June 20, 2009

Surviving the heat after a nuclear event

If you are stuck in a fallout shelter for two weeks, waiting out the fallout, it's propably going to get hot in the shelter. Most people have small shelters, and with people living in them for a couple of weeks, it will get hot and humid. Your shelter should have some sort of ventalation to let some fresh air inside and let CO2 out, but that may not be enough to keep from overheating. I advice everyone to keep one person on guard duty near the entrance of your fallout shelter. The guard should have a gun nearby (in case anyone should try to force their way into your shelter) and a hand fan of some sort. It can be something as simple as a heavy peice of cardboard about two feet square. Most of the time, the gun (hopefully) will not be needed, and when it starts to get hot in the shelter, the guard can use the fan to get some cool air flowing.

What about once you come out of your shelter? I have a powerpack 200 plus, a small generator that does not run on gas, and a small foldable solar panel that plugs into the emergency generator. Once the radiation is gone, you can use the sun to charge the generator (you will once again need a guard because any who hasn't prepared and has survived the fallout won't mind stealing from you), and at night you can plug a small rechargable camping fan into the generator. If you have a solar powered battery charger, you can charge two AAs by day, and use them to run a small handheld fan that you can buy at Wal-Mart or Target.

Not only does the powerpack plus 200 have a regular outlet, it also has a built in light. It won't light up an entire room, but it will give enough light to read or cook by. This model is not strong enough to use a hotplate to cook with (I tried it when our power was out for days). It weighs about 20 pounds, and I think it was $90. The powerpack plus 400 is supposed to have twice the power. I am going to get one of those, but since it costs around $120, it may be a while before I get it. The solar panel I use to charge my generator was around $20.

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