my steak in the town a business a building that is when i finish paying off the mortgage in fifteen years i assume i'll be around in fifteen years that's something you have to assume or else there's no point in assuming one thinks about it much anymore too many crises too many scared so we push it to the back of our mind where it waits staring bright  was apathy indifference others say it was all that talk about standing at the door of your home shelter with a gun and shooting your neighbor down if you tried to get in that didn't sit well with out people but the coming of the national shelters surveyed and the idea of finding community shel everyone seems to put the matter in a brand new light poles ospital buildings apartment house one hundred sixty eight because the community shelters could accommodate our entire population plus any additional shop workers who might be in the area during an attack the i pop this is then mr mayor is a nuclear attack album i'll grow a senior member of our common council and one of the town's most trusted and respected citizens that is the hypothesis school they're located where people live there are usually the most abstention buildings in the neighborhood and the children are there during most of the daylight hours that's a quarter of your population to begin with two buildings could protect five thousand people from nuclear fallout at what cost mr mayor or jackson high virtually nothing for a gram cost of thirty five thousand dollars total cost of all modifications combined one hundred sixty three thousand one hundred twenty five dollars and eleven cents to be paid by whom by the people natural doors of the shoulders be thrown open to everyone the schools always did belong to everyone has to pay for supplies for the shelves all stocked by the federal government food water medicine radiation measuring instruments yes who guides the supplies against this not a matter for the schools but in times like these i can think of no more futile negative istic approach than burrowing into the ground and at these staggering costs we can raise the money and do without furniture books a cafeteria for grammar school to more teachers for grammar schools three and five where we already have more than forty pupils in a class we want them to be forty lives tuples i want them to be forty post two but i did neither the issue is survive because for the first time in human affairs to kill is to be killed and to let live is to live an k for defense what is a reasonable defense against total destruction tell me what will be left for those people when they come up out of their holes shall we begin with life but it all came down to something simple the a b c s of follow up protection and drink which means a plan for storing water but i learned that basements aren't the only place to find fallout protection we saw a room that opened an air shaft and was shielded from every direction by heavy brick walls this would give the room a high degree of follow up protection even though it's above ground rooms like this and windowless rooms in the core of the building can increase the shelter capacity quite a good deal god grant they never have to be used for a few days later dennis permission to present his case for a school shelter before the full membership of the common council elected to do so by showing us films that arrived from  the concord school had basement window just below ground level the windows had to be shielded a local contractor donated cement blocks the men of the town laid the blocks and shoveled earth between the blocks and the building foundation flowers were planted along the new well of the fence and independent power supply was installed for pumping water and providing lights eventually the new shelter for six hundred persons was stocked with a two week supply of food which is maintained at all times but the good could do that much by itself why  gentleman i have a list here of some three hundred seventy bitly needed by the i was quite a list and not only covered our schools but took in everything else needed by other departments of our city government and it was obvious that in his opinion all these needs were more immediate and far more urgent than fall of protection and so it went for forty five costly minutes before he moved that the council table the motion put the proposal aside at least for the time being which in this case could mean forever the counts two for three against any and median consideration of putting shelter in our  schools does not give up easily persuaded mr gross to accompany him to a model community shelters that have been set up in a neighboring county a shelter that doubles as a meeting place for civic groups proving that money for fallout shelters can also buy useful piece time facilities then short of the surprise provided by the federal government why did you do that simple i don't want you to waste your money but you said it was a good policy do you realize what your chances are of being killed in an airplane crash oh about one in three hundred fifty thousand practically negligible people are killed people are that's true but chances are not you with us like that i'm sure you can find better ways to spend your money but george i'm not doing this for myself yes you mentioned your wife and child  know they love him but of course they knew how much very much well then if you got killed chances are they wouldn't even want to go line up cert people have to go on even h bomb survivors all right you make your point but my time is limited so if you'll please get a new application i was in full and i'm not going to sell you a policy they sell them out of the airport your generous gene i only came here  you know chickens and eggs are highly resistant to radiation no very interesting you're not thinking of building a shelter certainly not you know my feelings on that subject  a man could bury his head in the ground and hide from responsibility some people have different ideas of responsibility as i'm familiar with the wide variations that exist in that area is as wakeman to they're putting a shelter in her apartment house if they want to build shelters in their homes that's fine with me but why is school a place for and like should suddenly become a center for war preparations i i'll tell you what if we had a shelter and something happened while holly was in school do you think i could stay in the shelter not knowing what was happening to my child whether or not she was and there they become radioactive these radioactive particles fall back to the earth up to hundreds of miles from the point of explosion forming a dangerous blanket over buildings fields and ro exposure to a large amount of fallout radiation can cause the very second this and could result in death within a few weeks but the danger is a temporary one since fallout decay rather rapidly after a nuclear blast seven hours later radiation level is down to ten percent of the original level two days later it's down to one percent two weeks later down to one tenth of one percent which means that the first two weeks are the critical ones in which to be sheltered assuming of course that you have survived the initial explosion question yes how far do you have to be from the blast to live through it well let's take a twenty megaton surface burst you would have a good chance of surviving if you were more than twelve miles from the point of detonation provided you knew what to or what do you do a number of things the first sign of a nuclear explosion is a blinding flash of light that means about three seconds before the heat or thermal away of during those few seconds you should try to get away from windows and behind something solid that would minimize the burn effect which lasts about five seconds then you would have about one minute to take maximum cover before the blast if possible go below the surface of the ground after the blast is over the fallout will not begin for at least thirty minutes time to reach a shelter where you can remain for several days how do you know when to come out in a private shelter you'd be notified by radio announcement in a mass or community shelter the director would tell you want to safe to come out who is he he's a man in charge of the shelter he'd be somebody in your neighborhood with the leadership experience as a director doesn't get to the shelter in time for your regular chain of succession that's all worked out in advance by the community what if i'm in one cell tower and my husband's in another is there some way we could communicate you sure you'd want to have our event there would be regular radio broadcasts with news of survivors and outside conditions if we're going to have community itself is why they're still pushing family shelters or do i just have an old pamphlet the family shelters are still the best answer for people on farms or in other isolated areas and that the people in the cities and towns want extra protection at home we certainly don't discourage them what happens when you come out of the shelter is there anything left outside the fact that you survived the initial blast mean that a great deal remains outside there will be decontamination teams train to clear necessary service areas such as stores where food supplies and meat that's been covered is fine if it hasn't been spoiled by lack of refrigeration yes i think the water outside water from most underground sources water that's been in pipes or t is fine as far rivers and streams and lakes normal flow and settling will get rid of most of the contamination within a few days that they were there yes impression that we would be safe in these so called community shelters safe from fall out yes is not a fact that last fire by father most deadly of all thermonuclear effect when the bomb hits our homes will be all the rise that would happen within a few miles of the burst in a direct target area i'm speaking of places where there are survivors do you mean to imply that we would not be a direct talk at area i don't know whether we would or whether we would not a direct talk at their you with are up to date chemical plants in our modern county airport only two miles away i can tell you from reliable sources that the enemy wouldn't have enough weapons to hit every plant and every population center in the united states and night they were a prime target area sir and that nothing can save us you're making a lot of assumptions or i'd like to point out that may i have your attention please please may i have your attention i would like to add to the gentleman's comments if i may and i have felt the opposite to the sureness that it could never happen that it was much too horrible to happen then one day i realized that these two apparently opposite views ha much in common both led to complete inaction both allowed me the leisure of doing nothing of my unique predicament as a twentieth century man i to face two possibilities world peace and world destruction i was notably reluctant to face the  third possibility of a nuclear war in which some will survive the most difficult of all to face because it requires intense preparation sacrifice money or a day we hope will never come if it doesn't and the world is spared who will care how much these things have cost if it comes and we are ready then whatever we have spent before hand will be cheap you might say form of insurance ladies and gentlemen i ask your assistance in financing the construction of shelters in our public schools tomorrow morning i shall propose to the common council an ordinance by which the town corporation will show those seven groups who wish to contribute the expenses of incorporating shelter facilities into our public schools begun to raise yielding to minimum protective levels and it wasn't just school it was many buildings public and private in some much work remains to be done and will be done because people have started to care like these doctors and nurses who have begun to give self care medical lectures to housewives and business men vital knowledge for shelter living and the radio hams who came forth with a skill and equipment needed for emergency broadcasts in case of attack community action no telling where to land