If necessary, support or "shore up" the walls of the trench, as well as
the lumber or doors, so they will not collapse.

* Dig a shallow ditch, 6 inches deep and 6 inches wide, parallel to and
4 feet from the outside wall of your house.

Remove the heaviest doors from the house. Place the bottoms of the doors
in the ditch (so they won't slip), and lean the doors against the wall
of the house.

On the doors, pile 12 to 18 inches of earth or sand. Stack or pile other
shielding material at the sides of the doors, and also on the other side
of the house wall (to protect you against radiation coming from that
direction).

If possible, make the shelter area deeper by digging out more earth
inside it. Also dig some other shallow ditches, to allow rain water to
drain away.


AN IMPROVISED SHELTER ON THE GROUND FLOOR

If your home has no basement or storm cellar (and no crawl space that is
surrounded by foundation walls up to the first floor), you can get some
limited fallout protection by improvising a fallout shelter on the first
or ground floor of your house. However, this type of shelter probably
would not give you nearly as much protection as the other types of
improvised shelters described in this chapter.

Use an inner hall, inner room or large clothes closet on the ground