Nuclear Survival Kit List

Sometimes, a typical in-place survival kit just isn’t enough. One of those times is in the event of a nuclear attack, accident, or radiation emergency. That is where a nuclear survival kit comes in. Designed for personal protection and to be paired with any traditional survival kit or bug out bag, a nuclear survival kit can give you the resources to navigate one of the worst-case scenarios possible in the modern world.

This kit isn’t for everybody, but if you are looking to be prepared for a nuclear event, we’ve got you covered. Below we break down what a nuclear survival kit is, and how the key components augment your preparedness, and share our nuclear survival kit checklist that you can download, print, or save in multiple formats.

What is a Nuclear Survival Kit?

A nuclear survival kit can be many things with one objective: to improve your survivability through a nuclear event.

Some kits are full survival kits focused on a wide range of vulnerabilities, including nuclear threats. Others are modular kits that can stand alone or be added to typical survival kits. This is the type that we give an overview of below.

Both types of kits contain personal protective clothing- and lots of it- radiation emergencies require a lot of changing from contaminated suits or clothes. They also include equipment for nuclear hardening and radiation detection. Prevention pills like potassium iodide and decontamination kits are also common. Lastly, other kits, resources, and documents to improve your survivability are included.

What Happens if You Don’t Prepare?

Hopefully, nothing! The chances that you encounter a specific nuclear event or radiation emergency are low, but the world is an ever-changing place and threats tend to compound and escalate. There have already been two nuclear attacks, at least a dozen (documented) nuclear accidents, and countless radiation events. While the specific threat is small for individual scenarios, the cumulative probability is higher than most people consider.

If an event does occur, however, the unprepared outlook is grim:

Acute Radiation Poisoning (ARS) – Also called radiation sickness, it is four phases of overexposure starting with headaches, vomiting, and diarrhea, then following with an incubation period of up to three weeks when gastrointestinal and blood disorders and skin injury follow, and then death.

Cutaneous Radiation Injury (CRI) – Also called radiation burn, the skin can get wrinkly, lose pigment, have ulcers, hair loss, and necrosis.

Dehydration – Avoiding water due to contamination will quickly dehydrate anyone without safe water access. Drinking radiation-contaminated water will dramatically increase radiation dosage through ingestion, resulting in ARS.

Starvation – Avoiding contaminated food will cause complications, especially if you do not have a way to detect if your food is safe (using a Geiger counter). Eating contaminated food will quickly result in ARS.

Time, Distance, & Shielding

The best remedy for radiation is preparing to protect yourself using time, distance, and shielding:

  • Time: reduce the time exposed to radiation to reduce your exposure and dosage.
  • Distance: increase your distance from the radiation source to reduce your exposure and dosage.
  • Shielding: place materials between you and the radiation source to shield (measured in R-value) yourself, reducing exposure and dosage.

These are all nuanced in practice though, so we’ll go into a little more detail.

Radiation Time Exposure

Limiting your time exposure to radiation can be one of the easiest things to do if you are able to get mobile.

Nuclear Fallout Note: If there is a nuclear attack and you are dealing with fallout, you don’t want to just go charging out of your home- protected or not. The general rule for fallout is to bunker down for 24 hours and provide yourself with as much shielding protection as possible (go into the center of the home or basement if there is not a shelter pre-built).

Reducing your time exposure by going in the opposite direction of the radiation source is the best long-term solution.

This chart is one of the best visualizations developed to help understand dosage in sievert units:

Radiation Dosage Graphic

Distance from Radiation Sources

Increasing your distance can be a very effective way to escape the effects of radiation. Radiation effects drop off quickly as you get further away from decaying isotopes since it follows the ‘inverse square law’.

Scattering and absorption also reduce the effect over distance, so it helps tremendously to put some distance between yourself and fallout areas and other radiation sources.

Radiation Shielding

Shielding may require some pre-planning, but it can be one of the most effective ways to mitigate radiation. Radiation shielding is putting a material between the radioactive isotope and yourself to prevent radiation particles and rays from reaching you in larger doses.

Various types of particle and electromagnetic radiation can be stopped by different amounts and types of materials:

  • Alpha particles – can make you extremely sick, but can be stopped by a sheet of paper.
  • Beta particles – can be stopped by a few sheets of plastic, plywood, etc.
  • Gamma rays – several inches of lead needed to shield, several feet of concrete, or several yards of earth.
  • Cosmic rays – not a problem on Earth thanks to our atmosphere, can be an issue for astronauts, frequent fliers, and satellites in the Van Allen Belt.
  • X-rays – leaded, concrete, and earth needed for shielding
  • UV rays – can be stopped by sunscreen

Different radioactive isotopes can discharge different compositions of radiation, usually containing a mix of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and X-rays for isotypes typical of nuclear attacks and accidents.

Nuclear Survival Kit Checklist

A perfect nuclear survival kit doesn’t exist- what is right for you depends on your situation and risk tolerance. That said, we have as close to perfect of a starting point for you: our complementary checklist. Not complementary as in it’s free (it is free, though)- but as in this list complements a full preparedness plan and standard survival kits.

Our checklist is available as both a pdf download and as a Google Sheet/Excel file where you can check off items yourself, and even add and subtract items from the checklist.

Nuclear Survival Kit Checklist

source: https://trueprepper.com/nuclear-survival-kit/

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