Expedient Shelter Construction

Simple shelters—that you can build quick

During the Cold War research was undertaken to evaluate how average citizens could create their own shelters in the case of a political crisis that could lead to a nuclear attack. It was known that at this time in the mid-1970s, after Civil Defense planning and spending had waned since the 1950’s-60’s, that both the Soviet Union and China had more preparations for their citizens in major urban areas.


This book was created under the auspices of the U.S. ERDA, an agency created in 1974 when the Atomic Energy Commission was split into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the ERDA.


This practical field research study became the original basis for Cresson Kearny’s more extensive book “Nuclear War Survival Skills”. What makes this report interesting and different is the wealth of extra info and photos that were NOT included in the book mentioned above. 

Simple shelters that can be built in 1 to 3 days and are outlined in this book are: 


The Need for Improved Expedient Shelters

Door-Covered Trench Shelter

Stress test of Door-Covered Trench Shelter

Log-covered Trench Shelter

Occupancy test of Log-Covered Shelter

Above-Ground Door-Covered Shelter

Car-Over Trench Shelter

Large Log-Covered Trench Shelter

Overall conclusions and recommendations


From the Introduction:

"This report strongly indicates the practicality of tens of millions of Americans evacuating into rural areas and building and occupying high-protection-factor expedient shelters during an escalating international crisis. This concept was successfully tested by untrained families who built expedient shelters during winter in Colorado, summer in Utah, and spring in Florida. Their efforts are presented in this report primarily by the captioned photographs showing these typical American families evacuating their homes, driving to rural shelter-building sites, and then, with hand tools, constructing their own shelters. 

These average, mostly urban, American families were guided only by step-by-step, well-illustrated, written instructions given to them at the start of each experiment. Crisis conditions were simulated, and adequate motivation was provided by the promise of a cash bonus for completion of the shelter within 36 or 48 hours, depending on the difficulty of construction. All families, or groups of families, succeeded in winning the bonus, with one exception. 

The shelters built by the test families included the Door-Covered Trench Shelter, the Log-Covered Trench Shelter (which the building family occupied for 77 hours without emerging), and the Car-Over-Trench Shelter. Also, families are pictured while building four above-ground shelters designed for high-water-table or shallow-soil areas: the Above-Ground Door-Covered Shelter, the Crib-Walled Shelter, the Ridge-Pole Shelter, and the A-Frame Pole Shelter. These four above-ground shelters have protection factors (PF) in the range of 250 to 500. "

Keywords: Civil defense,shelter,nuclear war,fallout,survival,improvised,radioactivity