How To Die Immediately After World War III
The irony is incomparable so plan to survive, not to perish over a neglected detail
When most people think of shelters, they think of a safe place to go in the event of a natural disaster, civil unrest or nuclear war. But the truth is, underground shelters can be incredibly dangerous places. Many shelters that looked just fine in peacetime reveal they have critical flaws in their design within minutes of entering them. During a major disaster is the worst time to find out about these problems after you have taken shelter inside.
Asphyxiation (A prior post on Substack discussed how critical a concern air is!)
If there is a fire in an underground shelter, the lack of ventilation can make it incredibly difficult to breathe. In fact, it’s possible to die from asphyxiation even if there isn’t a fire, if the air in the shelter becomes too stale. Design your shelter so that there is almost nothing to burn in it and anything flammable is kept sealed inside another container, preferably something as strong as an ammo box. Make certain your air supply will work even if the electricity isn’t on by having a hand crank option on your equipment. Also be capable of shutting the shelter air intakes up altogether if there is a fire raging outside generating enough smoke to be a threat to life inside. It is an excellent option to store oxygen candles and CO2 scrubbers in the shelter in the event you may need to bottle up for a couple of hours. These can be purchased from mining supply companies online.
Starvation
If you’re trapped in an underground shelter for an extended period of time, you may eventually starve to death. This is especially true if the shelter doesn’t have a good supply of food and water. As important as adequate supply of food and water is to keep the occupants from going hungry or dying of dehydration, the ability to calculate remaining food and water stores is extremely important. It is also dangerous to be unable to determine if existing nutrition is adequate to keep your group from developing scurvy or protein deficiencies or other deprivations related to what food is available. People have died at sea from scurvy many times with plenty of food left. The last moment before it runs out is not a good time to inform your family and friends, this inevitably leads to panic and chaos.
Dehydration
Even if there is food in the shelter, you may not be able to eat it if you’re dehydrated. Without enough water, your body will slowly start to shut down, and you will eventually die. People die in third world countries all the time even if they have plenty of food but cannot source clean drinking water. Look for alternate sources as soon as you are aware your supplies are limited.
Exposure
If the shelter is not properly insulated, you may eventually succumb to exposure. This is particularly true in cold weather climates where hypothermia can set in and kill you within hours. You need to have a strategy in advance to heat the shelter and to cool it off depending on the conditions. A 12 volt hair dryer will heat up the inside of a shelter amazingly quickly because the hot air is not dissipated as easily as it is aboveground. A fast air flow will cool the shelter quickly whether or not the fans are driven by hand or powered by electricity. It also helps to have warm clothing, blankets and know how to use insulation layers to keep occupants warm from their own body heat. Greater sophistication can support the installation of steam heaters or low current air conditioning systems to control internal temperatures.
Asphyxiation
One of the biggest dangers in an underground shelter is asphyxiation. Most shelters are not big enough to allow for proper ventilation, which means that carbon dioxide can quickly build up, leading to unconsciousness and death. It’s important to have a plan for ventilation in your shelter, whether that means using a generator to power a fan or making sure that there is an air vent to the outside. A carbon dioxide alarm is a very wise purchase in advance to alert the inhabitants their air is not fresh or safe. At any time your air flow stops moving into and out of the shelter, you can start to have a carbon dioxide buildup.
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
One of the most common ways people die in underground shelters is from carbon monoxide poisoning. This can happen for a number of reasons, including using generators or lanterns that produce carbon monoxide, or simply from vehicle exhaust seeping into the shelter if they are supplying electricity to it from their truck or car parked outside as an expedient generation system. (A good idea in a pinch, by the way. A full tank of gas can often power a shelter for a month idling a vehicle parked outside for a few hours each day, until a better solution is found.)
Carbon monoxide is a gas that is odorless, colorless, and tasteless, so it’s impossible to know if there is any present without a carbon monoxide detector. If you are using any type of fuel-burning device in your shelter, make sure you have a detector and that it is properly placed and maintained. Have a strategy in place if it ever goes off and react quickly, carbon monoxide has killed more people in underground places at present than nuclear weapons or other threats have.
One of the dumbest possible things you can do is to store gas bottles of propane in underground spaces. Even if they don’t blow up at some point that gas is always leaking out in small amounts and building up in the air. Do not plan on heating food or occupants with gas. It’s a sure killer sooner or later and has already been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of preppers since the 1950s. Don’t even do it as a temporary measure.
Flooding
One of the most common ways that underground shelters can kill you is through flooding. Shelters are designed to be watertight, but if they are not maintained properly, water can seep in and cause the structure to collapse. Flooding can also occur if the shelter is located in an area prone to flooding or if the shelter is damaged during a natural disaster. Anybody in the shelter who notices even the smallest leak should inform everyone else immediately. If a problem is ignored, a couple gallons of water can turn into thousands of gallons of pressure that can drown all of you in place. If an existing pipe in the shelter is found to be leaking, nip it in the bud by sealing it off until it can be repaired.
Starvation/Dehydration
One of the main ways people die in shelters is from starvation or dehydration. If you are stuck in a shelter with no food or water, you will eventually die. Even if you have food and water, if you don’t have enough to last the amount of time you are planning on being in the shelter, you will also die. It is important to have a plan for food and water before going into a shelter. It is better to stock your shelter long before you take up residence in the inside instead of rushing in with a couple bags of groceries you grabbed on the way while bugging out. Rotating food correctly extends the overall duration that the storage will last, so you don’t end up being left with rotten food that should have been eaten months ago. At any time a water supply becomes compromised, it’s nice to have a couple thousand gallons of clean backup water available until you sort out the dilemma.
Hypothermia
Another way people can die in shelters is from hypothermia. If the temperature in the shelter is too cold, people can get hypothermia and die. This is why it is important to have a plan for heating and cooling before going into a shelter. To prevent hypothermia, always run a buddy system and watch one another to make sure nobody is getting sleepy in a cold environment they don’t have enough warmth to survive once they start to doze. Hypothermia is a problem in the cold that can elude people who are exhausted, shivering and dying for rest. If they fall asleep half exposed they may never wake up. Good to watch over people one at a time making certain they are safe, warm and comfortable. This is another reason why always having a shelter inhabitant awake is so important, no matter what is happening. “The Watch” is one of the most critical duties in the shelter, never have everyone asleep with nobody keeping a watch at any time day or night. For obvious reasons, a minor problem (like a mild fire) can turn into something major with nobody watching it or standing ready to alert the others.
Structural Failures (Not good!)
Finally, people can also die in shelters from being crushed. If the roof of the shelter collapses, people can be crushed by the debris. This is why it is important to have a plan for reinforcing the roof of the shelter before going into it. Remember, the arch tends to survive all kinds of stresses with an earth cover on top of it evenly distributed on it. Arches survive for thousands of years long after flat ceilings have caved in. Your shelter should integrate the arch or the sphere into it’s basic architecture when it is built to vastly improve your chances underground of surviving overpressures or ground shock stresses. Whatever you do you must never bury a shipping container underground without extensive reinforcement welded into ceiling and walls. Many people have been killed in these containers when they collapsed and the walls came together on people inside. If most of them don’t survive everyday use in peacetime, imagine how many of them will pancake flat during a nuclear war or earthquake. Not a safe way to build a shelter at all.
Infectious Diseases (Rats & Mice)
There are a number of infectious diseases that can be contracted from exposure to rodents and other animals in underground shelters. Hantavirus, for example, is a disease that is carried by mice and rats and can be deadly to humans. Other diseases that can be contracted from exposure to rodents include Salmonellosis, Lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCMV), and Leptospirosis. It is important to store traps in a shelter to catch mice and rodents. A couple hundred would be a good start. Once they are inside they can ruin amazing amounts of food in a very short time, often in secret so nobody knows until a food container is opened. Keep the shelter impeccably clean inside and don’t leave out anything that could attract them. Food should always be sealed in containers, never left sitting out. Rats and mice have been known to migrate up drain pipes and conduits for miles when they smelled stuff cooking or rotting at the other end. When they number in the millions outside you can bet some of them are going to try to get inside your shelter.
Mental Illness
Mental illness is one of the most common ways people can die in underground shelters. Studies have shown that people who are isolated for long periods of time are more likely to develop mental illness. The symptoms of mental illness can include depression, anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations. These symptoms can lead to self-harm or even suicide. Try to spot the symptoms early on and help people any way you can to make them feel more secure. Playing a game or assigning tasks keeps people busy who may be struggling with guilt, boredom or irritability. Dietary fatigue can contribute a lot to mental illness so keep your meals as varied as possible and strive to add fresh ingredients to every diet (sprouts, small scale hydroponics) to keep people looking forward to their next meal. Laughter has been demonstrated to assist enormously in coping with these situations so keep it lighthearted at all times. Many situations can benefit from ambulance humor when times are bad. If a guy gets eaten by a mountain lion, it may seem cruel but sometimes it can help a lot if you point out “that guy was never really a cat person.” Paramedics use humor to deal with trauma and it can definitely help inside a shelter.
Suicide
In addition to the risks of starvation, dehydration, and radiation exposure, there is also the risk of suicide in an underground shelter. People who are sealed into a small space with no hope of rescue may see suicide as the only way out. If there are guns or other weapons in the shelter, people may use them to take their own lives.
There have been several famous cases of people killing themselves in shelters, including the famous case of David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. In 1993, Koresh and his followers barricaded themselves into a compound and began a siege that lasted 51 days. When the siege ended, Koresh and 76 other people were dead, many of them by suicide.
More recently, in 2015, a family of four killed themselves in their underground shelter immediately after their food supply ran out. The father had been stockpiling food and supplies for years, but he apparently miscalculated how long it would last. When it ran out, the family had no way to get more and no way to contact the outside world for help. In desperation, they took their own lives.
Feelings of isolation, survivor guilt, loneliness, fear and grief can all lead susceptible people to begin contemplating suicide. Make certain these sorts of people have somebody assigned to them to keep them busy, keep them laughing and keep them looking forward to something. Invite those people to work together with others on problem solving and remind them how much they are needed by everyone else.
Drills in Advance Save Lives
Once you have a shelter built, it is highly recommended to actually try living in it. At first your family might only stay overnight. The next drill, you could try to stay an entire weekend. When time permits, a week stay in the shelter is a serious test of its fitness for purpose. Drills are important in the military to save soldier’s lives before they get to combat by exposing flaws in the organization. The drill works the same way in shelters to adapt the inhabitants to living in them and finding out the weaknesses in the design before it is life threatening in a much more serious environment.
Keep your faith in God and scripture strong and take anything Tex blathers about with a grain of salt.
Regards,Tex
Tex, underground is a constant temperature. Below 5-10 feet, the ground maintains a constant 55 degrees F in the mid-Atlantic at least. Anything underground will be at that minimum.