Gimme shelter

In the first half of 2023, the Polish fire brigade service completed a nationwide inventory of buildings (excluding private properties) that would be suitable for providing temporary shelters. These included cellars, schools and churches, with the work having been commissioned by the MSWiA. The results may seem surprising, because there is enough space in them for 49 mln people, which is more than the actual population of Poland. Nonetheless, shelters (of which there are 224,000) and places to hide (which number over 8,700) are not the same as hermetically-sealed shelters. The national inventory only recorded a little over 2,000 of these, which is decidedly too few. Only this kind of shelter could provide adequate protection, not only during a military conflict but also in the event of natural cataclysms. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has certainly had an impact on Polish people’s sense of security. According to a 2023 survey conducted by CBOS, 68 pct believe that Poland&rs