
These places would include basements or the windowless center area of middle floors in high-rise buildings, as well as subways and tunnels.

If none have been designated, make your own list of potential shelters near your home, workplace, and school. Find out from officials if any public buildings in your community have been designated as fallout shelters.To prepare for a nuclear blast, you should do the following: Remember that any protection, however temporary, is better than none at all, and the more shielding, distance, and time you can take advantage of, the better. Radioactive fallout poses the greatest threat to people during the first two weeks, by which time it has declined to about 1 percent of its initial radiation level. In time, you will be able to leave the fallout shelter. Time - fallout radiation loses its intensity fairly rapidly.Shielding - the heavier and denser the materials-thick walls, concrete, bricks, books and earth-between you and the fallout particles, the better.Flat roofs collect fallout particles so the top floor is not a good choice, nor is a floor adjacent to a neighboring flat roof. A floor near the middle of high-rise may be better, depending on what is nearby at that level on which significant fallout particles would collect.

An underground area such as a home or office building basement offers more protection than the first floor of a building.

