Chapter 18Your home as a shelter
Chapter 18 · Advanced skills · 27 min read

Your home as a shelter: how to turn your house into a bunker

Maybe you want to know "how to turn your home into a bunker." The honest answer first: a house or apartment made of wood and drywall cannot be turned into a bunker. A real bunker is reinforced concrete, earth on top, steel doors, and filtered ventilation, designed by engineers. What you can do, without construction and with little money, is turn part of your house or apartment into a shelter room that holds up well to a moderate-intensity tornado, really reduces the dose of fallout, seals against a chemical cloud for a few hours, and keeps everyone in the household and your pets alive for several days without power or tap water. This chapter tells you what is realistic in a rented apartment, what changes if you buy a house, and how an improvised shelter is built in the open. What is already in other chapters is only summarized and cross-referenced.

The essentials · if you only have a minute
  • A house or apartment made of wood is not a bunker: against fallout it gives a protection factor of only 2 to 3 (see chapter 15). Improve it with mass, location, and preparation; do not expect miracles.
  • Choose your shelter room today: the most interior room, with no windows (usually the interior bathroom or a closet). The whole plan revolves around it.
  • Mass protects: water, books, earth, concrete. Light things (mattresses) help against debris in a tornado, not against radiation.
  • Keep the sealing kit ready (precut 2–4 mil plastic and tape) and a homemade box-fan filter with MERV 13: the filter works for smoke and dust, not for gases.
  • Never use a generator, grill, camp stove, or combustion heater indoors. The shelter's power is a battery station with a solar panel.
  • Reinforce doors and windows without blocking your exit in a fire: if you live on the ground floor, the bedroom windows are your second escape route.
  • A true safe room (ICC 500 standard, FEMA P-320) requires owning the house, an engineer, and permits. If you buy a house, it is the best investment in this chapter.

In this chapter

18.1What is realistic: the four levels of "bunker"2 min read18.2The shelter room in your home or apartment2 min read0/418.3More mass without touching the structure2 min read18.4Sealing and air2 min read0/518.5Heat and ventilation: the forgotten danger1 min read18.6Light and power inside the shelter1 min read18.7Water in the apartment1 min read0/418.8Sanitation (summary)1 min read0/518.9Communication, entertainment, and mental health1 min read0/618.10Pets in the shelter1 min read0/618.11What your lease and renters insurance say1 min read0/818.12Physical home security3 min read0/618.13If you buy or already own a home3 min read0/1518.14Improvised fallout shelters (Kearny method)2 min read0/718.15Common mistakes1 min read0/818.16Worksheet: shelter room checklist2 min read0/40
Chapter sources (1)
  1. 1.Taking Shelter from the Storm: Building or Installing a Safe Room for Your Home (FEMA P-320, 6.ª ed., 2024) — FEMA — https:// www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_taking-shelter-from-the-storm_p-320.pdf 2.Safe Rooms for Tornadoes and Hurricanes: Guidance for Community and Residential Safe Rooms (FEMA P-361, 4.ª ed., 2021) — FEMA — https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/risk-management/safe-rooms 3.ICC/NSSA 500 Standard for the Design and Construction of Storm Shelters — International Code Council; resumen en National Storm Shelter Association — https://www.nssa.cc/residential-tornado-shelters.html 4.Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation (3.ª ed., 2022) — FEMA — https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/national- preparedness/plan 5.Key Response Planning Factors for the Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism (Buddemeier y Dillon) — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 6.Nuclear War Survival Skills (Cresson H. Kearny, 1979; ed. actualizada 1987) — Oak Ridge National Laboratory / dominio público — https:// apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA328301.pdf 7.Shelter-in-place — Ready.gov — https://www.ready.gov/shelter 8.What to Do to Shelter in Place for a Chemical Emergency — CDC — https://www.cdc.gov/chemical-emergencies/response/shelter-in- place.html 9.Avoiding Carbon Monoxide Poisoning — CDC — https://www.cdc.gov/natural-disasters/psa-toolkit/avoiding-carbon-monoxide- poisoning.html 10.Do-It-Yourself Air Cleaners: Making Cleaner Air More Accessible — EPA — https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/do-it-yourself-air- cleaners-making-cleaner-air-more-accessible 11.Emergency Sanitation (folleto) — Seattle Public Utilities / Seattle Emergency Management — https://www.seattle.gov/emergency- management 12.Home Security: Door Security — Seattle Police Department, Crime Prevention — https://www.seattle.gov/police 13.Texas Property Code, cap. 92, subcap. D (dispositivos de seguridad) — Estado de Texas — https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov 14.Flood Insurance for Renters — FEMA / NFIP FloodSmart — https://www.floodsmart.gov 15.International Residential Code (cargas vivas de piso, aberturas de escape de emergencia) — International Code Council 16.Trenching and Excavation Safety — OSHA — https://www.osha.gov/trenching-excavation 17.Why are there so few basements in Texas? — KUT / KERA (NPR) — https://www.kut.org/post/why-are-there-so-few-basements-texas 18.Texas811 — https://www.texas811.org ; CPS Energy — https://www.cpsenergy.com ; Ciudad de San Antonio, Development Services — https://www.sa.gov