The starting point for taking control of your own protection starts with identifying what are the most likely threats you face, and what type of shelter will offer the best protection from these threats. Just what would you do if you actually heard an emergency warning? Should you go to the lowest point, highest point, jump in the car and evacuate, lay down in a ditch, put on a gas mask, get under a doorway, or stay where you are? Each of these answers could be right or wrong depending on the threat, but without any training or guidance most citizens will just follow the herdeven if it’s over the cliff. But how is the average homeowner going to know what designs work best and what should be done since there isn’t a “government seal of approval” technical review or standardized rating system?Īlso now missing, but originally included in the Federal civil defense program, is civilian training. To fill this lack of up-to-date information at the Federal level, the Internet has become the primary source of design and product information related to emergency shelter construction. Most of the shelter designs available are reprints from testing that was done as part of atomic bomb testing during the early 1950s, and they do not reflect the more advanced construction materials and survival equipment available today.įamily size underground survival shelter (Courtesy of Utah Shelter Systems) As of this writing, there is no Federal agency providing shelter designs that have been tested and approved. Although our government does not currently promote any form of self-protection for its citizens, it does provide well-supplied underground shelters for “critical” Federal government employees and elected officials. Many feel there is nothing that can be done to protect our large population in advance of an unknown threat, so better to organize for handling mass casualties and mass evacuation after it happens. Their view is that with minimum civil defense training and some basic advance preparation, most people can survive almost any calamity, including a nuclear attack, and go on to rebuild a new life.įEMA views its role as a facilitator of emergency response after a natural catastrophe has happened. This is not the attitude of most other governments. This is not only untrue, but borders on a premeditated form of national suicide. It is the public’s attitude that survival preparation is somehow a waste of time because life would not be worth living after a nuclear attack. Our government has taken the position that it would be impossible to construct enough government-funded shelters to protect all United States citizens, and even if it did there is the belief that most of these shelters could not provide enough protection and would not be properly maintained. FEMA is not in the business of promoting self-preservation or shelter construction. However, if you followed up by trying to learn more about civil defense in the United States you soon found out the dirty little secretthere isn’t a national civil defense program in the United States today.Īfter our National Civil Defense Program died a quiet death in the 1970s, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took its place, but with an entirely different set of goals. After September 11, 2001, all of us became much more concerned with protecting our families from biological, nuclear, and terrorist attacks.
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