to a maximum amount of ionizing radiation that you are doomed anyway? I think surviving the initial blast, heat and radiation is minor compared to the long term ionizing radiation you will be exposed to.

This is what everybody needs to read. If there is any type of nuclear exchange that affects the continental US, then shi* just got real. Surviving the initial exchange will doom you to a slow painful death from radiation poisoning regardless of what your shelter is before and after the initial exchange.

As a kid going to school during the Cold War years and doing all the "when you see the flash get under your desk" drills had me convinced we would all be dead before age 12. At my age surviving a nuclear war is laughable adn nto something I want.

There used to be a poster in the 70's, tried to find it, that listed a numerical list of things to do in case of nuclear attack.

I believe # 12 was : After doing the above things, sit down, place your head between your knees and kiss your azz goodbye.
 
I love a good thread revival, especially about a topic I know something about :)

I think some of the basics have been mentioned already, one of the most important is the 7 in 10 rule, meaning for every 7 fold increase in time, there will be a 10 fold decrease in radiation. Do you have a Geiger counter? So if you measure 50R/hr 7 hours later it will be 5R/hr, and 7 hours later, it will be .5R/hr and so on. Usually this means you're not going to have to occupy this shelter for more than about 2 weeks. (24*2*7)/7 = 48 (meaning the radiation will now be 10^-48 of what it was). I realize cooped up with your family or friends may make this difficult, but in the end it could be worth it. BTW, this formula only works for fallout, a reactor explosion or dirty bomb is going to be entirely different.

As far as the PNW goes, Unless you're in/near some hills, I would look at an above-ground shelter, so you can drain water out of the structure, this means both rainwater, as well as decon showers, and most likely pee also. Do you really want to risk radiation exposure to empty the toilet? Or just sit underground, smelling grandpa's double-chillidog deuce that he unleashed on day 1? Earth bermed structures are much simpler to build, and have few of the obvious problems of building underground. As for what to bury, my #1 suggestion is to start with things that are intended to be buried. Conex containers are great, but if you've ever walked on the top of one, it's not what you want keeping dozens of metric tons of dirt off your head.

Large Diameter culvert pipe is available with flat bottoms and an arching top, this is kinda've a cheap way to make a bridge for a logging road, or similar, many have flat bottoms and are big enough to drive trucks through. This gives you the option of pouring a pad, installing plumbing, and electrical, erecting the roof/walls, and then covering the whole thing with 2' on top, and however much you need on the sides to make the angle of repose. You could go one step further, and if there's suitable terrain, undercut a hill and use that for one wall.

The real advantage to going underground is it makes your structure less likely to suffer the effects of overpressure from a nearby explosion. However, this adds a lot of complications you probably don't need, and can't afford. The two most important aspects of any radiation survival strategy are keeping the radiation out (specifically particles stuck to your clothes and body) and time.

I recently had to build a few structures like this, not for radiation shielding, but as large storage magazines for a customer, this ended up being the cheapest option. The culverts meet the ballistic stop requirements (when bermed) and also keep the explosives cool and dry. We had large sheet-steel doors built with another berm out front (again to prevent direct fire into the magazine) but they were light enough to be blown off should a fire occur.
 
Mr. Hook 686, it's the intermediate-halflife isotopes that'll kill you; the fast ones are gone before they hit the ground, and the long-lived ones have too low a flux to matter on our timescale.

But there's a different and bigger problem than exposure: it's contamination. Long after the background level has died down and it's safe to go outside, you'll be confronted with an environment where every living thing is a concentrated hotspot. It's called bioaccumulation, and for predators like us at the top of the food chain, it's a very bad thing. Sooner or later your canned beans will run out, and you'll start fishing or eating pine cones, I don't know, but they'll all be sources of concentrated radioisotopes.

Once inside the body, even a tiny flux of ionizing radiation can cause cancer or sterility, because it's a steady stream of particles blasting one spot over and over. That's why I'm not nearly as concerned with fallout as I am with a contaminated environment. What can you do besides storing KI tablets? Not much - plan on staying away from fish, and pass your drinking water through an RO system.
 
I think those long term actinides will accompany the fallout. Entering the fallout shelter poses the possibility of internalizing those actinides, which for the most part are long term alpha emitting radio isotopes. Yup one can shield themself from short life beta emitters, but the long life alpha emitters are my biggest concern. This is the stuff that gets into the food/wather chain you mention. If dust particles get into your shelter you will be breathing the stuff.
 

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