Your plan: first-floor apartment in San Antonio

This plan is for a household of 4 adults and two dogs of about 15 lb (7 kg), in a ground-floor apartment in a typical 2- to 3-story wood-frame complex.

The truth about your building

A 2–3 story wood apartment building offers little protection against radioactive fallout. Its walls are wood, drywall, and at best a thin brick or stucco facade; it has no basement. By reference values, a structure like this falls in the range of a wood-frame house: PF of 2 to 3, which is inadequate. Your first floor has one advantage and one disadvantage:

• Advantage: the apartments above you put floors, furniture, and distance between you and the fallout that lands on the roof.
• Disadvantage: you are at ground level, close to the fallout deposited on the parking lot, the grass, and the sidewalks around you, and your exterior walls are thin.

Even so, any building is much better than being outside, and what you do inside does change your dose. Your plan has two options, and you must decide which one before anything happens.

Option A: Go to a sturdier building nearby

This makes sense only if you can get there in a few minutes (ideally on foot, in under 5 minutes) and before 10 minutes have passed since the blast. Starting today, look for these near your home:

• Underground parking (at a hospital, office, university, or mall).
• A multi-story concrete office building: the core (stairs, elevators, central restrooms) on a middle floor.
• A multi-story concrete or brick building with a basement.
• A school, church, or other brick or concrete public building with interior hallways.

These don't help much: large one-story stores with light roofs, gas stations, buildings with glass facades, or your car.

Watch out for access: a building that is locked at night or on a weekend is no use to you. Write down whether it is open 24 hours (hospitals, some parking garages) and expect that it may be full.

Option B: Stay and improve your apartment

This is the default option if there is no much better building minutes away, if someone can't move fast, if it is night, or if time has already passed. Do it this way:

1. Pick the shelter room. The most interior spot in the apartment: an interior bathroom or a hallway closet with no exterior walls. If there isn't one, the central hallway or the room with the fewest exterior walls and no windows. Far from the front door and the windows.
2. Put mass between you and the outside. Stack against the room's exterior-facing walls: full bookcases, boxes of books, water jugs and water containers, a refrigerator or washer if you can move them without hurting yourself. Anything dense counts; anything light (mattresses, pillows) hardly does.
3. Sit or lie on the floor, in the center. Being low, in the center of the room, keeps you away from the walls and takes advantage of the mass of the furniture around you.
4. Use the tub. If the shelter is the bathroom, filling the tub gives you water for washing and flushing, and a little mass.
5. Close everything. Doors and windows closed and locked, curtains closed. Turn off the air conditioning and heating that draw in outside air, if possible (CDC).
6. Don't waste time outside. Make the improvements after you are inside. Don't go out for land, water, or shopping.

Decontamination at the entrance

If anyone was outside while the fallout was coming down, decontaminate at the entrance, before moving into the rest of the apartment:

1. Take off your outer layer of clothing carefully, without shaking it, so you don't breathe in the dust that comes loose. This can remove up to 90% of the radioactive material (CDC, Ready.gov).
2. Put it in a plastic bag or sealable container. Close it and leave it away from people and pets (for example, on the patio or next to the door, outside the shelter room).
3. Shower with warm water and plenty of soap. Wash your hair with shampoo or soap. Do not use conditioner: it makes the radioactive material stick to your hair (CDC). Don't scrub hard or scratch; keep wounds covered.
4. If you can't shower: wash your hands, face, and exposed skin at the sink with soap and plenty of water. With no sink, use a clean damp cloth or a wet wipe. Blow your nose gently and clean your eyelids, eyelashes, and ears. Bag everything you used.
5. Put on clean clothes that were stored inside. If you don't have any, shake or brush your outer clothing outside, put it back on, and wash your hands and face again.
6. Do not use household cleaning wipes on your skin. Hand sanitizer gel does not protect against radioactive material.

Tap water is still safe for washing (CDC). Boiling water does not remove radioactive material; for drinking, use stored or bottled water until the authorities confirm the water system is safe.

Pets

• Bring them in early, if there is a warning. Dogs on a leash or in a carrier inside the shelter room.
• If they were outside: gently brush their fur to remove particles, then wash them with shampoo or soap and water; rinse well (CDC, Ready.gov). Wear waterproof gloves and a mask if you have them, and cover your wounds and your pet's. Wash your hands and face afterward.
• Wipe pet food containers with a damp cloth before opening them.
• Keep a litter box, bags, and newspaper so the dog doesn't have to go outside. See chapter 2 for the pet kit.

Water and food

• It is safe to eat and drink what was inside the building, and packaged or sealed products (Ready.gov, CDC).
• Sealed items that were outside: wipe the container with a damp cloth before opening it; put the cloth in a bag.
• Don't eat garden produce, fruit from trees, or food or drink that was uncovered outside, until the authorities say it is OK.
• If your medications were inside, keep taking them. If the container was outside, clean it and continue (CDC).
• Plan on at least 1 gallon (3.8 L) of water per person per day: for 4 adults that is 4 gallons (15 L) daily, plus water for the pets. See chapters 2 and 3.

Ventilation, heat, and air conditioning

The CDC says to close windows and doors and turn off fans, air conditioning, and heating that draw in outside air, if possible. In San Antonio in summer, a closed-up apartment with no air conditioning can get dangerously hot; also, the power is likely to be out. Balance the risks:

• Keep closed and off anything that draws in outside air, especially in the first hours, when the fallout is most intense.
• Fight the heat with water, light clothing, damp towels, the floor (cooler), and battery fans that only move indoor air.
• Watch for signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke (see chapters 7 and 10). Heat stroke is also an emergency that can be fatal; if someone gets worse, that is a strong reason to call for help.

Communication

• A battery or hand-crank radio, preferably with a NOAA weather radio band (CDC). Keep spare batteries.
• Choose text messages over calls: they get through when the network is overloaded (CDC).
• Turn on Wireless Emergency Alerts on your cell phone and sign up for AlertSA (see the San Antonio box).
• Have a family contact outside the state: it is easier to reach someone long distance than locally in a disaster. See chapter 1.
• Keep in mind that the electromagnetic pulse and blackouts can knock out cell service, internet, and electricity; keep a printed list of phone numbers.

When to leave

• At least 24 hours inside, unless the authorities say otherwise. FEMA suggests sheltering for a minimum of 12 to 24 hours in its initial message and at least 24 hours in fallout areas.
• Leave earlier only for immediate danger: fire, collapse, a gas leak, or a medical emergency. If you go out, cover your nose and mouth, move fast, and find another building.
• When you evacuate, do it by the route the authorities designate, moving away from the blast point and from the areas with the most fallout. Take your 72-hour backpack (chapter 2).
• Don't go back to pick up belongings in restricted areas.

If the family is separated

The hardest part of this plan is not going out to look for your loved ones. If the blast happens while some of you are at work and others are at home, everyone shelters where they are. Driving around the city in the first hour means exposing yourself right when the fallout is most intense. Agree on this today, out loud, among the four of you: "If something happens, I go into the nearest building, I text you, and we meet up when the authorities say it is safe to move."