The Ultimate Guide to Survival Shelters: How to Build Temporary Refuge in Any Environment

Introduction

What does it mean to have shelter, and why is it such an important survival commodity? Even further, does your dwelling have to possess an asphalt-shingled roof overhead (and a big fat mortgage payment), or can this refuge be something far simpler and more expedient?

If coziness is the measure of shelter, then the average modern home is the benchmark to hit. With insulated windows, lights that come on at the flick of a switch, and climate-controlled air that we can adjust on a whim, the typical house is a place of great comfort and a haven from the extremes of nature. Whether this home is a condo, townhouse, or mansion, each one has systems in place that create a highly comfortable atmosphere, especially when compared to the rude cabins, shacks, and huts of our predecessors. But what if I told you that you could survive without that comfortable home? It’s true. In fact, you can subsist with a lot less than you’d expect.

When it comes down to a question of survival over comfort, all we really have to do is keep our body temperature close enough to a healthy range and receive protection from the hazards of the area. These parameters make the term shelter much broader and allow it to fit a wide range of protective structures and assets, both natural and man-made. Again, if comfort takes a backseat to basic survival, a damp cave, a cheap tent, or an abandoned car are all capable of providing us with shelter. That’s a good thing, too.

Shelter can come in many forms, and unless you’re in imminent danger (such as bleeding heavily or having a respiratory problem), acquiring shelter is going to be your top priority in an emergency situation. Certainly, if a bear is about to eat you, or you’re sliding off a cliff,, you’ve got bigger problems than exposure to heat or cold; however, when you’re not under the threat of beasts or bleeding out, shelter is the thing you need most. And even though food and water may seem just as vital to the average person, or even more important than shelter, we have to put it all into perspective. While we can go without a drop of water for days, we can also go with only water (no food) for weeks before Death comes to collect us. Yet in extreme cold, or high heat, we may not last more than a few hours—even if we had all the food and water in the world. In the first chapter of this book, we’ll discuss the dangers of hypothermia, hyperthermia, and other environmental hazards, but for now, understand this: Shelter doesn’t have to come in the form of a mansion. All you really need is something to block the elements that would take your body temperature out of a safe range and can defend you from any creatures or conditions that would cause you harm. Thankfully for us, these simple protections can come from a surprising number of sources. Get ready to think of shelter in a whole new way!

1

Understand the Threats

Before we worry too much about survival shelter architecture and improvised building materials, it’s important to understand all of the reasons we need shelter. As a species, we tend to think of ourselves as the dominant creature on this planet, and we often ignore our physical limitations (thanks to our abundant technological props, which make up for areas we are lacking). Yet truth be told, we’re actually pretty fragile animals. Our teeth and claws are pitiful. It takes our young forever to mature. We can’t climb, run, or swim very fast. To make matters worse, we are thin-skinned and relatively hairless (for mammals, anyway), and even if our waistlines are robust, we don’t have the kind of blubber that keeps other mammals warm in frigid conditions. Without the intelligence and creativity to create shelter and clothing, I doubt our frail species would have ever left the global Goldilocks zones of tropical temperatures that are just right for naked humans to live year-round. But we didn’t let our limitations stop us; quite the opposite, we turned to the natural resources that made up for our inadequacies. Over time, we turned furs into clothing and learned to seek shelter in caves. This technological growth made it possible for us to venture into less hospitable climates. Eventually, our clothing and home-building skills progressed to a level that has allowed our species to live anywhere on the planet, regardless of the hazardous conditions. But even with our countless inventions and innovations, our bodies are still under the same threats that have dogged our ancestors since the dawn of time. Without the vital necessity that we call shelter, the cold, wind, water, and heat can all take their toll on the human form. Below are some conditions that present the most threat to our bodies.

Hypothermia

Hypothermia is a medical condition in which the environment steals away our body heat faster than our body can produce its own heat to rewarm itself, and this condition is often our greatest threat in the outdoors. The direct translation of this medical term is from the Greek words hypo (under) and thermia (heat), which we interpret as low temperature. Normal human body temperature is somewhere around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (it can vary in certain individuals), but when that core temperature drops to 95 degrees or lower, any of us would be considered hypothermic, officially. Hypothermia can be caused by cold air, getting wet, windy conditions, or all of these together. Exhaustion, age, body weight, drug use, prescription medicine, alcohol, medical conditions (like hypothyroidism), and other factors can increase a person’s risk of hypothermia. To treat it, there are various forms of rewarming. Passive rewarming is used for mild cases, and it involves supporting the body as it naturally rewarms itself. Dry clothing, blankets, sips of a warm beverage, and calorie-rich foods can all help. Active rewarming is used in more serious cases, and it involves the use of warming items against the trunk first and later to the extremities. Heating pads and warm, forced air are often used in hospitals, along with careful monitoring for heart issues and shock.

There are three main stages to hypothermia:

First stage: Mild hypothermia victims start with mild shivering, which can progress to violent shivering (sometimes so extreme that the victim cannot strike a match to light a fire or zip up a sleeping bag). This shivering is the body’s attempt to generate heat through fast twitch muscle contractions, but this typically does little to raise the body temperature. The reduced circulation of stage one can also manifest as ice-cold extremities, which are the result of the body rerouting blood to keep the head and core warm.

Second stage: Eventually the shivering stops if the victim’s body temperature continues to drop. This starts to affect the heart, brain, and other organs and can be classified as moderate hypothermia. The victim may have a slow or weak pulse. Their breathing is also likely to be slower. As their cooling brain begins to affect their performance and behavior, it’s common to see clumsiness, irritability, slurred speech, confusion, and tiredness. Many victims have reported that the idea of lying down and taking a nap seemed like a great idea at the time.

Third stage: This is also called severe hypothermia, and it can get weird. The victim may barely show respiration and pulse (thirty to forty beats per minute is common in victims with body temperature in the low 80s Fahrenheit). Victims may also have one last surge of energy, with which they perform some strange acts. In 20 to 50 percent of hypothermia deaths, victims remove clothing (it’s called paradoxical undressing), and this only worsens their situation. The victim may also bury themselves in snow, soil, sand, or vegetation. Known as terminal burrowing or hide-and-die syndrome, it’s likely to be some autonomous process of the brain stem, creating a primitive burrowing behavior as a last-ditch attempt for protection. Weird, right?

Fight These Heat Loss Mechanisms

In cold weather exposure, these are the four culprits behind heat loss and the resulting condition of hypothermia:

Radiation: This is often our main form of heat loss. When the air is much colder than our body temperature, the heat radiates away from us to be absorbed by the cold air.

Convection: Even when the wind feels still, convection still steals our body heat. This is the process of losing heat to the air or water molecules that move across the skin. The faster the wind is moving, the faster the wind removes your body heat. And if it’s raining on you or you fall into cold water, you’ve got major problems!

Conduction: When we’re still and touching something cold (like lying on the frozen ground), we’re losing heat through conduction. Never sit or lay on the bare ground without some insulation to block conduction.

Evaporation: It takes heat to turn liquid water into water vapor. As cold wet clothing dries out, the moisture in the clothing will stay cold due to evaporative cooling. We see this when our sweaty or damp clothing dries in the wind, making us feel even colder.

Be Gentle with Hypothermia

CPR may be necessary to keep a severe hypothermia victim alive, but be careful with that chilly heart. Striking the chest of a hypothermia victim (or dropping them during transport) can cause a dangerous cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat). Even a gentle rewarming can induce this potentially fatal heart condition, so don’t go making it worse by beating your fists on their chest and screaming Live! as if you’re on some kind of soap opera. Various arrhythmias are quite common during accidental hypothermia rewarming, and this is why you need to get your hypothermia victim to a hospital, rather than trying your DIY remedies. And don’t even consider dunking your hypothermia victim in a hot tub or shoving them into a sauna; you’ll send your patient into shock with such aggressive tactics.

Hyperthermia

On the opposite side of the exposure spectrum, we have hyperthermia. This can be translated from the Greek as high temperature and can manifest as several different medical conditions. Hyperthermia cannot be compared to having a fever (the body elevating its own temperature, usually to fight off a virus or bacterial infection). Hyperthermia is a higher-than-normal body temperature due to the inability of the body’s heat-regulating mechanisms to cope with a high heat environment (like a burning hot desert with no shade). Forms of hyperthermia include heat fatigue, heat syncope