More About Fallout Shelters

Orianna2000 said:

I was assuming their main power would come from the city's grid, seeing as how there are no bombs dropping. They have backup generators for the entire building (the shelter is in the basement of an office building), but I guess there would have to be separate generators for the shelter itself. Lots of redundancy, so something major would have to go wrong for them to lose power.

This depends somewhat upon the force used to generate the electricity. Coal is the shortest and hydro the longest, but we're talking only hours to maybe a few days. Generating electricity requires a lot of supervision of the machinery.

I like the idea of the sewer system flooding, however I only require one person to leave the shelter. Everyone else needs to stay behind, while the MC goes out to face the fog. If it's flooding, everyone would have to evacuate. Is there another way of messing with the sewer lines, so that everyone can stay put?

The intake for the ventilation is up on the roof. It needs to be up high, otherwise the fog will infiltrate it. I could have something block the ventilation shaft, but the problem is that the hero wouldn't last long enough to get to the roof. The vaccine keeps the fog from feeding on his blood, but he's still going to have a physical reaction to the mist. By the time he reached the roof, he'd be incapacitated, which won't work.

Intake vent will not be on the roof. Heat rises, and you use heat to create a positive flow, along with wind direction. Intake will always be below the outflow. The filters will be designed to last through the maximum period that the shelter would be in use.

Would the shelter automatically run on its own generators, once the door is closed? Once outside power goes, they should kick in. Or could they choose where to draw their power from? If they ran out of fuel, I could say that someone needs to go out to the building's generators and plug them into the bunker, or reroute the power, or something. Independent generators work on gasoline, propane, or diesel. Propane needs a tanker truck to deliver. Gasoline or diesel can be lifted out of storage tanks. Diesel (same stuff as fuel oil used in heating houses) lasts better then gasoline.

Not to stray too far from the original topic, but I could say they need something from outside the shelter and that's why he leaves. Perhaps the laptop they're using to communicate with the outside world fails and they need a new laptop, which is kept in storage in the basement. Or perhaps the internet dies and they have to reboot the servers manually, so they can resume contact with the outside world. Could something like that work?

You really expect things to hold together pretty well, don't you? I can't imagine the internet holding together that long, between the electricity they need and the resets that need to happen to the equipment.

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Orianna2000 said:

If the ventilation intake is not on the roof, then they're all screwed. The fog rises at least twelve feet high, so if the intake shaft is on the ground, the fog will either seep in or suffocate them by blocking the air flow. Could the intake shaft be on the roof, with the outflow up higher, like on a pedestal? Or would the filters ensure that the fog couldn't get in?

Is the shelter designed for this fog? You want the intake above ground, but not too high up. You need at least ten feet difference between the intake and the outflow.

Without wanting to get too technical, filters are designed around molecule size. For instance, say you want to stop water from passing through a filter, you make the openings smaller then a water molecule. Anything smaller passes through, anything larger is blocked. A filter that can block water vapor can permit air to flow though it. I'm using water here as fog should be similar in size to a water molecule.

Alternative approach is a closed system such as a nuclear submarine uses. This is your highest level of protection. Or a hybrid system combining some fresh air with recycled air.

As for the internet, they're still connected to the grid and the city's power doesn't go out, so that's okay. Although . . . if central London was evacuated, how long would the power last without someone to tend it? Are the power stations outside the city and therefore beyond the evacuation zone? I can shift them to emergency generators, so either way, they'll have power.

London's power seems to be a mix of coal, gas, and nuclear. Coal is usually limited to a few days supply. Gas is variable on supplies, depending upon the system. Nuclear has long-term supplies. But all of these systems need constant regulation. If power lasted a week, I'd be surprised.

I'm not familiar with commercial servers and networks, so I don't know how plausible it is that one might go a week or two without being rebooted. Our home server/router/modem doesn't need to be rebooted very often. They might be able to do some rebooting remotely, too. My husband works with servers and he's always doing stuff remotely from home, although I don't know if that includes rebooting or not. I'll try to remember to ask him.

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