Everyday People's Nuclear Disaster Risk Reduction

According to many authorities that I have read during my research for posts for this blog, I have found a lot that say that say that nuclear war is survivable if you prepare for it.


I have also read a lot that makes me wonder whether I would want to survive a nuclear disaster. This, of course, also makes me wonder whether other people would feel the same way.


Since disaster risk reduction is a very good idea to avoid deaths and damage or  make them less, I think we need to do disaster risk reduction with nuclear war and with nuclear power use as well.


The simplest way to do this with nuclear war is not to have one. How we might achieve this goal is harder. 


Russia and the USA have many more nuclear weapons than any other countries. 

If we leave the decisions about these weapons to our politicians of these countries, we will end up nuking each other in the near future. I do not like this idea, nor do a lot of Americans. I believe the numbers of Americans who do not like this are the vast majority. 


According to some statistics I have read, over half of Russians do not like this either. 


I am not sure what is happening in Russia about this matter, but a lot of Americans are very discouraged about nuclear weapons to the point of being fatalistic about it. Many young Americans have a resigned attitude about it and think they will die before their time.


I think Americans and Russians as well as other nuclear weapons nations like China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, Israel, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, and North Korea, should find a way to do disaster risk reduction with nuclear weapons.


I think I can help a little by giving people some information to use for thinking about nuclear disaster risk reduction. Not that many people read my blog now, but the number is going up fast. All I can do is try, so I will.


I do not think nuclear power is a great idea either, so I will provide information for those who agree on this or are willing to think about it.


Below I have included a map of nuclear power in countries of the world. It also includes countries that have nuclear power plants in the planning and building stages.


This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.

The link below is a world map of uranium deposits.


http://www.wise-uranium.org/img/uresw.gif

I found it interesting that Canada has very large uranium deposits, yet does not  use any nuclear power. They have a great abundance of hydroelectric power, and a small population, so they do not have a need for nuclear power. 


New Zealand got into financial difficulty  with paying for a nuclear power plant that did not do what they intended it to do. I heard a lot about that when I was there and think it deserves a post. The Kiwis handled the matter in a way that I found very impressive.

Alaskan Nuclear Weapons Freeze

I am very proud of Alaska for doing this:

http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Alaska_Nuclear_Weapons_Freeze_Measure_%281986%29

Alaska Nuclear Weapons Freeze Measure (1986)

From Ballotpedia

The Nuclear Weapons Freeze Initiative was an initiated state statute that appeared on the statewide primary ballot in Alaska in 1986, where it was approved.
The language on the ballot said:

"The initiative would officially recognize that the prevention of nuclear war is the greatest challenge facing the Earth and that the nuclear arms race dangerously increases the risk of a war that would destroy humanity. The initiative would promote mutual and verifiable nuclear weapons freeze, to be followed by nuclear weapons reduction. The initiative would direct the governor to conduct the state's affairs in conformity with the initiative's goals. "

Alaska Nuclear Weapons Freeze Measure (1986)
Yes or no		Votes	Percentage
Yes		-	58.4%
No		-	41.6%
Total votes		-	100% precincts

I believe the whole country of New Zealand did this as well. I was visiting there when President Bush threatened them with economic sanctions if New Zealand did not allow US nuclear subs to refuel there. They remained firm in their refusal, although they were frightened by the economic threats. That  was impressive.

It seems like a good idea for more countries and states, provinces, etc. to do this. 


I do not know whether the average Alaskan voted for this nuclear weapons freeze, with the nuclear test bombing of  Amchitka Island in mind or not. The understanding of just how bad the consequences are for the Amchitka nuclear bomb tests, have only been revealed gradually.


Amchitka used to be inhabited by Alaskan Natives. Many Aleutian Alaskan Natives were forcibly evacuated from their homes during WWII according to some material I read. There is quite a bit about it. This is not a shining moment for the USA. Here is a link to a site on a book about it:


http://www.nps.gov/aleu/historyculture/unangan-internment.htm


United States citizens were forcibly and even violently evacuated from their homes, and then interned in camps. Their villages were burned in their sight as they were taken away on ships to be imprisoned.


This is not something that I had been aware of before I began research for these posts. I find it distressing.


This evacuation is the reason that Amchitka was not inhabited when nuclear bombs tests were done there. It saddens me to think that those people will never be able to go home again, nor will many generations of their children and children's children.


This is all the more reason why we can not trust politicians and military with nukes. The average people in the street and in their homes and workplaces need to take this option away. We do not need  nuclear weapons and we do not need nuclear power plants. We can not live with them. We can live without them. 


This is not on topic, but it is so good I have to share it for those interested. It is an entire video about the dead zone around Chernobyl, especially the wolves that live there. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/radioactive-wolves/introduction/7108/

Various National Nuclear Waste Repositories

If a country uses any nuclear power for either peacetime or war reasons, that country will have to dispose of nuclear wastes. That means finding a place to put the nuclear wastes. This brings up a NIMBY, or Not In My Back Yard, problem. It is almost inevitable that an area with a smaller population is going to get the nuclear wastes deposited in their back yard.


The UK is currently fighting over this matter because they have kept their nuclear wastes without a permanent home for a very long time. Since the UK was one of the earliest producers of nuclear wastes they must have a lot of it. I can see why the battle over where to put it is rather heated. I can't say even a little nuclear waste is a pleasant prospect to have in my back yard. 


Here is a list of potential sites for the nuclear waste in the UK:

Adjacent to Bradwell nuclear power station in Essex

Ministry of Defence land on Potton Island, 8 km from Southend on Sea. Essex

Under the North Sea, accessed from the port at Redcar, Yorkshire

Under the sea between the Inner Hebrides and Northern Ireland, accessed from the port at Hunterston in North Ayrshire

Killingholme, South Humberside

Ministry of Defence training area, Stanford, Norfolk

Adjacent to Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness

Two sites near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria

Altnabreac in Caithness 18 km south of Dounreay

Fuday, small, uninhabited island north of Barra in the Western Isles

Sandray, small, uninhabited island south of Barra in the Western Isles

This list is from the "New Scientist" site.

The following countries are also investigating sites for deep underground disposal of nuclear wastes: 
 Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium and France. 


The USA already has a nuclear waste disposal site. It is called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for weapons waste in a salt formation 655 metres under the Chihuahuan Desert near Carlsbad in New Mexico. Another site is being considered. It is Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. The Carlsbad, New Mexico one is for weapons waste disposal and the Yucca Mountain one is supposed to be for nuclear power plant disposal.


Here is a link to a pdf map of how much spent nuclear fuel is located in each of the states of the USA:


http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/nuclearwastedisposal/graphicsandcharts/used-nuclear-fuel-storage-map/

This map shows Alaska as having zero tons of spent nuclear fuel. I do not believe this to be true, since three atomic  bombs were tested here. Perhaps it is a semantics thing and they don't think it counts as spent fuel. 


They can use whatever words for it they want. I expect close examination of the vicinity would turn up a cousin to Blinky, the three-eyed fish, from the Simpsons cartoons.


The three nuclear test bombings were conducted on an island named Amchitka. "The island is actually part of a small crustal block being torn apart by oblique subduction — and is therefore one of the least stable tectonic environments in the United States." 


The above quote was from "Nuclear Stewardship: Lessons from a Not-So-Remote Island " by John Eichelberger, Jeff Freymueller, Graham Hill and Matt Patrick .  


The most important part that I took away from the above is that a lake formed by the nuclear bomb test on Amchitka is going to end up in the ocean. 


This is a big risk to international fishing. A lot of international ship traffic goes by there. It is closer than it appears on most maps. When shipping goes through the Northwest Passage at a good clip, it will pass by Amchitka too. 


Radioactive lake water in the ocean will be distinctly bad for the Aleutian Islands residents. It will not be good for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatksky, Russia either. That city is closer to Amchitka, than Anchorage Alaska is.


Greenpeace started up over the nuclear bomb tests at Amchitka. That was before anyone even knew just how bad an idea they were. Tectonic plate theory was not advanced enough to tell us about how geologically unstable Amchitka is. There is no known way to mitigate the danger from the Amchitka nuclear bomb test site.

There have already been three serious nuclear accidents worldwide. Some people do not know them, so I will list them. Chernobyl in Russia, Three Mile Island in the USA, and Fukishima in Japan. 


These three countries have some of the best resources in the world to prevent such disasters. If this is how three of the world's most affluent and technologically advanced countries, Russia, the USA, and Japan, take care of safety in their nuclear power plants, we are all in trouble.


Germany decided to phase out nuclear power in their country after the horrible examples of Fukushima, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. Perhaps it is time for the rest of the nuclear-power-using countries to do the same.


"An analysis carried out by Nature and Columbia University, New York, shows that two-thirds of the world's 211 power plants have more people living within a 30-kilometre radius than the 172,000 people living within 30 kilometres of the Fukushima Daiichi plant."


That was a quote from the "Nature" site about nuclear power plants and the number of humans near them. Here is a link to that site:  http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110421/full/472400a.html

Nature went on to say, "Some 21 plants have populations larger than 1 million within that radius, and six have populations larger than 3 million." 


It is not as though the radiation from a nuclear power plant disaster all stays in the area where it occurs. Debris from the Japanese nuclear disaster traveled long distances, including the coast of the state of Alaska, where I live, and to California and the rest of the West Coast of the USA and to Canada.


There is not a single nuclear power plant in the state of Alaska, yet we got the dubious benefit of radiation from those in Japan anyway. 


Nuclear power plants affect us all whether we have one near us or not. Nuclear power plants are the business of the entire world.


The operation of a nuclear power plant is nothing compared to the remains of spent fuel and the dismantling of a no-longer useful nuclear power plant. Nuclear waste repository sites offer much more excitement to life for many more people. Just about everyone is involved when you consider the routes traveled to ship the nuclear wastes to those sites. 


I have not found an actual map of these routes yet. Oddly enough, the sites I have tried to access so far are no longer there. An article about them did mention that one out of seven people in the USA would live along proposed shipping routes for nuclear wastes. 


If you live in the USA you can find out about some of this by using a site called, "local". Just type in your town and nuclear wastes or nuclear waste shipping routes. Here is a link to the local site:
http://www.local.com

My Personal Experience With Nuclear Power "Accidents"

I grew up in an area that started off free of nuclear power plants. That changed when I was in High School. They decided to build a nuclear power plant on the beach less than ten miles from where I lived. This is the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.


Lots of people came from all over the United States and even from other countries to protest building this nuclear power plant. They most often held signs grimly, near the security gates of the building site. One time there was a very large protest and a lot of people were arrested. The local courts were completely overwhelmed with the numbers of protesters. They had to get outside help to avoid breaking US law by keeping the protesters too long without charges. It discourages me to think that would not happen, since the passage of laws that make a mockery of the US Constitution, and allow arrests without charges and indefinite imprisonment. I digress, however.


None of this stopped the power plant from being built and put into operation. I learned much more than I wanted to about nuclear power plants, and that one in particular, because it was so close to where I lived.


One of the worst things that I learned about nuclear power plants is that they can be built by real idiots. The thing that impressed this on me the most was mistakes that were made by builders and the lies they told about them.


The first one was that there was no danger of any earthquakes in the area of the power plant. It was made public that the builders knew that an earthquake fault had been found that was very close to the power plant. The builders had been assuring the local public that there were no nearby faults during a time when they knew that the opposite was true.


The next thing that came out, was that someone had designed the containment domes to be mirror images of each other. The designer had decided that it would be a good idea to save money by designing one containment dome and letting the builders flip the blueprint to mirror image the other containment dome and build it from the same blueprint.


You are right if you guessed that the builders neglected to flip the blueprint and built the second dome wrong. The second dome did not pass inspection for safety because the metal reinforcement inside it was in the wrong areas to hold up for containing a reaction.


They decided that it would cost too much money to tear the second containment dome down and start over. Instead, they simply added metal reinforcements in places they should have been in the first place. This was in addition to the metal reinforcements that were in the wrong places. The builders informed the public that we actually had a bonus as a result of the initial mistake. Our second containment building was extra secure because it was stronger because of the extra mental reinforcements inside it.


My view, which was popular, was that it really worried me that such chuckle heads, who could not even manage to build the nuclear power plant, were planning to fire it up and operate it. 


It was not reassuring to think that we might need both of those containment buildings because of the earthquake fault nearby, either.


This post is getting too long, so I will continue on the subject.

What Do You Think You Would Do?

My post two days ago, about dealing with people in a disaster is the least pleasant part of preparedness for me. I particularly hate writing about it. 


It is not possible to prepare enough for everyone around you who does not choose to prepare for disasters. Most people will not prepare themselves for a disaster. That means when you are in a disaster, you will be surrounded with other people who are not prepared for it. If they know that you are prepared, they will want you to give them the stuff that you have prepared, or they will want to take it from you.


I dislike conflict more than a lot of people. Disasters are distressing for anyone to deal with. Dealing with the distress of conflict over resources due to having preparedness supplies versus people who are not prepared is even more distressing.


People in the world on the whole, are not dealing with even more important issues than disaster preparedness. There are limited resources in the world and more people want these resources than can get them. For this reason, people sometimes fight, and countries do the same and have wars.


Wars were bad in the past, but since humans invented nuclear weapons, the consequences of war are much worse. 


I recently did a series of posts about preparedness for surviving a nuclear war. 


I would like to present a hypothetical situation to my readers:


Suppose you could probably remove all, or most, easily fissionable materials, from the planet. This would make a nuclear war very difficult to do. It would also make other things, that are more helpful, very difficult to do. Examples of this are nuclear power plants and medical therapy for cancer treatment.


What do you think you would do?

Emotional And Mental Recovery After Disaster

I have met a a lot of people who have lived through natural disasters, primarily earthquakes. Every one of them experienced anxiety connected with the disaster long afterwards.


It seems to me as if those people have not completely recovered from the disasters they were in. 


The furthest back in time of the disasters that these people experienced was the Alaskan earthquake of 1964. The level of recovery of these people varies a lot, but I believe they all told me something without saying it out loud. "People need some kind of emotional and mental healing from disasters."


I have obliquely covered the subject with posts that included comfort items to include in, "go bags", or "bug out bags", to take along for disaster evacuation. 


Emotional and mental recovery after a disaster is very important and deserves its own post. Even if you do not have a scratch on you and your home even survives intact from a disaster, you are likely to have suffered some injuries that are not obvious. Those must be dealt with for you to have a good recovery from a disaster.


It will be easier for you if you have some sort of plan made to help you recover emotionally and mentally after a disaster. You may or may not need a professional counselor. It may be enough for you and your family to talk to someone like a pastor of your church. 


Charitable organization or NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations), train their workers, both volunteer and paid, to be sensitive to the emotional suffering of the people they are helping. Some of these organizations provide free counselors to help out more. You may want to think about where and how you might find counseling help for yourself and your family after a disaster. 


Here is a list of effects that often happen to people after a disaster:

Normal physical stress responses to traumatic events

The symptoms of traumatic stress are not just emotional—they’re also physical. It’s important to know what the physical symptoms of stress look like, so they don’t scare you. They will go away if you don’t fight them:


Trembling or shaking
Pounding heart
Rapid breathing
Lump in throat; feeling choked up
Racing thoughts
Stomach tightening or churning
Feeling dizzy or faint
Cold sweats


The above is from this site and I think it would be a good idea to take a look at it so you can learn more than I have room for here:
http://helpguide.org/mental/disaster_recovery_trauma_stress_coping.htm


Post Traumatic Stress is normal. People get it after being in battle and they get it after an accident or a disaster. You do not have to suffer from the effects of PTSD for the rest of your life. It is possible to recover. I think this recovery from PTSD is much easier if you make it part of your disaster preparedness.


If you have recently or even not recently been in a disaster and realize that you are still experiencing PTSD, please seek help. You do not have to continue suffering.

How Are You Going To Deal With Other People In A Disaster?

One of the least pleasant aspects of disaster preparedness, for me, is about how to deal with other people during a disaster. The first thing you notice when you begin thinking about this subject is food and water. 


Most of your relatives, friends, and neighbors will not be prepared for a disaster. When a disaster hits your area the people who are not prepared will soon be thirsty and hungry. 


Did you tell them, or let them find out that you were preparing for a disaster? If they know you were prepared and have food and water ready to use, they will probably ask you for some of it. 


How much food and water did you prepare? Is there going to be enough to share with everyone who wants what you have? If you share, will you be hungry and thirsty too?


What happens if you decide not to share with others? What if you say, "No," and they don't want to accept that answer. What if they decide to take what you have anyway? 


What are you prepared to do to keep what you have prepared? Is your door strong enough to keep someone out if they decide they want to break it down to get food and water?


What happens if someone wants to break your windows to get in and take your food and water? Will you be willing to fight to keep your food and water? Are you a better fighter than the people who want to take your food and water? 


What happens if you are away from home and someone decides to take your food and water from your family? Will your family be able to fight them off?


Are you willing to use weapons and let your family use weapons to keep your food and water? If you are willing to use weapons, what kind of weapons would they be? Can you afford those weapons and do you already know how to use them? Do you need to take lessons or practice so that you can use the weapons effectively? Does your family need to take lessons on the weapons?


Everyone has to make their own choices on these matters. It is something you will have to think about and decide for yourself. 

When The Sh t Hits The Fan

"When the sh*t hits the fan", is a phrase often used by people who are experienced at preparing for disasters. This phrase means different things to different people. 


Preppers (people who like to prepare for disasters), and Survivalists (people who like to prepare to survive under adverse conditions), are a very diverse bunch of people. They run the gamut from people who think they are prepared for any disasters they might face, by keeping a few extra bandaids and cans of soup on hand, to those who are ready for Armageddon.


People on the bandaids and soup end of preparedness, consider a power plant failure to be an example of, "when the sh*t hits the fan". The Armageddon types are looking out more towards, the end of civilization as we now know it. They seek to equip themselves for surviving as completely independent of modern conveniences, depending on levels of interdependent manufacturing and shipping, as possible.


Most of the people in the world are not preppers or survivalists. It is most common for people to avoid thinking of unpleasant things. Disasters are definitely unpleasant to think about. 


I think it is much less pleasant to die after a disaster because you didn't want to think about unpleasant things, than it is to be prepared for a disaster. It seems unlikely that many would disagree.


If you are having a difficult time thinking of unpleasant things, you can sneak up on preparedness by thinking of easier things first. Most of us are able to think a little bit about what might happen if we got sick for a few days and could not do our job. You could think about what would happen if you were sick and could not work for three days. 


Prepare as if you want to be ready to live  for three days and you don't get your paycheck or go to the store for those three days. Gradually increase the time you prepare for. 


You will have to decide at some point, how long you want to prepare for. You can prepare as if you are planning to be sick and unable to work or go to the store for that period of time you are willing and able to prepare for. Once you feel prepared for being sick and unable to work or go to the store for your  desired time goal, you can begin to let yourself think about other kinds of disasters besides being too sick to work or go shopping.


I wish to post more about how to talk yourself into getting prepared for disasters.

How To Talk Yourself Into Getting Prepared For Disasters.

How to talk yourself into getting prepared for disasters, is my subject for today's post. Most people are not at all prepared for disasters. 


When you are in a disaster is not a good time to prepare for it. If you are in a disaster and you are not prepared for it, you are much more likely to die than someone who is prepared. More people die after a disaster than during a disaster. 


Some of the things that kill people who have been in a disaster and are still alive, are not having enough, or any food to eat, or not having any water or any clean water to drink. 


Most disasters mean that you can not simply go to the corner grocery to get food, because the corner grocery will be destroyed or empty. Very often every grocery store in town will be destroyed or empty. If you do not have food ready at home, you will not be able to get food.


Many disasters mean that no water will come out of the tap when you turn it on. The local water plant may not be working, or it may be destroyed. The pipes that usually bring the water to your home may be broken. 


These things are not easy to think about, but thinking about only a small bit of unpleasantness is easier to take than a lot of it. 


Once you are prepared to have water for three days, you will feel less helpless and more confident. Enjoy that, and let those good feelings give you the strength to get water for a week. Let those good feelings from that preparedness, help you to get food for three days and then a week.


Use that level of preparedness and good feelings about it take you on to consider other disaster supplies and perhaps begin making a list of things to gradually save up for and purchase. 


Some disaster supplies do not take very much money. Examples of these are plastic jugs that you wash out and fill with clean water and a drop of bleach to keep it clean and free of bacteria for a while. Another is copies of important papers that you can take with you if you need to evacuate in a disaster.


Once you begin to think about what you will need if you have to leave home because of a disaster, you are preparing a "go bag", or "bug out bag". 


If you are ready to face getting a go bag ready you will need a list of what to put in it and what kind of bag you want to carry it in. You can look at the list to the right of this post and find my previous posts about go bags or bug out bags. I have also mentioned these things under headings that contain the word evacuate.


Whenever you feel overwhelmed with thinking about disasters or all the things you must do to become prepared, take a break and be nice to yourself. Do something that makes you feel good. Enjoy it, and then go back to getting prepared.


There is nothing wrong with having to take a break when you feel upset, or overwhelmed by thinking about disasters, or getting prepared. I have to do this myself at times. Just don't let it stop you.

Did Oil Drillers Cause 134 Earthquakes In A Year?

A study says that oil drillers caused one hundred and thirty four earthquakes last year. Since I posted earlier on the subject of the connection between earthquakes and fracking in oil fields, I have to do an update now. An article I just read said that they did not find a connection between fracking and earthquakes. The connection is instead between making waste water wells and earthquakes.


One earthquake happened when they were making the waste water well and stopped when they ceased working on it. They felt that was pretty conclusive.


It was even more exciting to see the connection between the wells and earthquakes over a period of time, in a larger area. Here is a link to the article: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/18/us-earthquakes-fracking-gas

If you hate clicking links, you can cut and paste or just type it into your browser.


Earthquakes increased to six times the number that had happened before they made the waste water wells from the oil drilling. The magnitude of earthquakes was not spectacularly high if you are used to earthquakes. They were only about magnitude 3. Most Alaskans would say something like, "Hah! You call that an earthquake? We can show you a real earthquake!" 


People from more sedate places that sit still longer might, however be pretty impressed with a magnitude 3 earthquake, especially when they come in swarms. Even Alaskans might be somewhat impressed with a swarm of the suckers.


Swarms of earthquakes are not good. I see a swarm of earthquakes and it makes me uneasy that a bigger one might be on the way. The numbers they were throwing around in the report, that inspired the article I provided a link to above, were definitely excessive. They mentioned 50 earthquakes in 2009. I would not like that at all, but no, they had to have 87 in 2010. And as if that was not bad enough, they reported 134 last year.


One hundred and thirty four expletive deleted earthquakes in one year, of magnitude 3 or so is definitely overdoing things. I can not understand what is wrong with the people in Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, letting people get away with causing 134 earthquakes in a year in their area! 


They used to have a commercial about some kind of hot sauce where they were incensed that it was made in the wrong state and were going to hang the perpetrator on the spot. I hardly think they have cut down all the tall trees nearby, or can't improvise something to take care of people who cause swarms of earthquakes. That seems like more of an offense than hot sauce.

How You Can Prevent Nuclear War

I am going to tell you how you can stop a nuclear war in this post. It won't be easy, but dying of radiation sickness is probably worse. 


My research for this blog takes me to interesting places on the internet at times. One of those is the F.A.S., Or the Federation of American Scientists. Here is a link to their site.
http://www.fas.org/pubs/tar.html

Here is what they say about themselves:


"The founding mission was to prevent nuclear war. While nuclear security remains a major objective of FAS today, the organization has expanded its critical work at the intersection of applied science and security to include the issues of bio-security, building technologies, conventional arms sales monitoring, energy security, government secrecy, international science partnerships, learning technologies, and terrorism analysis."



I like their ideas, because I would like for life on earth to survive and maybe even human life and some kind of decent civilization. Out of control nuclear proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons, as a tool for countries to maintain or improve their status in the world, are not good ways to do this.


I have not begun to read all of their extensive site, but I am getting the impression that they have missed a big contribution to the likelihood of nuclear war. That is the contribution of the average citizen of countries that have nuclear weapons, and even the average citizen of countries that do not have nuclear weapons. The things that you and I do every day in the process of living our lives can affect whether we have a nuclear war.


One of the reasons that our leaders have nuclear weapons is to keep their jobs. Even fairly dictatorial leaders, like those in the USA, Russia, and the UK, (:-) know that they will not keep their jobs if the people of their country get too dissatisfied with them. We are all used to a certain standard of living that is much better than the rest of the world and we want to keep it. 


One of the things that keeps that standard of living so high is the use of large quantities of fuel. The amount of fuel used in your country goes down, so does your standard of living. I got a good look at that during the Middle East oil crisis. 


Rationing was done by even or odd numbers on license plates. Long lines formed at the pumps all the time. Fights broke out in line if someone cut in. People stole and switched license plates. Our politicians got an earful from the voters. 


Our leaders know they will be out if they don't keep the fuel flowing to us. 


Even if we don't have our own private swimming pool and palatial mansion, we use much more fuel than the rest of the world does. Some of that is pretty scandalous waste, if you consider that it may cause a nuclear war to start. It is time for us to take a look at how we live and how we use resources. 


Are you willing to die for the "right" to drive around in a heavy multiple passenger car every day by yourself? How many lives is it worth to keep the thermostat on your heater up a few degrees? These are only the beginning of the decisions we need to reconsider. 

What You Need To Know About Nuclear Terrorism

 There are many things you can do to help you survive a nuclear terrorist attack. No doubt about it. Nukes are a very discouraging subject, but they should not be.

This is one of those things where what you don't know will harm you. Knowledge on the subject of a nuclear or dirty bomb terrorist attack can save your life. Ignorance will kill you. 


First I have to tell you that you need to be worried enough, to do what you need to do to stay alive, through a dirty bomb or nuke attack. Do not be discouraged, keep reading to the part where it tells you what to do about it.


Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and former Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Clinton, said that he is surprised that we have not already been hit with a dirty bomb by terrorists. He said it is even more surprising that Israel has not experienced one. He went on to express the opinion that this sort of attack pales into insignificance compared to the prospect of a terrorist attack using a nuclear weapon. 


Allison said that the equivalent of a 15 kiloton nuclear bomb would fit inside the van that Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City. He said that a nuke instead of planes in the World Trade Center would have taken out the whole Southern tip of Manhattan. 


Okay. I hate all this myself, but as awful as this all sounds, Allison still thinks we need to know how to prepare for nuclear terrorist attacks because there are effective things we can do about it.


Homeland Security has a succinct 10 page guide on what to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent. They say in the guide that they expect most people to begin reading at the last minute. I certainly hope that my readers are not going to do this. You should know a lot more than the 10 page guide in order to survive and stay healthy, but it is better than nothing. It does give you a better chance.


Here is a link to the PDF of it, I hope you print it out immediately and even read it and get the supplies ready that are suggested. I am posting this stuff every day because I do not want people, including, you, dear reader, to die when you don't need to. Read it. Act on it. Stay alive and healthy.

http://www.ki4u.com/guide.pdf

If you happen to be one of those sensible types that don't want to click links, that is a short enough internet address that you can type it into your browser. Please do so.

Really Basic Nuclear Survival Stuff You Need To Know

Most people would only need two or three days of staying in a radiation fallout shelter before they could come out to get to a safer location, according to some of my research material. If you have to improvise a cramped, crowded shelter, spending 2-3 days there would not be pleasant. The alternative of slow death by radiation poisoning would be considerably less pleasant.


Knowing basic nuclear survival information can save your life and the lives of your loved ones. This is information you are likely to need in the near future. 


The two biggest nuclear powers, Russia and the USA are back to playing chicken with nukes again. Both countries as well as others, all want to strip the North Pole for their own benefit, and are willing to fight over it.


If, by some chance, nobody actually launches nukes in a war or terrorism, we have the power plants. The operators of world power plants are not exactly on top of things, as we recently saw in Japan. It is only a fluke that any other nuclear plant has not blown up by now. That could happen to any of them, at any time.


Now is your chance to get ready for these impending disasters. I have been trying to tell readers for the last several posts that you can survive a nuclear disaster, either an accident, through carelessness of operators or others, or an act of war. All you have to do is learn what to do, like "duck and cover", or how to build a shelter. 




Here is a quote from one of the nuclear preparedness sites: 


"The public, and especially our children, urgently need to be instructed in Civil Defense basics again. Like how most can save themselves by employing the old 'Duck & Cover' tactic, rather than just impulsively rushing to the nearest window to see what that 'big flash' was across town just-in-time to be shredded by the glass imploding inwards from the delayed blast wave. Even in the open, just laying flat, reduces by eight-fold the chances of being hit by debris from that brief, three second, tornado strength blast that, like lightning & thunder, could be delayed arriving anywhere from a fraction of a second to 20 seconds or more after that initial flash.


They need to also know if in the path far downwind of fallout coming, that evacuating perpendicular to that downwind drift of the fallout would be their best strategy. They must also be taught, if they can't evacuate in time, how to shelter-in-place while the radioactive fallout loses 90% of it's lethal intensity in the first seven hours and 99% of it in two days. For those requiring sheltering from fallout, the majority would only need two or three days of full-time hunkering down, not weeks on end, before safely joining the evacuation." 


Simply reading this and other blog posts about nuclear disaster survival, you have greatly improved your chances of surviving a nuclear disaster. If you share this information with your loved ones, you have allowed them to have the same improvement. 


I intend to share more details of nuclear disaster preparedness before I cover tornadoes again. I have been reading about the suffering caused by more than 100 of them hitting one small area of the USA. I feel very sad about that and hope that the people there will do Disaster Risk Reduction so the next round of tornadoes will not hit them as hard as this one did.

Basic Nuclear Shelter Preparedness

An ordinary basement is not a great protection against radiation exposure. The book that has the radiation dose counter that you can make at home tells you to move it around if a basement is your only available shelter after a nuclear blast. It said that corners are usually safer from radiation than the open areas. You should find the safest corner. You can then further fortify that spot into a smaller and safer shelter. 


It suggests that you dig into the floor of the basement and use the dirt from it to make your safe corner even safer. Failing that option, you can pile things, the denser, the better. The object is to make a safer space under the pile of things to block more radiation for those inside it.


It would be a lot better if you prepare a better shelter in your basement ahead of time, however. I hope that you will do this.


One principle that you need to be aware of when making a shelter is that of "halving". By building up layers of radiation blocking materials, you can halve the radiation dose received by those protected by the layers. There is a chart in the book that shows you how this works. I believe 18 inches of densely packed earth provides halving of radiation down to 32. If you are receiving a lot of radiation in your shelter area that is still not acceptable and it would be better to have a much thicker protection around you. You can look at the charts and figure out what you want to do.


More dense than earth materials such as concrete provide radiation halving with a smaller thickness than packed earth does. You can plan your shelter with that and your finances and materials in mind.


The blast of a nuclear explosion causes an impact on everything in its path, including the human body. One source said that winds exceeding 800 miles per hour (1287.5 Km./hr.) come after a nuclear blast from a large bomb. I do not yet know what this is from a nuclear power plant accident, but since I plan to post on that as well, I soon will. Sigh.) 


If you are very close to a nuclear bomb detonation, the concussion from the blast and winds can be enough to kill you. If you are not that close to a nuclear bomb detonation, you can plan to be in a shelter, in a hammock, which will bounce and swing and lessen the impact. The book I gave a link to the day before yesterday had how to plan a hammock that you can use in your shelter. The hammock can be converted to a chair during the day. 


Terrorist nuclear bombs are considered to be quite different than military type ones. Preparedness for them needs to be different because of this. I intend to post about these and about nuclear power plant disaster preparedness. 


I have already posted on many subjects such as basic food and evacuation kits, or "go bags", or "bug out bags". If you are new to my blog, please take the time to learn about such matters. It will do little to keep you alive if you make a shelter to keep you safe from radiation and starve to death.

Nuclear Bomb Explosion Effects With Diagram

If you live very close to a likely nuclear bomb target you do not have much chance of surviving. You can think about it a little and know what a lot of these sort of targets would be. Fortunately, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. Some examples of must-shoot-targets would be important military bases, like where I grew up during part of my childhood. That was Vandenberg Air Force Base. 


If you live near one of these places, I suggest you either move, or get a bug out location far away and spend as much of your time there as possible. You can hope the nuke hits while you are at your bug out location. If you can not manage a bug out location and you are stuck in a nukeable location, I recommend gallows humor. 


My siblings and I found this very helpful. During the Cuban missile crisis we lived a lot less than a hundred miles from Vandenberg Air Force Base. We were acutely aware that we were toast if missiles started flying. We used to joke about whether we would be parboiled or incinerated if the water evaporated when a missile struck while we were in the bathtub. This struck us as hilarious to the consternation of our, possibly more sane, mother. 


I have found some sites with cute little calculators on them, so you can calculate whether you will be baked, broiled or fried, or should go ahead and build a fallout shelter. I would build one as long as I lived at least 12-15 miles from a nukeable location. I live in Alaska, but am too close to a military base to survive a hit now. Gallows humor it is. I also am making plans to move.


There is even a site that has a round slide rule that you can print out on paper and slide transparencies.  It amounts to a small nuke damage computer. It will help you rapidly calculate all kinds of nuclear effects. You probably know that radiation is the damage that lasts longest and goes the farthest. If you are far enough from a nukeable site, your fallout shelter's main job would be to protect you from radiation. You should make the radiation exposure device that I posted about yesterday and keep one in your shelter and in your bug out bag.


If you live closer to a nukeable location you will need to prepare a shelter that will protect you from other sorts of nuclear blast damages.


Here is a diagram that I drew to give you an idea of what would happen to you and the buildings around you at close distance to ground zero of a nuclear blast.

My apologies for the mess. This was extraordinarily difficult to research because bomb blast effects were described using different sized bombs and air blasts versus ground ones, etc. All of the information is a very rough estimate anyway. The wind direction and weather can even make a big difference in what happens, especially to people.


Bigger bombs will cause more damage, but not the same kind of damage. I gather that thermal damage and the EMP damage are the factors most increased by larger bombs. The rest of the damages are not changed that much.


Here is the link to the little round paper and clear plastic computer you can make to help you calculate your local damages from a nuke blast.


http://www.fourmilab.ch/bombcalc/instructions.html


It is considered an historical document now, so I am not certain that it will work for bigger modern bombs. It is not so far in the past that it will not work at all, however.


The book site I linked to yesterday has instructions to help you build a safe nuclear shelter. There are lots of other sites on the subject as well. I think it is a good idea to look at several before you decide what you want to build. The shelters vary quite a lot. 

You Can Survive A Nuclear Blast

The type and severity of damage from a nuclear disaster depends on how close you are to it and how big the blast is. Other factors matter as well, such as weather, wind direction and type of bomb. Whether the bomb explodes at or near the ground will also greatly affect radiation exposure. The only way to know how much radiation you have received is to have a device that will measure the amount of radiation you have been dosed with. I have included a links to a site where you can download a book that tells you how to make your own simple device to let you know how much radiation you have gotten. 


This information will allow you to make good choices to be able to survive a nuclear disaster. 


FEMA's site says that People will get very sick at 90 Rs. They also say that you will receive that dose when you are 250 miles away from a nuclear strike. (That is assuming a strike by a 1 megaton bomb.)


Other US nuclear preparedness sites say that if you are in even a very basic shelter, you can survive a much closer nuclear strike. 


Below is information about the book that includes how to make your own device (a KLM,) to measure the dose of radiation that you have received.



"Untrained families, guided only by these written instructions and using only low cost materials and tools found in most homes, have been able to make a KFM by working 3 or 4 hours. By studying the operating sections of these instructions for about IV2 hours, average untrained families have been able to success fully use this fallout meter to measure dose rates and to calculate radiation doses received, permissible times of exposure, etc.




The KFM (Kearny Fallout Meter) was developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It is understandable, easily repairable, and as accurate as most civil defense fallout meters. In the United States in 1986 the least expensive commercially available dose-rate meter that is accurate and dependable and that measures high enough dose rates for wartime use is a British instrument that retails for $375. Comparable American instruments retail for over $1000.





A KFM is a simple electroscope-ionization chamber fallout meter with which fallout radiation can be measured accurately.


The long term penalty which would result from a dose of 100 R received within a few weeks is much less than many Americans fear. If 100 average persons received an external dose of 100R during and shortly after a nuclear attack, the studies of the Japanese A-bomb survivors indicate that no more than one of them is likely to die during the following 30 years as a result of this 100R radiation dose. These delayed radiation deaths would be due to leukemia and other cancers. In the desperate crisis period following a major nuclear attack, such a relatively small shortening of life expectancy during the following 30 years should not keep people from starting recovery work to save themselves and their fellow citizens from death due to lack of food and other essentials."

Here is the link to the whole book on preparing for and dealing with nuclear disasters. It includes instructions for making your own radiation meter. It is in PDF and another format. You can download the whole book on condition that you always keep the copyright information on it.
http://www.homelandcivildefense.org/nwss/nwss.pdf

There are 317 pages in this book. I think everyone in the world who is capable of it should read it. We have too many trigger-happy world leaders, and terrorists, with too many bombs to ignore this information safely.


The book has how to build your own shelter along with blast doors and air filters that you can make. If you read this book and use it, you will have a good chance of surviving a nuclear disaster in good health.

What Happens Near A Nuclear Blast?

You probably already know that the area closer to a nuclear bomb when it blows up, the worse the damage will be. Experts have made diagrams and charts telling us things like how far away you need to be to avoid having your eardrums blown out, for example. You have to be very close for that to happen, you may be relieved to know.


The furthest out immediate result is a burn that is equivalent to a bad sunburn. At maximum range for these burns, it will occur only on exposed skin. Something as simple as duck and cover is enough to protect you from this and other hazards. You have only seconds to duck and cover to protect yourself between the flash of the explosion and the other more dangerous effects reaching you. If you realize what the flash is and react immediately, you can avoid a lot of the potential damage to your body.


If nuclear alert sirens are activated while nuclear missiles are still in the air, you will have more time to take good shelter before detonation.


One of the effects of a nuclear weapons detonation in the air is called an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP for short. I have already posted on EMPs earlier. I will explain it again here, with the short version. What you need to know about an EMP is that it will destroy electronics. That includes all vehicles less than 30 years old, most household items that include electronics, and commercial, industrial, and military electronics. That will include most, if not all power plants in the USA.


The USA is not very well prepared for EMPs. Some effort has been made to prepare for them, but those efforts are based on EMPs that are much smaller than modern nuclear weapons will generate. That means the things protected against smaller EMPs, than the one that hits them, will be wiped out anyway.


Areas that are not hit by the EMPs will still have working electronics. That means if you have a radio that is protected from EMPs, you can take it out after the EMP hits your area, and listen to broadcasts from outside your area. After a nuclear disaster, information could be especially crucial to your survival. Having a radio that is protected from EMPs might save your life some day.


The size of the nuclear explosion changes the size of the area affected and how far away you need to be from it to avoid various kinds of injuries. If you wish to have or prepare a shelter for nuclear disaster preparedness the size and closeness to the blast will affect what materials you want in your shelter and how thick it needs to be to protect you.


There are handy charts on the internet that say how thick your shelter walls need to be depending on what kind of damage you wish to shield against and  how close you are to the blast.


We can make educated guesses about the most attractive targets for an enemy nuclear weapon or multiple nuclear weapons for the most attractive targets. 


If you live in a country that has nuclear weapons and is prepared to use them, you probably have enemies of your country that have nuclear weapons also. Most likely the other country or countries that have nuclear weapons to use against your country will pick certain types of targets over others. Examples of these attractive targets are government centers, military and weapons centers, and manufacturing and financial centers. 


If your residence is near one of these type of centers, you can either move, or make yourself a shelter. You could also do my personal favorite, move and make yourself a shelter. 


I intend to post about the damage done at various distances from a nuclear disaster. I plan to provide both diagrams and charts and will give both miles and kilometers. I expect to do an entire post on terrorist detonation of a nuclear weapon. They are different than most other nuclear disasters.

Nuclear Disaster Preparedness

The average citizen of any country can feel powerless about preventing a nuclear disaster. We often forget that there are a lot more of us than there are "important" people with access to a button to launch those nukes and a nice safe shelter. The Occupy people told us that enough. They did not seem to accomplish a lot else, but the idea that we are the 99% of the population is a good thing for us to keep in mind.


The Occupy people did not agree on much except general dissatisfaction. I believe staying alive is something a lot of people can agree on.


The best way to survive a nuclear disaster is to not have one in the first place.  If we start nuclear weapons flying back and forth, most of us will die. Maybe we won't die right away, but nuclear radiation is one of those "gifts" that keeps on giving. They are finding radioactive fish due to the Japanese nuclear accident still. We can expect this to continue.


According to materials I read to research this post, a family in Nagasaki were in a large shelter when the US nuclear bomb detonated there. They were less than two miles from ground zero. They did not even have closed doors on the shelter they were in, but they survived the nuclear blast.


Ordinarily, people who are in normal buildings so close to ground zero are killed immediately. This tells us that nuclear bomb detonations are survivable. I have found a great number of sites about nuclear bomb detonations and accidents. Many of them have information to allow you to learn enough to survive. There is a great deal of information, including whole books about this.


I am working my way through it and plan to share it on this blog. It will require a great many posts to do this. I always hope that readers will be motivated to study the information that I post about on their own. This blog is not set up for in depth coverage of all the topics I post here. If you really want to be prepared thoroughly, you need to know more than I post.


I believe that most of my readers do not or can not do a lot of studying on my post topics, elsewhere. Because of that, I make attempts to cover especially important topics more in depth. I believe that preparedness for surviving a nuclear disaster is especially important. 


One of the reasons that I place so much importance on surviving a nuclear disaster, is that I think almost all, or all of the people in the world will have to deal with the consequences of nuclear disaster. 


We have already experienced Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernova, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima  Daiichi. We can expect more nuclear disasters. Future nuclear disasters will most likely be worse than the aforementioned ones.


I plan to post first about what happens at different distances from Ground Zero of a nuclear blast. This allows one to understand what the hazards are and how to prepare to survive them.

Plan To Survive A Nuclear Disaster

There were movies and teachers telling us what to do to be safe from a nuclear bomb when I lived on Vandenberg Air Force Base. I found one of the movies they showed us. It is here at this link:

http://archive.org/details/DuckandC1951

We used to have Civil Defense Wardens in every neighborhood. They were in charge of nuclear fallout shelters and were supposed to help people in their area get into the shelters in an orderly manner so that they would be safe.

One of my neighbors was a Civil Defense Warden. He had a special helmet, armband, and jacket as a sign of his office. He took his job very seriously and checked the stocks of supplies in his shelter regularly and made sure they were locked up safely for many years. He kept doing this for many years after the government had forgotten all about him, the shelter, and probably the whole program.

The government of the USA no longer does much about protecting citizens from nuclear fallout hazards. I gather the supplies in the old shelters were left to spoil or be stolen or vandalized. Even shelters are no longer maintained or built. They used to be clearly labelled. This is not done now.

The US government still makes nuclear shelters now, but they are not for everyone. They are only for "important" people. If you do not already know where one of these shelters is and have a place in it, then you are on your own to take care of yourself.

Some people do not want to prepare for nuclear attack because they do not consider it to be survivable. If that was the case, there would not be shelters for "important" people. 

I believe that everyone is important and deserves to survive a nuclear attack, or accident. I also believe it is possible for ordinary people to find ways to protect themselves from the effects of a nuclear attack. 

If you are feeling unsure about whether you should bother to work on being prepared for a nuclear disaster, I wish to help you to decide to bother.

If you prepare yourself for a nuclear disaster and you are vaporized and never get to use your preparations, you will have nothing on earth to worry about. Your preparations will not be helpful to you any more. They will not hurt you either.

If you do not prepare for a nuclear disaster and survive anyway, you are going to be in trouble and have an uncomfortable time trying to stay alive. 

I believe it is better to be prepared and not need it, because you are dead, than it is to not prepare and wish you had. I think that you have a choice to prepare for a nuclear disaster and be able to survive it. I hope that you will resolve to take this chance.

 

I intend to do more posts to give you ideas on what preparations that you can make to survive a nuclear disaster.

Is Nuclear War Preparedness Necessary?

My research on claims by various countries on the North Pole area turned up repeated references that mentioned the likelihood of war. It is known that the North Pole has oil and other valuable minerals and suspected that it is full of other valuable minerals that are not even known yet.


Many Americans have mentioned to me that they do not believe nuclear war is likely to happen. This is so far off from what the American government has said about nuclear war, that it is scary. Uninformed citizens are allowing their government to do as it wishes.


During the Bush administration, he announced worldwide that he was going to disregard the nuclear disarmament treaty that the USA had signed with Russia. He expressed the intention to not only stop dismantling nuclear weapons, but to return to making more of them. 


Later on, Bush announced that, "first strike was back on the table". This was in reference to nuclear weapons. First strike means to launch nuclear weapons before anyone else does. In other words he was saying he was willing to start a nuclear war.


President Obama has not taken a first strike off the table. This means he is willing to start a nuclear war.


It is highly unlikely that nobody will shoot back if the USA starts launching nuclear weapons. If any readers missed watching USA missiles being launched to shoot down incoming enemy missiles, they don't work that well. It is not a healthy choice to depend on no missiles landing in the USA.


Part of my childhood was spent on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This is one of the two top  missile bases in the USA. The other is Cape Canaveral/Kennedy. 


Many nights' sleep were interrupted by the bass rumble and shaking of missile launches. For quite a while after they began, everyone ran outside to watch. The sky was lit up with an eerie glow as the missile left the launching pad and you could see the arc of the exhaust as it soared into the air.


I believe I was 9 years old when this started. Even then, I wondered how much different it would look if the missile was coming toward us. I knew about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and wondered about what the people there saw.


My school had frequent nuclear drills since we were acknowledged to be a prime enemy target. When sirens went off every one was supposed to dive under their desk, crouch down, and put their hands over the backs of their necks. 


I had already read that Vandenberg was ground zero for enemy missiles. That included the whole base area. That included my school.


I had also read that within a certain radius of ground zero there were 100% fatalities. We were close enough to be vaporized by a nuclear strike. I refused to get under my desk. 


My teacher made the mistake of asking me in front of the class why I did not want to get under my desk. I answered what I had read. Something I had read said that the correct position to assume during a nuclear attack if you were at ground zero was to "bend over and kiss your *ss goodbye". My classmates thought my answer was hilarious because it had the *ss word in it. Most of them did not immediately understand what it meant to their safety.


I am not sure grown up Americans are much more informed on these matters. If we, as a group, do not become better informed, we can kiss our *sses goodbye. Our government is not looking out for our safety.


That means you will have to take care of yourself. I intend to post more about this and how you can take care of yourself. 

Search Engine Use Survival Skill

If you know enough about the internet to find my blog you can use the internet to help yourself prepare for emergencies.You can pick a subject that you need to know more about to become prepared for disasters and use a search engine to find out about it.


An example of this could be how to start a fire. A lot of people do not know how to start a fire without matches and other equipment. You may be one of them and have realized that this problem could get you killed in an emergency.


Pick your favorite search engine. I am going to use Google, although it is not my favorite, because it is so popular. I started with an obvious search term, how to start fires without matches". Google gave me about 114 million results in a few seconds. The top one is, "How To Start A Fire
Without Matches", on the site, 
This search engine result 
http://artofmanliness.com/2008/04/29/9-ways-to-
start-a-fire-without-matches/ 
came up number one on Google.


This site has nine different ways to start fires 
without matches. They range from difficult to do 
ones to some that most people could manage with
the right tools, like a swedish firesteel, army model, 
sold on Amazon for About $15 - $40 dollars.


If none of those 9 ways to start fires with matches 
suits you, you could continue down the page of 
Google results and see if anything else is right for 
you. If you don't think so, you can keep looking on 
the next page of 114million results, or try another 
search term. That could be something like, "fire 
without matches". The results are much the same as 
the previous search term results.


You could try, "survival fire" as a search term. That 
one produces about a billion results in .23 seconds.
The fourth search result down the page is interesting. 
It is http://www.m4040.com/Survival/Skills/Fire/
Fire.htm


This site starts off telling you that it is for those who already have some survival skills. He then tells you the basic requirements to have a fire and keep it going. I think the fire requirements are good basics as long as you are willing to practice making fires. When you are shivering in the middle of a disaster is not the time to learn fire-making skills. 


He also has some items to help out those with less skills. One of these is kind of difficult to use without practice and he says so on his site. He gives up on the use of a fire piston that he made himself. He is assuming that one would use available materials to build a fire with a fire piston. I have not used a fire piston myself, but have read enough to know they don't assume you start with materials at hand to build a fire with a fire piston. 


Some fire pistons even have small compartments inside them to hold extra supplies for fire making. Some of the suggestions I have read are cotton balls covered with vaseline and shredded twine to start from the vaseline cotton ball. Another is char cloth. You can buy it, but it is not hard to make. It is fabric that you have allowed to start burning and then blown out while there was still a lot of the fabric left to start a fire. Another that I particularly like is dryer lint. It is a serious fire hazard if you don't clean it out of your dryer, but it helps a lot to start a fire when you want one. The suggestion for use of the dryer lint was to put it in a ziploc bag to make sure it stays dry. If you want to use unravelled twine with the dryer lint, you could put the twine in the ziploc bag also.


Dryer does not require much preparation and it is free as well. I like the idea of dryer lint as a survival tool also.


The three things he says are necessary for a fire are,   tinder, kindling and logs. He suggests you use twice as much of each as you think you will actually need. The smallest is tinder and that is used at the beginning of a fire to get it started. That would be the dryer lint and you would also include the unravelled twine or wood shavings. 


The kindling is what you get started burning after the tinder. It is small pieces of wood like twigs and small sticks. A teepee shape is commonly used to get your fire going with the tinder in the center, the kindling around that and then logs around the outside. You will need to practice to get this to work. I hope that you will start this as soon as possible. It is hard to predict when the next disaster will happen in your area.