Nuclear War Survival Skills is obviously written to address a nuclear event, but most of the material in there can be applied to any collapse-type situation. A significant bonus to this book is that it includes instructions on how to build a fallout meter using common household materials. And at the time the book was written in 1987, the meters built by regular people using the instructions in this book were comparable to models selling for $375-1000.
The author, Cresson Kearny, graduated summa cum laud with a degree in civil engineering from Yale University nearly one hundred years ago, and then later attended Oxford University and received two degrees in geology. He wrote Nuclear War Survival Skills while employed as a research engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
As Cresson Kearny states, the purpose and scope of this book is "for the majority of Americans who want to improve their chances of surviving a nuclear war. It brings together field-tested instructions that have enabled untrained Americans to make expedient fallout shelters, air pumps to ventilate and cool shelters, fallout meters, and other expedient life-support equipment. (Expedient in civil defense work refers to equipment that can be made by untrained citizens in 48 hours or less, while guided solely by field-tested, written instructions and using only widely available tools and materials.)" The author also outlines skills that individuals and groups can learn and apply to improve their chances for survival. Like many involved in preparedness, he believes that if one prepares for the worst, the worst is less likely to happen. Another interesting premise he shares is that if a nation is fully prepared to survive a nuclear attack, that nuclear attack is less likely to happen.
It's reasonably safe to suggest that this country is nowhere near prepared to withstand a nuclear attack.
Chapters in the book:
- Dangers from nuclear weapons, myths, and facts
- Psychological preparations
- Warnings and communications
- Evacuation
- Shelter--the greatest need
- Ventilation and cooling of shelters
- Protection against fires and carbon monoxide poisoning
- Water
- Food
- Fallout radiation meters
- Light
- Shelter sanitation
- Preventive medicine
- Surviving without doctors
- Expedient shelter furnishings
- Improvised clothing and protective items
- Minimum pre-crisis preparations
- Permanent family fallout shelters for dual use
- Trans-Pacific fallout
- Appendices with explicit directions for building six kinds of fallout shelters, a fallout meter, shelter-ventilating pump, and more
As this blog is focused pretty strictly on the food and medicine aspects of preparedness, I don't usually get into shelter and communications at all. I definitely don't touch on anything dealing with construction of any sort. I'm just not wired that way at all, whereas my husband and one son live for that kind of stuff. But what I find really interesting and relevant about this book is that the critical structures and devices are all designed to be built by regular people without any specialized training or skills. To be sure, I would not want to have to do any of these things, but if I had to, I could. And if I could do it, so could most everybody else.
Now there are a lot of preparedness books out there. They promise a lot. And a lot of them disappoint. But there's nothing to be disappointed about regarding Nuclear War Survival Skills because you know what? It's free! Yep, free download. Click here. Or you can order bound copies online at the same link.
Well, ok, you do have to print it yourself. But you can also just take a look at it online and then only print the pages you want.
Or you might look at it and think, "Hey, this is pretty good stuff. I can print it up and spiral-bind it for everyone in the family and have Christmas gifts all wrapped up in an hour!"
http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p904.htm
© 2019, PrepSchoolDaily.blogspot.com
I down loaded the book years ago and even printed it out. But recently, I actually found a paperback copy in a used book store!
ReplyDeleteLucky you!
DeleteComments from other runs of this same article:
ReplyDeletehttps://archive.org/details/pdfy-JqxMy58hd_NpnWT8 >> free download book similar and from the same era (182 pg) - Life After Doomsday by Dr Clayton
http://www.ki4u.com/nwss.pdf >> free downloadable copy of Kearny's book ..
there's considerable crossover between personal protection gear for SEVERE pandemics and fallout/rad - the cleaning procedure is also very comparable >> don't make the mistake of thinking nuke prepping is all nuke war oriented - there's very real radiation exposure concerns from nuke power plants accidents to terrorist dirty bombs ...
?????? - most of that is directly word-4-word copied from a reply I posted years ago >>> see no reason to be doing that !!!!!!!!
DeleteNot quite sure if you're getting after me, but you do seem to object to a lot of what I post. If you look at the top of that comment (dated January 9, 2025), you'll see that I noted these were comments from other runs of this same article. I sometimes make mistakes. I wish that weren't the case and it is a flaw I am trying to overcome. Before I learned the correct way to re-post articles, like I do on the weekends, I could only copy and paste. However, I didn't want to lose the informative comments. However, it was difficult to copy the entire comment, meaning the name (usually Anonymous, though I do have a pretty good guess as to who you are), date, and time. Of course, if I had realized you didn't think so much of your comment and wouldn't want it re-posted I would have deleted it. But I do wonder, if you didn't think your words would be worth reading a second time, why would they be worth reading a first time? Why comment at all?
Deletehttps://www.doomandbloom.net/?s=radiation >>> allllll kinds of nuke prepping from the med side XXXXXXXX https://www.cdc.gov/radiation-emergencies/index.html XXXX https://www.emergencyhomepreparation.org/viewforum.php?f=131&sid=b3c09065dfb33b65a42f9d4b797e7f06 XXXXX
ReplyDeleteSeriously. Maybe plausible if you live in New Zealand. But a resident of the continental usa has zero chance of surviving a nuclear exchange. I happen to live 6 miles from the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world. And about two hours from the home of the 101st airborne . It doesn't matter where you live there is no surviving a nuclear war. The survivors of the first days will envy the dead. And the rest soon will be.
ReplyDeleteIt's your choice to believe as you wish. I happen to believe otherwise. If I am right and we survive a nuclear exchange, I have the skills, wisdom, and supplies to help my family and community. If I am wrong, so be it, my family and I die. If, however, you are wrong and you survive a nuclear exchange you and your family are not prepared. And you will wish you were.
DeleteI tried to post this Reply to "Anonymous." I can't seem to get it posted. I'll try in a Reply to you, Jennifer:
DeleteAnonymous, that's a view of nuclear war I don't share. Too much of the discussion about nuclear war is driven by politics and personal orientation. Some would rather die than live without cable TV or Grubhub. Others will want the opportunity to survive the initial nuclear exchange and then choose their options.
I strongly suspect that, because you believe that YOU have no chance to survive the initial exchange, this is your motivation for saying that NO ONE is going to survive it. This is clearly not true. Happenstance, malfunctions, and missile interceptions will spare some areas. There's no predicting it.
What others call "luck" in so many situations often involves a long and serious history of preparation when an opportunity is presented. I suspect that you live near Redstone Arsenal, but wherever you live, it you want to throw up your hands, that is your personal choice. Yet, to try to convince others to simply do nothing, roll over and wait for death is irresponsible.
The classic default of nuclear event is a mass exchange of weapons between the former USSR and America. A Danse Macabre the dance of death.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER, there is other scenarios involving nuclear events:
1 the "Dirty Bomb" where bad actors use medical radioactive waste and explosives to create an "event". It's not a huge step to go from running over police doing their jobs to a "let's GET their Attention" Terrorism of doing a dirty bomb with threats of more IF.....
2 The "terrorist" nation or False Flag event where a small nuke is used somewhere near your area.
Might be other versions.
Knowledge on how to protect yourself and your family from radioactive garbage and not getting it carried into your home seems wise.
This same sort of information with a preparedness mindset gives you useful tools for preparing for pandemics SAME Scenarios as above.
Thus, as I often mention to Jennifer the medical isolation concept,
Nuclear War Survival Skills is a useful bit of knowledge for many disasters.
International Physicians
ReplyDeletefor the Prevention of Nuclear War
Nuclear Famine: climate effects of regional nuclear war
A nuclear war using as few as 100 weapons anywhere in the world would disrupt the global climate and agricultural production so severely that the lives of more than two billion people would be in jeopardy from mass starvation. A landmark report, Nuclear Famine (2022), published by IPPNW summarizes the latest scientific work which shows that a so-called “limited” or “regional” nuclear war would be neither limited nor regional. A war that detonated less than 1/20th of the world’s nuclear weapons would still crash the climate, the global food supply chains, and likely public order. Famines and unrest would kill hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions. The findings come at a time of greatly heightened tensions among nuclear states and amid warnings that we are closer to nuclear war than ever been. Among the specific findings in Nuclear Famine (2022): Using less than 3% of the world’s nuclear weapons, a nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill up to every 3rd person on earth, with average global temperatures dropping about 1.3 degrees Celsius. A full-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia would kill an estimated 5 billion people worldwide within two years.
So, you have your work cut out for you. Make plans now for surviving. Do nothing and you'll likely ensure that you won't.
DeleteOh, and by the way, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War would very likely only attract physicians who believed that nuclear war is madness and unsurvivable. I strongly suspect that their membership is very vulnerable to "confirmation bias" with any opinion they arrive at. In a similar fashion, I wouldn't expect Al Gore or Greenpeace to give me unbiased opinions on climate change or global warming. So why should I trust these physicians?
DeleteI am a lifelong prepper. I'm 76 years old and I've been to war. Granted
ReplyDeleteIt was a conventional war and a long time ago. But the experience gave me a unique perspective on preparedness. I was a medic and as a civilian eventually a paramedic for a city in the rust belt. Now retired , many of my friends have passed. I have made a study of this very subject. I don't believe a nuclear war would be Armageddon as we might think of it. However if the war is with Russia we can count on every major city, every military base, every nuclear power plant, and every major industrial center to be hit. I suspect such an event is very unlikely and would not be without warning preceding said event. My plan would be to monitor geopolitical events closely. And if things get very bad , im on a flight to somewhere else. My sons are scattered overseas but we have a plan to head south. Very far south. My wife and I are old school prepared. She is a retired nurse. I believe we could survive anything short of a nuclear war. BUT I think that that would be very unlikely. So we are watching carefully, hoping to meet up with our sons before it hits. Praying it never happens but if it does, God bless you folks and get prepared.