[waynecochran]

An underground hideout was never going to save you if you were near enough to the blast -- I always thought it was more of a way to protect yourself from nuclear fallout -- wouldn't that still be a valid reason to build a shelter?

[kulkarnic]

Yes, you can save yourself from the fallout (which decays exponentially with distance anyway). Unfortunately within around 15mi, you're still going to get pretty bad burns, unless you duck into your shelter immediately after the explosion. That's where the early warning systems are useful-- you get 6-8min with an ICBM strike.

[Someone]

You don't need reinforced shelters against fallout; above-ground buildings will do fine, as long as they can be made reasonably airtight (as additional protection, one could provide for material to replace broken windows)

Also, I think most shelters would be far enough from blast areas to provide some protection.

Eizo Nomura (who, amazingly, doesn't have a Wikipedia page) was 170 meter from ground zero in Hiroshima, and survived (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_...)

Akiko Takakura was above ground at less than 300m and lived for 60 years.

Even though later bombs were much more powerful that makes it likely that shelters at the edge of the blast radius can save lives.

Not all of them, but any program to protect civilians is a statistics game.

All the construction in SF isn't 100% effective against earthquakes, either.

[hga]

Per Cresson Kerney, who's nuclear war survival stuff was actually tested against reality (vs. the deathtraps like at least one of those early shelter plans in the OP which was dreamed up by D.C. bureaucrats) says air tightness concerns are entirely overblown, so to speak ^_^. As I recall, the heavy stuff that falls out early is too big to be a concern of that sort, the light stuff decays to safe (enough) levels before enough of it drops and becomes an issue. We have a lot of data on this thanks to those eeeevil above ground tests.

What you need is plenty of mass between sources of radiation, i.e. fallout particles where they settle, and from "skyshine". In a sufficiently bad situation, which would be pretty common, a simple ditch where you made sure the fallout kept out and didn't accumulate on, say, the tarp you were using for that, you'd still get zapped by gamma rays that bounce off atoms in the air and come down into the ditch.

So the most basic expedient fallout shelter is a ditch with hollow core interior doors over it or the like, and foot of dirt on top, which through arching holds most of its weight.

An above-ground building is iffy, because you want, say, 3 feet of dirt all around you, and either a foot on top or if the roof is high enough that's not as much of an issue. Middle stories of a tall building could suffice.