Fallout Shelter 3 Areas to Organize to Keep the Sanity

                                                                                               By Jeanette Vale

The Three Areas: Law & Order, Jobs, & Entertainment.

Last week I blogged about 5 Areas to organize in a fallout shelter.  This blog is about what to do with all the time you will have on your hands.   It will be very different than the Covid-19 sheltering of 2020.

With Covid, we could retire to our backyards, or several rooms in the house.  We could take a drive up into the mountains.  We had running water, plumbing, heating, A/C, and electricity. 

Sheltering in place during a nuclear attack may almost destroy our mental fortitude.    

During Hurricane Ian, there were twenty plus neighbors who crammed into an upstairs room  to survive the storm.    

This type of sheltering with strangers is very possible with nuclear fallout coming down like rain across the state.  People caught in the dust will be desperate for shelter.  Their cars will not be safe places from radioactive fallout.  

Prepare early to help your family and anyone else desperate to stay alive.  Afterall, you may be the person caught far from home during a nuclear attack. You will hope desperately for a good Samaritan to take you in.

There are safety checkpoints that would make this safe to do.  Read my previous blog in regards to the ‘intake’ area.  At the end of this blog is a link to buy a radiation monitor.

TEN FEET IN

Staying ten feet in from exterior walls is the safety protocol when there is radioactive fallout outside. This will mean that the people in the house will be concentrated together in a small space.  This does not sound comfortable on any level.  

You can survive decently or you can go crazy by the end of two weeks (or however long it takes before radioactive levels are safe).  Let’s choose the first and look at some ideas.

It is okay for you, the homeowner, to call for bylaws to govern the nucleus of dwellers.

If you are to survive many days together, you will need law and order in the place.

If you do not take the time to do this, a hard horrible situation could be ten times worse.

FACT:  Adults, teens and kids cooperate better when they see the logic in the rules.

In fact,  an option is to allow the collective group to make up the bylaws.  When people have a voice it helps them to bring about a cohesive and successful survival. 

If you force your authority (which you have every right to do) you risk a mutiny.  These are not normal times. Mutiny’s can happen.

Show what resources you are making available and have the group figure out how to ration it.  They will probably surprise you with good judgment.  Everyone wants to survive.  Transparency and full disclosure engenders trust and cooperation.  

Also, most people feel safe with boundary lines.  They will help to hold up the bylaws to keep society. 

Roles & Responsibilities

Homeowner:  Don’t run around with your head cut off.  Delegate Jobs.   For example:

Job #1 for everyone immediately:

Thicken the walls/windows/ doors.  Use books, furniture, water bottle bundles in their plastic wrap,  our water boxes, sand bags, or whatever you can find.  Do watch training on this before an attack.  There is a plethora of information online. I found out that water can act as a buffer between you and the radioactive dust.  We sell water boxes and I have filled mine.  They are ready to be put to good use. Although, the challenge comes when you need to drink your walls.

Also turn off the a/c or house fan.  Don't pull air from outside to the inside.  shut windows.  seal off broken windows with plastic and duct tape (if the blast broke windows).

YES, give jobs to the  people.  Here are some ideas:

Intake guide -  monitors the one door that people enter (one door only to tightly control dust).  People come in, radioactive dust particles Stay OUT!  

Shower person - explains to the incomers that they must shower, use soap and shampoo, but don’t use conditioner. Here’s your towel, here are some clothes, let’s hope they fit, or just wear a sheet. Don’t flash anyone.   Even if city water is off, they can wipe down with a wet rag any parts of their body that was exposed outside.  Throw the rag out the door and far away.

Nurses - administer iodine tablets, stay with the sick and make sure their buckets are not overflowing, etc. (no, these are not qualified real nurses, unless you have one in the group.  This job, especially,  rotates, so vomit duty is a shared burden. Even if you have a real nurse, have people rotate vomit duty so she is not alone in that for days on end.

Head of kitchen - dishes cleaned, tables clear.  Especially so the cook  can operate.

The cook - makes the meals and his/her helpers divides up food equally using a scale. 

 “How come Bob got two meatballs?!”  Yeah…those kinds of conversations might be real.   

Food storage security - makes sure no one steals from the food shelves.  

Also during the food prep, the food is not being eaten by the processors.

Vote on consequences if a person is taking food before it is served. 

When people are hungry and they know their portion is 1/8th the size it used to be it can change people.  

moving on...other chores…

Toilet dumpers (don’t let the bag bust open halfway across the room! See previous blog)

Vomit dumpers (ditto to the above)

Sweeper 

Etc…whatever the need is, create a job. Fill it.  

As the home owner - You are the head.  People report to you.  You keep your head and hands free as you manage the community with a birds eye view of the mechanics.  You can see developing problems ahead of time because you are freed up to do so. Ask the people with chores, what do you need?   Then get them other people or what they need.  Solve bottlenecks before they happen as you see these issues coming.

If you get tangled-up micro managing someone else's area you will have taken your eyes off critical oversight.    

If you hold a council to work out a discrepancy, who has the last say?

The owner of the food / home is the final deciding voice to resolution.  But letting people be heard and understood will keep the peace.  Plus it might be fun to have a few episodes of Judge Judy in your living room.

Entertainment For Mental Stability

A natural desire will be to listen to the news 24/7.  This is very important to do during an attack.  Critical information keeps the group 'in the know'.  Very important decisions need to be made.  

However,  War news for several hours and two weeks straight  can also keep people in a state of intense fear / fight or flight.  

A person can mentally snap and then the danger outside just came inside. Balance the negativity.  It matters. 

 Maybe there is one or two people to put on the news feed.  That is okay, They can be the Walter Conkrites and give their special report daily to the group.  But make them aware of overload.

In the group have time to discuss the war and what comes next.   The topic is not off limits, but balance it with these other options or your own.  If we, as a country,  have foreign soldiers on the ground in our neighborhoods, absolutely give appropriate time to discuss and make plans and talk precautions.

But…

None of us can control what is happening on the outside of the shelter. But you can create what is happening on the inside.  You can keep people critically thinking and not shut down in darkness.

Creativity in time of war, can it be done?  Find out.  Put people and their talents to use. 

A Calendar of Entertainment 

Yeah, you read that right.  You've got many days of looking at the same faces.  Why not?  This is easier among a group where their basic needs of food, water, and sanitation are met. 

If you're in a group with very little of these, then entertainment is the last thing on anyones mind.  But give it a go, see if the others will fall in.  Don't coerce or nag anyone to participate.  

Entertainment Ideas

If there is electricity, plan when the movie theater opens (TV gets turned on) and vote on what is showing.

Arts & crafts (do you have unfinished craft materials that can be used?)

Talent Show

Tell your story series:  Each night a new person tells the story of their life.

Music spotlight; is there a guitar or piano in the house?

Sing alongs

Story telling 

 Other Possible  Items to Put into Schedule

Quiet time - No talking.  Just everyone…shutty!   One hour– or however long you all need for peace and quiet.

Scripture, singing and prayer time.

Stretching, deep breathing, or tapping exercises.

 Obtain these ahead of time:

Plastic liners for beds to protect mattress and couch cushions

Power station/ Lighting/ electricity For example EcoFlow / Goal Zero / Jackery

Mental comfort - Books, Education, music instruments, music sheets, games, UNO cards, journals.

Here's hoping nothing happens on our soil.  But let's be ready anyway.  It’s not horrible for the prepared.

Come visit us!  We have lots of ideas for THRIVING.  www.emergencyzone.com

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