Archive for December, 2005
December 31st, 2005 | 
Author: [ Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes ]
Thank you for your informative website.
Would it be prudent, if money is really tight, to lay plywood in the attic crawlspace of my apartment and then line it with bags of dirt, as a makeshift shelter? Then I could remain in my apartment without having to move alot of furniture around or haul in dirt, and live there until the threat passes?Selina
Hi Selina,
You could give it a shot, but I’d be wary of overloading it and causing it to collapse. I’d focus on a small area, such as over the bathroom, and cover the space above it. Hopefully, the bathroom is centrally located in the apartment, and not on an outside wall.
The key is having as much mass between you and the outer walls of whereever you shelter. Each wall between you and the outside of the apartment, adds a little bit more mass to slow down Gamma rays…the ones that will make you sick (Gamma kills white blood cells, and in return, you can easily get infections, which get serious very quickly, and result in the deaths that most talk about when nukes go off…if the blast and thermal threat doesn’t get you, the ability to fight simply infections will).
Hope this helps.
Rich
Posted in 
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hi my name is jarrah I live in Queensland Australia. I am interested in building a bunker probably 1-2 feet under ground it will be roughly 2m ( 6 feet ) high with 3m by 2m floor space I was wondering if you could recommend some building materials for frame work, water proofing ,walls ( panels ) and insulation. I would also like to know if you have any design drawings or simple instructions for me to follow you can reply to this email at jarrahmay@XXXXXX.com thanks a heapPS .any useful construction tips would greatly appreciated thanks.
Hi Derek,
For free plans, drawings, and more, visit this page…
http://www.survivalring.org/pdf-index.htm
For building shelter, you need mass…concrete is best and the thicker the better. Use the basic underground shelter plan here…
http://www.survivalring.org/pdf/cw_shelterh121.pdf
to get an idea of what you’re looking at. The plans are fairly complete in details, specs, and how to build.
Not sure what the weather is like where you are, but if it’s mostly dry, with an occasional downpour, you could start digging the first part of summer, and have it done, finished, and livable in a month or two. The key to water proofing is first, good drainage AWAY from the shelter…sump pumps if needed… and then using rubberized waterproofing material with a tar type of glue to seal the seams.
After you get the shelter built, covered, and accessible with a sealing doorway or access port, you can put up 1×2 furring strips with adhesive directly on the inner cement walls, put insulation between them, and then paneling over that..for a nice, cool, and comfortable livable shelter.
I’d plan on at LEAST 10 square feet per occupant, and double that for REAL comfort. Have external and internal power source…batteries, solar panel, etc…external antenna wired into the shelter for communications, radio, news….and at least two weeks of food and water..preferabley as much food and water as you can afford.
Hope this gets you started…
Rich
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Happy Holidays, with a tune from my College Music Major son, Kenny….
Click on the PLAY button. Or, RIGHT CLICK here and SAVE AS to your computer, and then OPEN after download completes.
Check out more of his work, at his website at http://kenny.survivalring.org, or at his Myspace website .
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Today, as expected, the newest version of Wordpress, version 2.0, was released. I was download number 1180….out of thousands more to come.
I’ll be working on upgrading this install of WP (v 1.5.2), t0 v.2.0, later this week.
Congrats to the team…what I’ve already seen is EXTREMELY impressive.
Rich
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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and best wishes for you and yours in this joyous holiday season.
From the Fleetwood family, to yours….
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Somehow, I think this will save lives…but not until it actually happens again…
i.e. see Katrina (first talk about it, then waste money, then have disaster, then waste more money…and THEN start building the intended project)
Sad…but a little hopeful.
Rich
Source on MSNBC
White House issues tsunami disaster plan
U.S. monitoring systems to be increased; coastal communities urged to plan
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:21 p.m. ET Dec. 23, 2005WASHINGTON – Hoping to protect U.S. shores from being hammered by a tsunami, the White House issued a national plan Friday for increased earthquake and volcano monitoring systems, deep ocean buoys and other high-tech means of alerting oceanside communities.
President Bush and Congress requested the tsunami plan after an earthquake on Dec. 26, 2004, caused a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean. It killed or left missing more than 220,000 people in 11 Indian Ocean countries, and “demonstrated international vulnerability,” said John Marburger, Bush’s top science adviser.
“Tsunamis are low probability but high impact events,” he said.
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Well…maybe now, more intelligent heads will prevail and we won’t be losing so many of our inherent rights as Americans….
Time will tell…
Source on CNN
Senate gives Patriot Act six more months
Thursday, December 22, 2005; Posted: 9:13 a.m. EST (14:13 GMT)WASHINGTON (CNN) — Senators voted late Wednesday night to extend some expiring and contentious provisions of the Patriot Act for six months after leaders announced minutes earlier that they had reached a bipartisan agreement.
Approval in the Senate, many of whose members said they wanted an extension so the act could be retooled, leaves House approval as the final hurdle to keep the Patriot Act intact for now.
The House will convene at 4 p.m. Thursday to approve the extension and to vote on changes that the Senate made to the Deficit Reduction Act and the military spending bill.
Last week, the House voted 251-174 to renew the 16 provisions after striking a compromise that altered some of them. The provisions were set to expire at year’s end if not renewed.
Controversial measures include those allowing the FBI — with a court order — to obtain secret warrants for business, library, medical and other records, and to get a wiretap on every phone a suspect uses.
The House approved a bill that would have extended most of them permanently, but a filibuster after the bill reached the Senate stopped the measure from moving forward.
Republican leaders tried to break the filibuster Friday, but could muster only 52 of the necessary 60 votes. Four Republicans crossed party lines to oppose the extension.
That vote came on the same day that The New York Times reported that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. residents, without warrants.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, cited the newspaper report as the reason he opposed permanently renewing the Patriot Act provisions, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, called the newspaper’s revelation “devastating” to the renewal effort.
Bush pushed senators to reauthorize the provisions, insisting they were vital to give law enforcement and intelligence agencies the tools they need to fight terrorism.
“I appreciate the Senate for working to keep the existing Patriot Act in law through next July, despite boasts last week by the Democratic leader that he had blocked the act,” Bush said in a statement released by the White House. “No one should be allowed to block the Patriot Act to score political points, and I am grateful the Senate rejected that approach.”
“The Patriot Act is a vital tool for America in the war on terror,” the president said. “The act has torn down the wall between law enforcement and intelligence officials to help us connect the dots and prevent attacks … The act will expire next summer, but the terrorist threat to America will not expire on that schedule.”
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, announced the agreement from the Senate floor after days of behind-the-scenes wrangling that ended the Senate impasse.
Frist had been one of the most outspoken supporters of re-authorizing the provisions, arguing that a vote against immediate reauthorization “amounts to defeat and retreat at home.”
In announcing Wednesday’s agreement, however, Frist said that the agreement to extend the act was evidence “that there is broad bipartisan support that the Patriot Act never should expire.”
“This is a win for America’s safety and security, and I’m pleased the Senate was able to rise above the partisan politics being played by the minority to do the right thing,” he said in a statement.
The Wednesday agreement marks a tidal shift among GOP leaders who have fervently resisted Democratic offers to temporarily extend the act so it could be revisited.
At least one Democrat applauded the new Republican sentiment.
In a statement calling the extension a “victory for the American people” because it strikes a balance between security and privacy concerns, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said Congress now has time to “get the Patriot Act right.”
“I’m glad the president and Republican leaders have agreed with Democrats that we needed an extension,” he said. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to mend the Patriot Act. The wrong way is to force senators to cast their votes on legislation written in the middle of the night. The right way is the agreement we have tonight.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, has said the extension would enable common sense to re-enter the debate over the act. Before the Wednesday announcement, Leahy told reporters that 52 senators — including eight Republicans — had signed a letter to Frist calling for an extension.
Sen. John Sununu, R-New Hampshire, who co-sponsored the measure with Leahy, said there are “a number of different ways that we could work through this issue.” He added that an extension would give senators time to work out their differences on the act.
“I do think there are changes that can be made, acceptable to both the House and Senate, that will enable us to get strong, bipartisan majorities in both chambers,” he said.
The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, created after the September 11, 2001 attacks, allows the government broad authority to investigate people suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.
