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Comment by SubiculumCode | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the link.

I had a book once that seemed very nice. I had it as a kid and would thumb through it. Good to know about wind patterns, how to build emergency shelters, and such.

One emergency shelter type seemed a good plan. Did a trench 3 or four feet wide, and so deep. Then drive a vehicle over the trench for a roof to protect against radiation and fallout.

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Seems a lot slower and less effective than getting into a basement. I guess it would help if you were somehow being nuked in the wilderness.

We don't have basements in Texas. Which has always seemed like a bummer to me because they sound useful, even aside from nuclear war.

I would think you'd still be better off just staying in the house, especially if you can use your garage as a decontamination zone / airlock to avoid bringing a bunch of alpha emitters into the house.

Edit: assuming you're talking about fallout protection rather than the initial gamma burst. For that, yeah, get as many feet of earth between you and the source as possible; a trench will do that even without a vehicle over top.

If there's substantial fallout around you, being indoors won't save you. You need substantial shielding or distance between it and you for several days until it decays enough to not pose an immediate threat.

The "distance" part is interesting. Being in the middle of a tall building can work, because you're far enough from both the ground and the roof.

In much of TX you won't be able to dig a three to four foot deep trench due to limestone. It's one of the reasons we don't have basements.

Are there other reasons why basement-prevalence is so regional?

The water table. In some areas (like where I lived in Florida) your basement would flood. You'd have to have a pump working constantly.

In CA we don't have basements usually.

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