"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.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
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.
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.
Friday, April 20, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, April 16, 2012
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.
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.
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