PREPARATIONS FOR RADIATION FALLOUT [Report from Turner Radio Network]
1) Keep up-to-date on developments via the Internet. The mass-media is not reliable because like the government, they want to avoid any mass panic. While that is a noble goal, withholding information as was done previously when the Fukushima disaster struck in March, 2011, allowed people to get exposed to radiation which could kill them now - or years from now. TRN believes people have a right to know, so as to make an informed decisions about whether to protect themselves or not.
2) Go immediately (RIGHT NOW) to your local home improvement or hardware store for rolls of plastic, Duct tape, WIDE masking tape and a couple rolls of self-adhesive weather stripping. You want to have a roll or two of the type of plastic that is used by painters; (the kind they use to cover your floor and furniture in case paint drips)
and a roll or two of Duct tape. Don't deploy this yet, but if the radiation arrives, you'll HAVE what you need and won't be battling a million other people trying to get some when the danger actually hits. You can use the plastic and duct tape things to cover the insides of your windows, doors, AC electric plugs, light switches, bathroom exhaust vents, stove exhaust vents, -- even ceiling vents, to TRY to keep out radiation particles once you know they're arriving. (NOTE: this may not be 100% effective. Houses have loads of nooks and crannies which allow air from the outside to get inside. If you cover the largest ones, you're at least giving yourself and family a fighting chance.) These supplies are available immediately at:
Home Depot Lowes Walmart TrueValue Ace Hardware and many other retail stores.
3) If radiation is identified as heading toward your area or has arrived in your area:
a) Cut sheets from the roll of plastic, large enough to cover your windows, window frames/woodwork, sliding glass doors, doggie doors, etc., and do so on the INSIDE of your house. Once the sheets are cut to size, secure that plastic to your inside walls using Duct tape. You want to cover things inside not outside so the weather doesn't cause the plastic to make noise or perhaps rip off during high wind, rain or snow. The duct tape should cover 100% of the edge of the plastic, making a good seal AROUND the window, sliding glass doors, doggie doors, etc. It is important to note that the plastic should go AROUND the woodwork on the inside the window/door and NOT merely around the inner perimeter of the window itself. Gaps between the window assemblies and exterior walls might not be air-tight; especially in older homes where the silicone weather sealant around windows/doors is worn or in earthquake prone areas where the shaking has loosened-up window/door seals. This will help seal out radiation particles in the air so they shouldn't be able to get inside your home. Those of you in private homes should do this sealing on EVERY opening to the outside (doors, windows, vents) on every floor of your home, from the basement to the attic. Those of you who do not have basements, will usually find vents along the slab foundation which are designed to naturally ventilate under the house. SEAL THESE from the outside as best you can. Similarly, those of you without full attics, will usually see vents of some type for the roof rafter area. SEAL THESE as best you can too. (PLEASE don't fall off any roof or off any ladder. Be careful!)
b) Cut smaller sheets from the roll of plastic to cover electrical outlets and light switches inside the house. Those outlets and switches are breaks in the walls to the inner structure of the house. The inner structure gets naturally ventilated under the eaves and awnings of the house. While the air flow is not generally a lot, it IS there; you want to seal it out. As with the windows, use Duct tape to hold the plastic a full inch or two around the entire perimeter of the light switch our electrical outlets.
c) Cut sheets from the roll of plastic to cover vents: Bathrooms, stoves. Remember, this is just a TEMPORARY situation and the radiation will usually blow-over or dilute within a week or so. While none of us likes the smell in the bathroom after it is used, it's better to put up with that for a few days than have radiation in there from the vents. BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU CHOOSE TO COVER A STOVE EXHAUST VENT; YOU DON'T WANT THE PLASTIC GOING ON FIRE IF YOU'RE COOKING.
d) DO NOT use duct tape or plastic over your main entry/exit door. If, God forbid, there's a fire, you want to be able to exit fast and not be battling duct tape to get out. Instead, maybe check to see the weatherstripping around the door is in good shape or at worst, add a layer of new weatherstripping to what's already there. The bottom of the door sill can be covered with a rolled-up towel if necessary,to prevent drafts at the bottom of the door.
NOTE: Duct tape, when removed, may damage the surface of the wall it was stuck to. It may peel off paint or even the paper covering of Sheetrock when you remove it. If this is a concern, you may wish to utilize WIDE masking tape instead. We do not recommend masking tape, but it may be viable if you are concerned about peeling off the duct tape when the emergency is ended.
4) Get a minimum "NIOSH N100-certified" filter mask for yourself and each member of your family. NIOSH stands for National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) which is an agency of the US Government. They rate protective gear for various industries and the lowest possible level of mask with any hope at all of filtering out radiation particles must be rated by NIOSH as N100. The masks
cost about $30 on Ebay and look like the one in the image at left below.
SERIOUS NOTE: There are TIME CONSTRAINTS on the use of the N100-rated mask in a hostile environment. Having such a mask is not a license to go out and have fun. It is a limited mask, with limited capability for a limited time period, to help protect you in this type of emergency.
Of course, you can go all-out and get some super-mask for several hundred dollars, but the minimum you need is an N100 rated mask.
Whatever you do, don't try to get "cute" and figure you can "get away with" a mask that is rated N95 or lower. An N95 mask will NOT filter out the tiny particles involved here and you will be fooling yourself if you buy any mask rated less than N100.
It is important to understand that a "hospital mask" normally used by Doctors, WILL NOT PROTECT YOU AT ALL from radioactive particles. The particles are so small, they can fit right through a typical surgical mask used by doctors. If you breathe-in any "hot Particles" of radiation, they will wreak havoc on your lungs and cause very rapid deterioration of your health. Cancers, Leukemias, Hemorrhaging . . . . you get the idea.
5) About your job and going to work during a radiation emergency . . . .
Those of us with jobs can't simply call-in and tell the boss we can' come to work today because we're afraid of the radiation. So start discussing this situation with your bosses first thing TODAY. See if the company as a whole is willing to develop some type of strategy to deal with taking time off due to a radioactive plume coming onto the west coast of north America from Japan, making things unsafe for a few days. Start the conversation. Don't wait until things spiral out of control and people are panicking.
6) If you HAVE to go out, clothing will get contaminated; be prepared to protect yourself
Wear an NIOSH N100 mask at all times when you are outside your house during the plume's arrival and presence. Yes, you're probably going to feel like a jerk; especially when the uninformed, the ignorant and those "in denial" about the real danger, start poking fun at you. Just remember you'll have the last laugh.
A VERY helpful tool for this situation is a disposable TYVEK suit and booties. You can get them at most home improvement stores and on
EBAY for about $8.Tyvek coveralls are one-piece garments, usually white, commonly worn by mechanics, painters, installation installers, and laboratory and cleanroom workers where a disposable, one-time use coverall is needed. They are also used for some light HAZMAT applications, such as asbestos and radiation work but do not provide the protection of a full hazmat suit. Wear it to work, when you get inside, take it off right at the doorway and throw it away in a garbage can near the door. It's done. Don't touch it again. Then go wash your hands and face to wash away whatever may have accumulated on them. These suits are also available at the retailers listed above (Home Depot, Lowes, etc.).
If you simply refuse to walk outside dressed-up like a Bunny, you must realize that Clothing worn while you are outside will have contamination on it. This is unavoidable. Once you've been outside and enter your job, remove your outerwear and place it as close to the door as you can. You may want to pack a change of clothing in a tightly closed gym bag, to change-into at work. Having a change of clothes for when you get to work might not be a bad idea. The change of clothes ought to include FOOTWEAR.
When you're outside, your footwear is going to be picking up the contamination that fell onto the ground. This is unavoidable. What you CAN do, is take those shoes off once you get where you're going, and thereby not track the radiation into wherever you are. You may want to get "
Disposable Plastic Shoe Covers" to help avoid at least SOME of the radiation getting onto your shoes. These shoe covers are cheap, and you throw them away as soon as you get inside your destination.
For Eye protection, we suggest a cheap pair of Swimmer's Goggles. They vary in cost from 99 cents to
about $10 on Ebay - or your local sporting goods store. The purpose of this is to prevent radioactive particles from landing on your eyeballs. Swimmer's goggles will fit the bill pretty well and you can wash them off once you get to where you're going, and use the goggles again the next time you go out. Radiation washes off with soap and water.
7) IN AND OUT OF YOUR HOUSE
The same procedures listed above for going to and from work, should be used by you and your family when going to/from home. After all, you don't want to bring radiation into your house on your clothes, shoes etc, or walk-it-through the whole house once you arrive. Put a coat rack just-inside the entry door. Put a shoe rack too. First thing everyone does when they walk in the door - ditch the outerwear and shoes right then and there. YOU DO NOT want to be tracking radiation into and all over your house, then spewing it up into the air when you vacuum and it comes out with the vacuum exhaust air. You want to stop the radiation as close to the door as you can. If you prefer, put a clothes hamper -- LINED WITH A PLASTIC LAWN-AND-LEAF-SIZE BAG just inside the front door and change your clothes the moment you get in. When the hamper is full, seal-up the bag, take it to the washer and wash the radiation away.
8) Wash obsessively during the emergency
External radioactive material washes off with soap and water. When you consider that everything you touch and all the air that touches you OUTSIDE can be contaminated, it is important to WASH exposed body parts (face & hands) with soap and water often. When you get home from your daily routine and get out of potentially contaminated clothing, take a shower before anything else. A SHOWER, NOT A BATH. Showering will allow the radiation to fall off you and go down the drain whereas a bath could possible allow the radioactive materials to cling to your body as you leave the bathwater. Sadly, this brings us to one, final, MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR problem: Water comes from reservoirs and reservoirs are out in the open; radiation has and will continue tofall into our water supplies.
LOCAL OFFICIALS CAUGHT DELIBERATELY CONCEALING RADIATION IN DRINKING WATER
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists the maximum safe levels and government-approved methods for removing, radiation in water. Yet according to KHOU-TV in Texas, local and state officials in that state deliberately conspired for YEARS to alter the results from their municipal water tests, to
deliberately CONCEAL high levels of radiation in municipal water! If local and state officials in one state have already been caught deliberately concealing radiation in water, can any rational person believe they aren't doing it now in other states -- or won't do it (again) in the future? You can read that story and watch the KHOU-TV news video
HERE.
In fact, KHOU-TV found that the radiation in local water was so severe, that it made the underground water pipes and the water heaters inside homes radioactive; in some cases 11 times more radioactive than allowable by law! The pipes and water heaters were so radioactive that none of those things could be scrapped in a junk yard! You can read this separate KHOU-TV story and watch the video
HERE.
Given the irrefutable proof above we suggest equipping your sinks and shower head(s) with a water filter. Now, getting radiation out of water is NOT simple. Paper filters do nothing in that regard.
Granular Activated Carbon filters have shown SOME ability to remove SOME types of radiation. Reverse-Osmosis has shown good ability to remove other types of radiation. ION Exhange is the final method which has shown good ability to remove radiation. Yet getting all these types of filters in ONE system is not easy and it is considerably expensive. As such, we suggest that having a filter of some type is better than having no filter at all. Of course, once the filters become saturated with pollutants, they're useless, so expect to change-out those filters PRECISELY in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendation or even more frequently. Yes, this will cost a few bucks, but this is an extraordinary situation calling for extraordinary response. What good is all the safety you exercise with the steps above, if you then eat, drink and bathe-in contaminated water?
