I had my first live radio interview tonight, and was on the American Voice Radio network for 2 hours this evening. I was interviewed by Michael Lehman, and the topic of the day was family preparedness.

I’ve got the show right here. Just click the player button below and listen to the entire show…

 

 Rich Fleetwood on Civil Defense, Nuclear Preparedness and Fallout Shelter: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Rich

This documentary aired on HBO last night. I had seen the promos for it for a few weeks. Yesterday, on the 62nd anniversary of the attacks, it was broadcast, after years of waiting for the right time.

Having done all the research I have on dealing with and surviving a nuclear attack, including reading such classics as John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”, I was not fully prepared to hear from the actual victims and survivors of the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

It’s one thing to read about it. Still another to see the old films of before, during, and immediately after the attack.

To hear many of the very badly injured people tell their story in their own words, and see their wounds and injuries still affecting them even after 60+ years was powerful beyond words.

I found the documentary very objective, without any kind of sensationalism, editorial context, or slanting, and both the American and Japanese bureaucracies before and after are covered as well.

For any of you that have in your preps for planning for a nearby nuclear detonation (global thermonuclear war, or terrorist dirty bomb) there is a LOT to learn from this film.

It will be on many more times this month on HBO, and can even be seen on HBO’s website.

Here are several links….

main HBO page for the documentary…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/index.html

Synopsis of the show…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/synopsis.html

Debuting on the 62nd anniversary of the bombings, WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN provides a graphic, unflinching look at the reality of nuclear warfare through first-hand accounts of both survivors and American men who carried out the bombing missions.

“With WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN, I wanted to tell one of the great human stories of one of history’s monumental tragedies,” notes Okazaki, who met more than 500 survivors and interviewed more than 100 people before choosing the 14 subjects featured in the film. “The personal memories of the survivors are amazing, shocking and inspiring. They put a human face on the incalculable destruction caused by nuclear war.”

In addition to interviews with 14 atomic bomb survivors, many of whom have never spoken publicly before, WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN spotlights four Americans intimately involved in the bombings. Okazaki interweaves rarely seen, intense archival footage and photographs, banned for 25 years after the war, with survivors’ paintings and drawings, all of which convey the devastating toll of atomic warfare in human terms.

While 140,000 died in Hiroshima, and 70,000 in Nagasaki, the survivors - 85% of whom were civilians - not vaporized during the attacks continued to suffer burns, infection, radiation sickness and cancer, which would ultimately result in another 160,000 deaths. In a succession of riveting personal accounts, the film reveals both unimaginable suffering and extraordinary human resilience. Sakue Shimohira, ten years old at the time, recalls the moment she considered killing herself after losing the last member of her family, saying, “I realized there are two kinds of courage - the courage to die and the courage to live.”

Other survivors include: Kiyoko Imori, just blocks from the hypocenter, the only survivor of an elementary school of 620 students; Shigeko Sasamori, 13 years old at the time, one of the 25 “Hiroshima Maidens” brought to the U.S. for plastic surgery; Keiji Nakazawa, who lost his father, brother and two sisters, and devoted his life to retelling his story in comic books and animation; Shuntaro Hida, a young military doctor at the time, who began treating survivors immediately after the explosion and continues to provide care for them 60 years later; and Etsuko Nagano, who still can’t forgive herself for convincing her family to come to Nagasaki, just weeks before the bombing.

In addition to physical suffering, survivors were later subjected to intense discrimination from fellow Japanese, and received little or no help from the Japanese government. To this day, to identify oneself as an atomic-bomb survivor, or a descendant of a survivor in Japan, can invite prejudice.

The four Americans profiled are: Morris Jeppson, the weapon test officer on the Enola Gay mission to Hiroshima; Lawrence Johnston, a civilian employee of the University of California, which manages Los Alamos; Harold Agnew, a scientific advisor; and Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, the navigator who believed the mission would end the war and save lives overall.

Today, as global tensions rise, the unthinkable once more becomes possible. The urgency of the warning conveyed in WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN is borne out by a comment from one of the four Americans: “We have opened Pandora’s box, and the genie can’t be stuffed back in the bottle.”

HBO Video releases WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: THE DESTRUCTION OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI on DVD Aug. 7.

Steven Okazaki’s films, which explore the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, include “Days of Waiting,” winner of a Documentary Short Subject Oscar®, as well as a Peabody Award, and two other Oscar® nominees: “Unfinished Business” and last year’s Cinemax Reel Life presentation “The Mushroom Club.” Among his other documentaries are: “Hunting Tigers,” “Troubled Paradise,” “Americans Sons,” “The Fair” and the HBO documentary “Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street.” Visit the filmmaker’s website.

WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: THE DESTRUCTION OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI is an HBO Documentary Films presentation, produced by Farallon Films; directed, written and produced by Steven Okazaki. For HBO: consulting editor, Geoff Bartz; supervising producer, Sara Bernstein; executive producers, Sheila Nevins and Robert Richter.

Interview with the filmmaker…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/interview.html

Bios of the victims and even developers and delivery team of the bombs…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/subjects.html

Schedule of future broadcasts…dozens of them…
http://www.hbo.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleServlet?ACTION_DETAIL=DETAIL&FOCUS_ID=621813

Filmmakers own website….
http://farfilm.com/web/ffnews.htm

Watch a one minute video from the film on this page…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/index.html

In conclusion, if you are SERIOUS about knowing the real threats of nuclear weapons to any human being, you must see this film to completely and fully understand what these weapons do to the human body….but that also, you can survive an attack depending on your preplanning, and understanding of how nukes work in the real world….and stay aware of world events.

As a prepper, author, husband and father, I can not stress enough how important this work is.

Watch it. Share it. Discuss it. And Learn from it.

Rich

Shane Connor of Ki4u.com, Nukalert fame, and other great prep sites asked me to convert this video into an online presentation.

In this video, Steve Jones of Physicians for Civil Defense, interviews Kirk Paradise, of Huntsville, Alabama Emergency Management and Madison County EMA. A very good discussion of what the recent history of the national fallout shelter program looked like, what was accomplished, and who was mostly responsible for the fallout shelter program in the United States falling apart because of decisions at the highest levels of government to not shelter our population.

This video goes into detail of what a city or county can do with data left over from the federal studies, and create a workable shelter plan for most of it’s population, before fallout shelter is needed. In the case of Huntsville, they are downwind from a nuclear power plant, and if the plant were to be attacked by terrorists, a fallout situation would be a very real issue.

Unfortunately, this 24 minute video had to be cut into three pieces, due to YouTube’s 10 minute video time limit. No problem. Below are all three videos in the proper order…Enjoy!

Rich

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Occasionally, I’ll receive emails to my old email accounts asking specific fallout shelter questions…some that make sense, and some that are completely off the wall.

This question arrived today, and it made sense. Hopefully you’ll bookmark this post and remember it someday, should you be thinking the same thing.

This was my response to him. Print it out and have it in your three ring emergency END OF THE WORLD binder in your Bug Out Bag.

Hi,

Yes, it is possible to have an emergency egress portal…but not neccessarily a window. You’ll need the protection of mass (dirt, sand, gravel, etc) to keep the gamma ray instrusion down, to avoid rad illness, immunodeficiency problems and general syptoms of death.

A quick overview of how…

Build your shelter underground, or in a corner of the basement. Use plenty of mass for 360 degree protection. Check out the shelter plans available on my website at www.survivalring.org .

On one wall with access to the yard, you’ll want to build what is essentially a window frame into the concrete/cinderblock well. After your shelter is done, but before you backfill the outer wall, fill that window frame with bricks and mortar…maybe two layers thick. Probably wouldn’t hurt to put several layers of plaster, mortar, or even a layer or two of fiberglass, over the inner and outer surfaces of this emergency egress point to waterproof the opening as much as possible.

Let it set for several days and harden appropriately. Then, backfill the outer surface of the area of that “egress portal” with coarse rock, then gravel, and a foot or two of earth.

Your external shell of your shelter will now be complete and protective to the best possible level.

Now, what do you do if you NEED this exit to get out…such as the rest of your home collapsing in the blast wave of a nearby nuclear detonation? First, wait…until possible fallout threat is past. Do your research on time needed to stay in shelter, have emergency food and water, several kinds of radios (am, fm, shortwave, police scanner, etc), and LISTEN for what is happening. If you cannot get out of your shelters main entrance after at least 10 to 14 days down there, you’ll need to use the egress portal.

Here is where the rest of your escape planning BEFOREHAND comes in.

When you finished your shelter, you will have stocked it. Add to that stock of supplies a couple of good quality pickaxes, hammers, chisels, and a couple of shovels. These are your EGRESS TOOLS.

Putting that brick and mortar filled portal in your shelter created a weak spot that you could manually dig out with good old manual hand tools.

To get out…use the tools, and hammer away to remove the bricks and mortar from that hole in the slab concrete (or whatever else you used for the rest of the shell of your shelter. Simply let the debris fall to the floor of the shelter, where you can sweep it away, kick it aside or climb on top of to help you get it. Might not hurt to have in your preps a couple of large empty barrels to let the debris fall into as you’re digging out.

As you get thru the bricks and mortar, the coarse rocks (which by the way, will help in keeping water from draining thru any cracks, by funnelling moisture (rain, etc) away from the egress portal, will start falling into the new opening, as well as the gravel on top of it, and then some of the earth…just let this all fall into the shelter/barrels/whatever. Use your shovel to dig up into the rest of the yard and grass that may be supported from the root system…and you should be out.

You might possibly have more debris on top of that egress hole. A good reason to have a couple of large 5 to 20 ton bottle jacks in your shelter for just this possibility, and a couple of 2×6 or 2×8 wood end pieces to brace the jack against the egress opening, to provide a solid foundation for the jacks to lift up any extreme weights. These could lift debris enough to get you to freedom and fresh air.

A basement shelter could be blocked completely should the house fall in on it…so a middle of the yard buried shelter might be the ultimate plan…less debris to have to lift directly off the emergency exit.

Hope this helps.

Rich

P.S. These are my other websites, where you will find thousands of pages of shelter info …I’ve been working on these for many years since…

www.survivalring.org

www.myfalloutshelter.com

www.theblastshelter.com

www.cosmicechoes.org

www.survivalcd.com

I just finished two college degrees…in web design, and electronic media .. and I’m continuing my education to finish a journalism degree in the next couple of years. I’m going to be producing a LOT more online and offline materials of just this kind of info.

Do some googling of survivalring, richard fleetwood wyoming, and fallout shelter…and you’ll find I’ve been very busy continuing my preparedness pursuits…

Some days I think it can. Other days…well, that is the reason I have spent years collecting thousands and thousands of pages of real, authentic nuclear survival documentation…as published and printed by the printing offices of the United States of America…and several other nations as well.

Then…articles like this one in the New Yorker get me to thinking again.

Are WE doing enough? Us? You? Me? The average citizen?

PLEASE comment…

Rich

This story was front page news for many of the nation’s largest newspapers this Sunday morning. I’m afraid I have to agree. The US has NEVER been prepared for ANY nuclear attack…terror, all out assault, or anything in between…except for our leaders. They have PLENTY of shelters for themselves.

Just none for we taxpayers…

THAT sucks…

Link to source…

U.S. unprepared for nuclear terror attack, experts say

12:44 AM CST on Friday, March 2, 2007
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Although the Bush administration has warned repeatedly about the threat of a terrorist nuclear attack and spent more than $300 billion to protect the homeland, the government remains ill-prepared to respond to a nuclear catastrophe.

Experts and government documents suggest that, absent a major preparedness push, the U.S. response to a mushroom cloud could be worse than the debacle after Hurricane Katrina, possibly contributing to civil disorder and costing thousands of lives.

“The United States is unprepared to mitigate the consequences of a nuclear attack,” Pentagon analyst John Brinkerhoff concluded in a July 31, 2005, draft of a confidential memo to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We were unable to find any group or office with a coherent approach to this very important aspect of homeland security. …

“This is a bad situation. The threat of a nuclear attack is real, and action is needed now to learn how to deal with one.”

Continue Reading »
U.S. unprepared for nuclear terror attack, experts say

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My good friend Shane Connor, of Ki4u.com, was on CNN last week, Oct. 11, 2006. Take a look at what Shane and Glenn were talking about regarding nuclear preparedness.