FOLLOW THE LEADER 4
I am posting a guest article Saturday morning. Be there.
*
What was any self respecting survivalist to do, now that a fallout
shelter in the city or suburbs were non-viable because of the Third World Slum
level of perpetual war and crime?
Suddenly, country living became the new overnight norm. Self proclaimed lords of the post-Apocalyptic
landscape arose and degreed that they alone knew the perfect place to
permanently bug out to. At first, it was
Oregon. One of the few places thought to
be fallout free after a Russian nuke attack ( along with the western portion of
Texas, but there wasn’t any water there and any self respecting survivalist has
to grow crops because marauding and rapine are not good selling points to the
passive middle class desk jockeys who buy newsletter subscriptions or
advertised items from the experts ), it had a lot going for it such as woods to
hide in and seclusion. Well, all the
scum suckling anal spelunkers from California also discovered the place at
about the same time, a wooded secluded paradise to replace the one they had
just destroyed back home. Today, the
geographical attractions haven’t changed completely, but the place resembles
its southern neighbor as far as political correctness, tax levels and intrusive
Nanny State control. Now, any self
proclaimed Lord Of The Apocalypse who recommends Oregon is quickly laughed out
of business ( I’m surprised there isn’t more negative reaction to the Rawles
Redoubt recommendation of eastern Oregon and eastern Washington. Such hatred towards Nevada, yet the Oregon
half and the Washington southeast are similar, yet with a worse government
). Idaho is where it is, brother! Any other suggestion is “proven” false
quickly.
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I’m certainly not advocating one spot over another. South Oregon has a lot of pluses. Northeast Washington looks good to me. North Idaho and west Montana look great other
than Yellowstone. Nevada is my personal
choice, but mostly because no one else likes it ( after the collapse, the
entire Humbolt River corridor is going to support at most a few hundred folks
and that is going to require raiding into distant lands on a regular basis to
even be viable ). The entire West except
for the strip of land along the coast from Frisco up into Canada is drier than
the hot air emanating from a politicians lips.
Less saturation per square mile is its only attraction, but even then it
is too populated for its resource base.
The West is truly a vast desert without petroleum inputs. East is little better with its coming race
wars and its insane population densities.
NO place, none, is a perfect survival spot to relocate to ( in the case
of Idaho, it is an oasis in a desert which will attract immigrants after the
power goes out. In the meantime, if
draught hits it hard, the whole place could go up in smoke and evaporate
economically and it suddenly is no longer the survivalists Best Place ). In the future, if there is one before the
collapse, where else will the experts lead us as the new promised land? I would hesitate to Follow The Leader, if I
were you.
END
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* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there
The standard survivalist strategy has not changed since the 1970's, but the population density of the U.S. has. Look at your experience and that of the BigBear guy from the Bear Ridge Project. Buy a secluded piece of land, get settled, 5 years later the land is no longer secluded. The small town strategy has been gutted because most small towns are now much less self-sufficient than years ago- they are just mini versions of cities relying on JIT delivery. The only remote land these days is in such God forsaken places devoid of water, soil, or other natural resources that is precludes most of the other classic bits of survival strategy (e.g., producing your own food). No great solutions from me- just that when I hear people spouting off the same stuff Mel Tappan said in the 1970's I know it's a very dated plan. It still seems to sell well, though. I still think lower population density buys you a little extra time before the population and resource issues bite you in the butt. You do what you can, but I just see a large-scale crash leading to the need for a lot of random luck. Enjoy the trip over the waterfall as best you can and see if you are still breathing after you hit the bottom.
ReplyDeletePopulation US 1970- 201 million. Now, 313 plus illegals. Do the math population wise.
DeleteDon't you know we are all supposed to move to Alaska... some place like Dead Horse, or North Pole, or "180 miles north of Fairbanks, and left at the big rock in the road and back 200 miles into the woods"... then become real life Jeremiah Johnson's... because the truly worthy have studied it in books and have the knowledge! Only true believers will survive, and only then by embracing our primitive past!
ReplyDeleteLets face it... if we get lucky, it will be a nasty brutal slow decline ala Druid Dude... if not, it will be a nasty brutal fast decline ala Lord Bison. either way we are most likely screwed.
And the only thing left to do is go out in grand style.
DeleteYour forgetting our sail boating leaders! Buy a boat!
ReplyDeleteAh! Excellent. I had forgotten that one.
Delete"Best location" is always just a quick snapshot in time and varies for different conditions. A good place for weathering a financial collapse might be a terrible place to sit out a plague -and so on.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I like living in a place where drinkable water flows freely.
Owning land outright (no liens, loans, mortgage) is the only way to handle the initial economic part of the collapse.
ReplyDeleteAny place that everyone else is looking at (or very close to town) is going to be to expensive for the average Joe to afford to own outright.
Way up in the mountains, or the middle of a swamp or desert, or the arid northern prairie- or maybe if you can put up with zoning and being seen as money bags you could consider some of those dying smaller towns. I personally wouldn't seriously consider any of the dying rustbelt cities - but if you can fit in and get along with the neighbors go for it.
But the last things anyone should do is any of the following
A) Choose to follow someone else's suggestions for what to do without checking it for 'fit' first.
B) Think that you can retreat to some land more than an hour or twos drive away from where you work or reside.
C) Choosing a retreat without knowing all the laws, regulations, zoning, HOA, and other codes that currently or in the future can, apply to it.
Demographics, racial mix, history. City-data.com is pretty good for winnowing the duds.
DeleteI'm pretty paranoid of having no water, so drought and the West tends to make me nervous. As much as the West is where I'd like to settle (specifically Northern New Mexico - which is only slightly wetter and greener than Eastern Nevada), I have chosen Western Pennsylvania for the moment.
ReplyDeletePROS
* Almost ZERO natural disasters
* Mostly good soil
* 4 seasons with decent rainfall
* Fairly forgiving gun laws
* Extremely low state income tax (the lowest of any state that requires income tax)
* Population density is bad, but not as bad as the Eastern seaboard
* Near Western Virginia which has low population density
* Race war potential is near zero
CONS
* Nuclear Reactors all over the place
* No shortage of horrendous environmental degradation (fracking, chemical plants, leftover coal mining slag heaps and slurries, etc)
I got out of California. If you took out the people, it would be a wonderful place live. Oregon, Washington, and Colorado are basically California-in-training.
Aside from my current Western Pennsylvania operation with leanings towards Northern New Mexico, the only other places I'd probably select are Iowa or Kansas. Montana was on my shortlist, but I have slowly come around to being irrationally frightened of Yellowstone spewing 1000 miles of ash.
If Yellowstone goes, ash will be everywhere. But if you get too close to the damn thing, ash will be the least of your problems.
DeleteThe light map, powered by Bing, does a nice job of showing where people and industry are. To get "far enough away" in Idaho, you have to be secret-squirrel squatting on Federal/State land or endure the fact that you are 2 miles from a road of at least graded-gravel quality that a Honda Fit can drive on. Perhaps, excepting the far SW point of ID, which has no advantages according to the sat-view, just like the remote SE of Oregon and all of NV except for the oasises that are crowded now. I guess that the far-away with no advantages could make for very-very-cheap huge tracts of land to build V-1 rockets on and shoot .50 BMG's at far-away steel targets (Boom...wait...wait...wait...dink).
ReplyDeletepdxr13
in the urban bunker with grid power and iced exotic coffee. The OPEN sign is lit until 7pm, but you have to have a keycard to buzz the front door. Silence, punctuated by a clanking drop of the ice machine, until some lucky person comes in for a cheap drink and grumpy company. If the world ends, I'm locking the door.
On the light map, Elko county north of I-80 is completely black. I'm right on the interstate of course, which sucks. But I do love that black cushion for many miles.
DeleteAre there any sources of water in the light-blackness north of Elko?
DeleteLast time a group of us went desert rock hunting, we had to come home after the water ran out. Drinking/cooking only, 3 gallons a day each.
I'm looking to Frank Herbert's Dune book for inspiration in a place where solar pv is going to be great (no shade, few clouds) and wondering about condensing water out of the air.
pdxr13
There are a few minute sources of water north of the highway. Enough for me without ag, but I'm not sure about private land for sale. Other than wildhorse lake and I hear that is both a summer tourist trap and extra mighty cold in winter.
Delete"And wondering about condensing water out of air".
DeleteYou might find the below link (originally posted by Vlad) to be of some use pdxr13.
http://www.rexresearch.com/airwells/airwells.htm
I have looked into the airwells concept, and, it doesn't seem worth it. It does deliver pure clean water, but requires a huge structure - the larger the more water needed and less humidity in the air. And in most places it is needed there is so little humidity in the air the structure needs to be really big to provide one person barely enough water to drink.
DeleteAgree with the poster above that mentioned that the ideal locale, doesn't stay ideal for long once others catch on. That's why you must choose land that no one else wants, and assume that even such land will eventually be the last to be over inhabited.
ReplyDeleteThis is where Jim gets it right. Most people won't buy desert land, and couldn't make a go of it if they did. Most areas outside of established burgs are off grid. And the lack of water in such areas kills the agricultural dreams of most homesteading types. But for the hermit, or small family, that can get by with a small garden plot, it might just work.
Southern desert is a different story, providing that the area has a solid source of water (Vegas, some of the southern CA deserts). But cold northern deserts generally keep the less than hardy (Which also tend to have the least desirable politics) away.
Great comments. Im in South Mississippi. About 25 miles from the gulf as the crow flies. I have to drive at least 14 miles to get to any store or gas station. Bad if we are on bicycles. I have very close friends as neighbors who have military experience and good skill sets. Doctors, carpenters, mechanics, gunsmiths and we are all dabbling with food production. Chickens, goats, miniature cows, gardening. Ample water on properties (springs) and firewood. we are surrounded by woods, national forest and hunting clubs. I don't fear race wars up here cause there is so many rednecks. I've made alot of redneck friends and though they have the potential to pillage I hope they ally themselves. Worse comes to worse our group of families can bring enough defensive measure for most anyone short of government.
ReplyDeleteIts hot as hell in the summer but survivable. Winters are not to bad. Not ideal in location but this area has a reputation in good times that city folks get hurt if they come up here. Don't mess with the rednecks. I don't think the locals will welcome city folk heading up here.
It has its issues but to be close enough to drive to work and Mississippi's pro gun and conservative ideals, there is far worse places to be.
Don't most places have issues? I wouldn't imagine drought would be one of yours. Would the levee system failures/non-maintanence effect you where you are?
DeleteI chose rural Australia basically because it was were I was whelped. I wouldn't swope Australia for all the plastic poodle shooters in the world, I got plenty of guns, a good climate and plenty of elbow room. Australia, 2/3's the size of the USA without any land boarders with about 8-9% of the population with basically no nukes in the southern hemisphere. Aussie
ReplyDeleteDo you worry about Chinese mineral colonization? Or is Chinese expansion just an American made-up Plan B to keep the military-industrial complex churning along?
DeleteI think the danger of the Chinese is a bit of a beat up but its good to get your head around any possible senerios . My all time worst possible thing that could happen here in Australia is a Indonesian invasion. Australia has a relatively formidable tec heavy defence force that relies heavily on the premis that America has got our back and is there to resupply our parts and munitions.
ReplyDeleteAmerica fall over and Islamic extreemists take over in Indonesia(the biggest Islamic country in the world) and we are in for a whole world of hurt. We have already had a number of shooting matchs with the Indonesians since ww2. ... Aussie