Category: NBC

Letter Re: Preparedness for Hazardous Chemical Spills

Dear Sir, I work as an firefighter/EMT and Hazardous Materials Tech in the Greater Louisville, Kentucky region. I would like to provide your readership with two examples of ‘stabilized’ emergencies going wrong in the last year in the Louisville area alone. Both could have been catastrophic had it not been for quick thinking and pure dumb luck. The first incident began in late October of last year when 11 cars of a 57-car Paducah and Louisville line (a CSX owned company) derailed in the southwest corner of Jefferson County, very near Fort Knox. The cars that derailed were carrying Butadiene …


Solar Storms: Their Impact and How to Prepare, By Tamara W.

Solar [coronal] mass ejections occur most frequently at the peak of the 11 year solar cycle.  Statistics show that Earth will get a direct hit from a major solar mass ejection every about every 500 years. This estimate comes from the number of solar mass ejections we see and frequency. Now figure in the size of the Earth versus the size of the solar mass ejection. The calculation is similar to the odds of a pin landing on a particular point on a globe, except Earth is the pin and the globe is the sun. In the end, we can …


Islands in the Darkness: Some Local Power Utilities Have Prepared to Go It Alone

Many readers will recall that my 2011 novel “Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse” was partly set in and near Farmington, New Mexico. I chose that region because it has a particularly resilient power grid. In the novel I described how Farmington Electric Utility System (FEUS) has made contingency plans to immediately reconstitute a local power grid, in the event of a western power grid collapse. This was not just literary license on my part. It was based on a face-to-face interview with a FEUS manager that I conducted in 2009, as I was researching locales for the novel. …


Letter Re: Food Storage in the Southern United States

Mr. Rawles, Regarding the letter, Food Storage in the Southern United States by Gary S.,,  in Florida, from May until October, the heat is merciless, making food storage difficult. Some items, like powdered milk, barely last the summer without electrical cooling. Most folks turn their A/C up or off during the day when they are away from home or pay a very high electric bill. .With the droughts of the past few years, even heavily canopied forest home sites can be too hot. Power outages from wildfires, hurricanes, storms, tornadoes,  or heat waves can cause loss of air conditioning for …


Letter Re: A Prepper’s Guide to EMP

Mr. Rawles, I have to make a comment about information in this article that is just wrong and I have seen others wrongly assume on the internet before. There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to keep metal within the cage from touching the conductor that makes up the Faraday Cage. The reason is that the cage (assuming it has been constructed without gaps or holes, as it should be) forms an “INFINITE” barrier between the electric fields inside and outside of the cage. No electric field can go through the cage because they are dispersed across the surface and do not …


Four Letters Re: A Prepper’s Guide to EMP

Jim: That was a very good article by Chris C. to get people up to speed on EMP threats and mitigation, there is one very simple thing to add that was shared with me by a former military contractor who was involved in EMP work.   While it’s possible to protect equipment in place with shielding, grounding and specialized electronic components, the most economical solution is to store spares.  This has the advantage of protecting (remember, “two is one”) with backups from ANY type of equipment failure, EMP or otherwise.  This method uses readily obtainable and very economical materials.  There’s …


A Prepper’s Guide to EMP, by Chris C.

Those of us who frequent this web site, the prepper community, prepare for a host of potential crises that may befall our nation.  Some are more likely than others, but most share a common background when it comes to being prepared for them.  The event of an EMP strike, however, requires some very specific knowledge and safeguards.  This is a serious enough issue that a study was commissioned by congress several years ago, which found that the threat was real and that we were woefully unprepared. This essay will provide a brief description of the event itself with some supporting …


Letter Re: Swiss Fallout Shelter Specifications

Dear Mr Rawles: A follow-up to my last letter: Spiez is where the Swiss have their federal testing lab for Civil Defense.  The lab has an english version of its website.  At this link  your readers may acess the list of tested and aprooved components ( for CD shelters) and in a seperate document, the list of aprooval holders.  Interested readers can then with a search engine find the companies who make components of interest one of which is Lunor. This company also has an English version of their web site.  Readers can from there select blast doors, NBC filters,  valves etc.  Spiez …


Letter Re: Swiss Fallout Shelter Specifications

Dear Mr. Rawles: Some of your French, Italian or German readers might like to try this link to the official Swiss Civil Defense web page.  The last five links on the page titled ITC or ITAP are the ones with the specs. The 4th link is also quite interesting, and as you can see, they even have the EMP problem entirely figured out, in typical Swiss fashion   I read somewhere that Oak Ridge might have translated some of these documents, or earlier versions thereof but I have yet to come across these on the net.   Beste grussen und …


L.K.O.’s Product Review: Rainy Day Root Cellars

Rainy Day Root Cellars in Castle Rock, Colorado offers a variety of sizes of root and combination storage cellars using pre-cast concrete components. I had the chance to inspect one of their installed cellars, and I was quite impressed. Their rugged designs are optimized for safe food and water storage, self-sufficiency, security and other ‘backyard’ or remote site access. In addition to food and water storage, these shelters provide excellent climate-controlled safe-keeping for important papers and sensitive files, firearms, ammunition, batteries, emergency medical supplies, and much more. Standard sizes range from 8? x 8? Single Room to 8? x 24? …


Letter Re: Free Air Filter Radiation Testing From KI4U

Jim, Many are increasingly concerned about elevated radiation levels in their own local areas, but without any way to check & test for local radiation contamination many of them are worrying needlessly, especially about minute, non-dangerous, increases over background radiation levels. At KI4U we will for no charge test any submitted used air filters from SurvivalBlogger’s vehicles or homes. Here at the lab we are utilizing state of the art isotope identification spectrum analysis with dose rate determination and will e-mail lab analysis results back to any that send in their used air filters. Full details on these tests can …


Letter Re: Risk in CONUS from Fukushima Radiation Releases?

Howdy, I have a question about the American Redoubt in light of the pending and probable total failure of the Fukushima reactors spent fuel rod pool. When this thing goes, the release will be massive and long term. [I have read that the] radiation release will cover most of the US and Canada and that most of Canada and the northern two thirds of America may be unlivable. How advisable would be moving to the American Redoubt? I’m not one for conspiracy theories. I don’t buy the one about HAARP causing the earthquake and tsunami. However, the sheer lack of …


Nuclear Reactors Where You Don’t Expect Them, by G.B.

The recent “discovery”of a small nuclear reactor (only 3.1 pounds of weapons grade enriched uranium) in Rochester, New York started my wheels turning. Like most people reading SurvivalBlog I am concerned about what is around me and what harm could befall my family in the event of a TEOTWAWKI situation. Knowledge is power, and in this write up, knowledge about where nuclear power exists will go a long way. I have spent 20+ years in the Navy upholding the Constitution, making my living as a Radioman on nuclear submarines, specifically 688 fast attacks. (I’m looking forward to leaving the East …


Letter Re: Don’t Be Blind-sided By a Secondary Event

Dear James: I second the motion – any nuclear power experts on the blog that can comment on the threat from further catastrophes in Japan, or similar catastrophes happening here in the US? Quite frankly I had not paid enough attention to Fukushima.  What I am finally reading is incredibly disturbing.   To summarize, we have a fragile earthquake, and tsunami damaged building, holding tons of highly radioactive and unstable nuclear fuel rods – on the building’s second storey, 100 feet in the air, in an active earthquake zone. Here is a photo. Here is a quote: “If an earthquake or …


Letter Re: Don’t Be Blind-sided By a Secondary Event

Mr. Rawles, Bill W. recently wrote about some of the possible consequences of nuclear power plants when the SHTF. Although I agree that a minimum safe distance during an individual plant emergency is 50 rather than 20 miles, I have to wonder if distance is that important 4 – 6 weeks out during a continent-wide event. I work for an electric cooperative and live less than 25 miles north of the North Anna Nuclear Power Plant in Virginia. During last summer’s earthquake, an electrical engineer told me the plant had tripped offline. I could not find this out from any news outlet on …