Urban Survival???

I am wondering, exactly what are we talking about when we say "Urban"? Does this include Suburbs? What size does a town have to be to be considered urban? Are you urban in the survival sense any time you live in or near a city limits sign?

When I think of urban I am mostly talking about mega-sized cities and really the apartment and high-rise lifestyle or the inner city parts surrounding this in the form of small cookie cutter lots and subdivision living that is so dense that there is no way that that many people could ever survive and live there without the influx of power, food, and water from outside the area.

What is "urban" to you?

 

One of the big problems that an urban survivalist will have to figure out is where they will get fuel for fire based heating and cooking. When that first winter comes trees are going to become valued possessions and over just a few years there will be fewer and fewer of them. If you find pictures of towns from around the turn of the century from 1800 to the 1900s you will note that the number of trees decreases the farther back you go. In order to have big cities, they had to have some other source of heat for their homes. Coal deliveries allowed more trees to survive. In the big northern cities, steam was a public utility. When all this stops and everyone has to go back to alternative wood-based heat wood is going to become as scarce as food and just as important.

By the second or third winter, people will be tearing down and burning the wood of abandoned homes. In 10 or 15 years a lot of the suburbs are going to look more like the prairies. The houses were burned for fuel or disassembled for building materials and the property converted to more agricultural purposes.

 

Meaningful survival in the inner cities will be almost impossible during the time of the "fall". Living in apartments just isn't going to be possible. 500 to a 1000 people living on a few acres just isn't possible. The accumulated garbage and sewage alone would make it uninhabitable plus apartments are not going to work for wood heating and will burn down.

the problem with the near suburbs is that these people are going to at some point come flooding out and it is going to be UGLY. They are going to be starving to death, thirsty and cold. Don't expect them to take no for an answer when they want your food water and shelter. Suburban people will need to to make themselves both unnotable and more trouble to mess with than the other places around them. It will be like the thing about being chased by a bear. You don't have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than another person that is also running from the bear.

Make your place look uninhabited. Threatening gang type spray paint graphics might be the best camouflage in some places.

 

If I were living in an urban area , I would be looking to purchase a survival property in a rural area even if I had no intention of moving there until SHTF . It might provide a nice getaway even in good times .

 

"Urban" is a fluid term from our perspective. The national authorities also use it with a fluid meaning. Illustrative: Rural health care and its emergency aspects are somewhat different than urban equivalents. It's a mess in routine, nice weather times. Consider when the stresses hit the systems.

A major urban city is New York City. Yet, next to JFK Int'l Airport is the bay, a near copy of Bayou country, Louisiana. ....although the entire JFK area has layers of patrols.

You're right that the "high-rise" housing environment presents geometric problems in disasters. At a SE regional area FEMA conference I met the attorney - a speaker at conference - who successfully sued NYC for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act. The city had (and acceptable to also use current tense) no viable plans or arrangements to evacuate - forgot number - to safety.

I contributed to a private sector high rise condo association emergency manual. One of my suggestions was to stockpile dozens of extra throw-away type work gloves. So much glass in the building, it was as dangerous as the storage of the HAZMAT stuff like propane cartridges, alcoholic beverages, disinfectants eg bleach.

Re heating / cooking; public emergency shelters. The problems worse than the need for warmth and food will be on display. Public health matters will cause more death and disease than malnutrition and frostbite.

Dan, I do not understand the meaning of "meaningful survival in the inner cities".

You did clarify everything with "going to be UGLY".

How do you say "social Darwinism" in a Texas accent like LBJ had ?!

 

To me "urban" means living within the city limits. Suburban is living within close proximity to the city limits, and rural is a short distance beyond the suburban range. All of this is relative to the size of the city. Cities like Houston or Los Angeles encompass a much larger "urban" area i.e. footprint than Seattle or Denver. Urban sprawl has created megacities such that you can't tell where one stops and the other starts.

Traditionally living areas have been divided into three categories; Urban, Suburban, and Rural. Personally, I would add another category which I would call Remote. In the Northeast you have to go a long way just to find Rural areas. Other areas, not so much. It is all dependent on the population density of the area. No matter where you are you have to prepare for the scenarios you are likely to face, but we are probably in agreement that the farther you are from the urban environment the better off you will be.

 

People generally concentrate on the first three horses of the apocalypse but in the end, the Rider of the pale 4th horse brought the plagues that followed the fighting, misery, and starvation of the first three. Typhoid, Cholera, Dysentery and all of the old forgotten plagues will come back in force when the sewage systems go down. People these days don't have a clue about avoiding these problems and also don't have strong enough immune systems to fight it like people used to.

Meaningful survival refers to the fact that there will be some people that will never leave the cities. I look for the Gangs to basically take over whatever there is left when the people with the sense and the means have left. Survival in a situation like that may be life but it isn't living if you are constantly in fear or your life and treated by the gangs like some kind of slave/animal. THAT is NOT a meaningful life!

Ugly will be when these people start to spread out from the inner city into the outer parts of the city and eventually into the suburbs. They will take what they want and kill people and use them like they were nothing. these are the creatures that think that it is COOL to drive down a street and shoot a little girl just to show how "bad" that they are.

What you call Social Darwinism we just call either TSTL "Too stupid to live" or Evolution in Action... Our current culture protects these people from any threat and lets them breed like rabbits. When the system falls they will die in mass.

 

I understand that urban technically means inside a city limits but in reality, there is a world of difference between living near New York City and living as I do in the suburbs of a city of about 500. We have cattle and hogs in pastures inside the "city" limits.

We will take where I live as an example of the gradient of different levels of urban. Where I live is tiny town suburbs, 15 miles east of me is a little city of about 5000. About 25 miles west of me is a city with between 30 and 45 thousand. Between the University and the Prisons, I'm really not sure of how many people actually live there. If you head south you enter into the Greater Houston Metroplex area starting with a city of about 75 thousand and then running through a bunch of cities that are what we call bedroom communities fo Houston. The work in Houston but live in the many smaller towns that surround it and sometimes end up surrounded by Houston. I am 90 miles or so from downtown Houston. The Houston area population is 2.3 million.

Are you urban no matter what the size of the town is in the sense of survivability? I assure you that where I am is thousands of times less urban than inner-city Houston. Even the larger town west of me isn't a very urban sort of place. Once again there are horses, cattle, and hogs living in the city. They even have apartments that include a stable and pastures for your horses. LOL, a Church in the edge of the little town to the East of me has a full-blown Rodeo arena and has a rodeo after services a couple of times a month. I have seen people on horseback in line at the drive through to the Dairy Queen right in the middle of town.

Urban means more than just an official city limits.

 

I don't see places as survivable or not, I see it more as a carrying capacity problem.
A single apartment block may have a thousand people there now but post a disaster may only be capable of supporting five.
So until the population of that building has dwindled to five or less there will be a problem.

Out of that thousand people at least a quarter will be on life sustaining meds so are gone in three months because of that alone, then there are those with some rural connection who will just bolt.
Then there are the young adults who will go out scavenging and never return
Numbers are getting slim now

Add internal disturbances etc and that thousand may now be just fifty after just a few months
Getting close to sustainable

 

Now you know I was being sarcastic re "meaningful survival in the inner cities".

I believe some of the forgotten "dread diseases" are already showing up. Add smallpox and those mosquito-carried diseases arriving here.

~ 90 miles from the central business district of Houston ...... and ~ 90 miles from New York City is about Shelter Island, Long Island area (going east from NYC). Going north is vicinity of New Paltz, West Point. The new crop of folks aren't into livestock but areas are rural. Several to many of the world class financial power houses of Manhattan have their emergency operations center in above mentioned satellite NYC area. There are also hydrofoil boat companies with arrangements, in case of emergency evacuation, to get the pinstripe suit executives outta town and back home.

 

TexDanm: You are rural. The only people who would consider you urban are the people who live in towns smaller than yours. I would consider myself suburban, and the town I live in is only about 4500. We are close enough to a major metropolitan area to be considered suburban. You are plenty far enough away from any city to be considered urban. How do you draw the line between village, town, city, metropolis? They are all pretty relative.

 

My definition of an "urban" area. Does the area have a StarBucks? A Barnes and Nobles? and or a mall? If yes to any of these questions and it is probably "urban" if it has 2 or all 3 then it is definitely "urban"

 

ROFL SOL, you made my day !

A Starbucks, a Barnes and Noble, - Love it !

 

To some extent, I look at it like this. If you measure your land in square feet you are urban. When that moves up to thousands of square feet you are suburban and when you start talking acres and square miles you are rural. It's also a little hard to feel like you are urban when you occasionally have cattle in the roads or streets. Having livestock whether it is cattle, horses, pigs, goats or the various birds living on your property is rural.

There is also a certain attitude that often seems to cross borders. Dallas and Fort Worth are sister cities but there is a very different nature. Dallas is an urban business sort of place while Fort Worth is much more rural in nature. Dallas is a city built on big business like banking and oil while Fort Worth had its roots in stockyards and the cattle industry.

The Dallas/Fort Worth area has nearly twice the population of the Houston/Galveston area even though Houston is the biggest city in Texas and number 4 in the US. Cities here are bigger in size though. New York is 301 square miles while Houston is 637 square miles and that makes a difference. 4 times the population in less than half of the size makes for impossible issues in a disaster.

 

In your first three posts, I pretty much agree with all you sad.

I differentiate urban and suburban -- and for reason. Urban rioting has rarely spread into the suburbs. I believe that when it royally hits the fan, the suburbs will NOT be spared. Already we are seeing the scum spill out into the 'burbs. A couple of home invasions occurred when I was living out 25 miles from a large urban area. These stuck in my mind because mothers and daughters were raped in front of each other. In one case, it was rape then murder. This caused an anger in me that may have caused changes in the orbit of the Earth. Can you say, "blind fury"?! I wanted to charge out and go on a vigilante killing spree. Understand that as a child, I had an uncle who, along with his buddies and the sheriff's deputies, would go out at night and "take care of things." My grandpap taught me to tie a hangman's noose when I was age five. They used those things, don't'cha'know. I have Pap's "used" revolver.

The cities are an out-and-out write-off. Maybe some could survive, but man'oh'man would I never want to be anywhere near that!

The suburbs adjacent to urban areas are going to be in for an Apocalyptic Purgatory Party. Why? We all know. They are in no way shape form or fashion prepared for much of anything. So maybe they might have a dozen cans of veggies, a half gallon of milk, some beer, a head of lettuce, some cheese slices, half a pint jar of dill pickles, maybe a full box of spaghetti, ..., three packs of matches, a BBQ grill and half bag of charcoal, four candles, no kerosene lamps unless they inherited one, but no kerosene, ... . Turn off their electricity and they'd pee themselves after two days. Send in looters and they'd run away or get stomped and raped. And if they ran away, they'd not have a place to go, and if so, they'd get trapped on the roads which will become giant parking lots.

 

TexDan has made a whole bunch of points that are very incisive. We are similar enough such that I know just what he means.

I live in a tiny town surrounded by agriculture. Unlike where I've lived before, the agriculture here is very diverse. The land is good. Restaurants and community groceries buy and sell locally grown vegetables of every ilk, plus people have their own gardens. Garden shops and green houses sell-out of product. You can buy fertilizer pooped locally. (This is the first time I have ever written the sentence I just wrote. I've used locally pooped horse manure in other places I've lived, however I now have a new phrase, "pooped locally". I'm not exactly proud of this, however it's good sometimes to think outside the box ... or horse stable.)

And people here fix there own truck engines and tractors, they do their own home repairs, ..., they are self-sufficient in nature. There is no shortage of apartments, however most folk live in houses with yards, and when you leave town, poof!, you are in agriculture or you are climbing a mountain road. My crippled son just came in from taking out the trash (the sun has set) and said that there was some 20 - 30 lb. critter lounging on our back porch bench. It lept off before he could identify its species. There's something that likes to stay under my out-building / tool-shed. I could walk from my house to national forest/mountains. Obviously critters come down to visit. And there is a river just a very short way away. People fish off the bridge.

My small town could see trouble, however >90% would not poop themselves were things to go sideways.

 

I think -- seeing that we're talking about a breakdown-in-the-infrastructure scenario -- that there's a big difference in the relative size (and potential danger) of any place whether it's urban, 'burban, or rural. You could be in a "rural" area within a 50-mile distance of a megapolis of ten million folks. That's less than a half-tank of gas, and Darwin knows how many gangbangers/panicked city people will be on your doorstep!

I live on the outskirts of a town called Kimberly with about four thousand people in it. It's surrounded by dairy, potato, sugar beet, hay, corn, etc. fields of about 40 acres or more with (typically) a small house on the roads surrounded by trees.* There's a small grocery chain, car repair shops, a couple of restaurants, and small doctors'/dentists' office. Ten miles away is Twin Falls, a city of about 40,000. It has the usual Wal-Mart, Home Depot, B&N, small college**, Starbux, and so on. It's also about six or seven miles off the Interstate, which is kind of nice. The nearest city of over 100,000 is Boise, 140 miles away, and the nearest city of over a million is the Salt Lake City metropolitan area (1.14M). SLC is 213 miles away.

Praise Gaia: we're just too remote!
___________________________________
* Of course, people are beginning to move out here from the bigger towns. There are even a couple of transplants from (gasp!) California!
** College of Southern Idaho -- Go, Golden Eagles!!

 

Don't neglect the corridors.

When a big enough emergency or disaster occurs, the "clearly"-defined urban-suburban-rural complexion changes.

The Houston - New Orleans corridor, with it's many rural areas between the cities, has national interest status (oil gas industry). Governmental resources will be allocated to this corridor to keep it functioning as best as possible. The rural areas of this corridor could be loaded with eg VA medical trailers (Private sector has a decent size fleet of rolling stock dental trailers for the critical labor force; not travelers). Watch the complexion change.

Hampton Roads, the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News conglomerate is the largest metro center between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. The "Navy Norfolk" corridor to D.C. is critical for national security matters. Watch the rural counties between Norfolk and D.C. lose their rural status during the emergency / disaster. The roads and waterways must be kept functioning. National security is on the priority list. Road access ? Gasoline rationing ? Population restrictions ? The corridor gets some priority.

Abilene - Odessa approaching El Paso retains its rural status.

Miami-Dade County is not all art deco hotels. It's next to an area with large snakes, small mosquitoes, the homeless, the drifters, the down and out,...

New York City has a huge segment of its population enrolled in the welfare programs. If and when the dialysis appointments end, the needle-exchange program minimized, electricity to the housing ?, How many mortuary trailers does this world financial capital have to properly handle the deceased ? Will there be the crews for the trailers ? I already know the answers but am placing this point here for thought and reflection for those not experienced in these specifics.

Things change to include immediate definitions of areas. Everything is dynamic and not static - unless, of course, factoring in the Abilene-Odessa zone.

Time to fill up the helium balloons for the party................

My mistake.

The party's over.

Get prepared !

 

Pragmatist: I have never heard of these corridors having special national interest. Are they a well guarded secret? I don't remember a corridor between Houston and New Orleans getting special attention during Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Harvey. Can you elaborate?

 

Morgan,

Anything that's well guarded I wouldn't know about.

Ref the Houston-NO corridor. Under emergency conditions-which allows for the funding-plans were exercised to ensure the oil/gas industry was properly addressed. Energy is the protoplasm of society.

My favorite illustration is the Deep Water Horizon blowout. As much as retiring (in process) USCG Admiral Thad ____ was in charge - 15 incident commanders reported to him; 10 from public sector, 5 from private sector, the Admiral had a personal staff of 300-350,.

Besides daily/hourly monitoring by the White House, NYMEX was present at disaster scene. NYMEX = New York Mercantile Exchange - NYMEX sets the daily oil prices on Wall Street.

It takes more than a casual glance but when time permits, check out:

"National Response Framework"
"Emergency Support Function Annexes"
"National Incident Management System"

Morgan, some conveyance carrying nuclear fuel from A to B and a natural or person-made (gender-neutral terminology) emergency or disaster occurs will get much attention and response. Our country has problems but they're slowly being rectified.

Meanwhile, back at Waffle House.......That's where you'll find out what's really happening.

 

There are several things involved here. First, off it will matter a lot what exactly will cause the fall, If it is just a massive power loss there will be a slow buildup of the disaster. Water will continue to flow for a little while. The cars will have some gas in them and keep working and that will allow people to move about and keep panic to a minimum. I have no doubt that the trash in the inner city will take it as an excuse to riot and loot their neighborhoods. In the past, this has not generally spread out of their areas.

The reason it will spread is simple. Very few large stores exist in ghettos! The inner city has a huge number of people per square miles that isn't balanced by a similarly huge number of big-name grocery stores. You usually tend to have more small mom and pop type stores that will be robbed and emptied in a hurry and then probably burned. This is what we have seen in the past when the trash riots.

Our in the suburbs you have much fewer people per square mile and that is where you have the malls, and the big box stores and big chain grocery stores. After the first week or as soon as the food supplies are gone they will have to go further out to find food. If this is a slow-motion disaster where the government can truck in food for a little while it will help. they will burn up their fuel in their area and when the collapse finishes and the government supply trucks stop showing up they will be on foot and that will slow and reduce the effect of their migration because first they will kill each other and their numbers will be reduced. This has also been seen in the past when there have been riots or even natural disasters.

If on the other hand if the disaster is sudden and total the panic will spread like wildfire and the trash will come flooding out in mass. Because they won't have time to waste their fuel they will be able to spread their violence. The food problem, in this case, is not the motivating factor.

It is rather that we have allowed corruption to thrive for so long that is only contained in the sense that they mostly stay in a foul their home areas. When the restraints go down they are going to SPREAD. In the past, they have stayed in their areas because they know that as long as they only riot in their area the authorities won't do anything. If they were to go out into the suburbs the response would be totally different. For one thing, the people in the suburbs are not going to take it well and will probably defend their homes. The authorities will also respond with more than threats and tear gas so in normal times this has never happened.

If there are no authorities the streets will run like rivers with blood. I suspect that in the end, the people that will be coming out of the suburbs into the more rural areas will be more the refugees of the suburbs that a continuation of the trash from the inner city. The trash is going to continually be killing each other. They also are not the type of people that plan or think ahead very far. When they managed to chase the people out of a suburban area they are going to stop and stay there until they have made it as destitute and trashed as the inner city that they left.

With each move, there will be fewer and fewer of them as they suffer losses from the resistance from the people that they are taking new territory from and from internal killings as they fight over things among themselves. By the time that they get to the more rural areas the people that live there will be a new sort of people that will be prepared and ready. they have already tended to their trouble makers and will have no more mercy on the trash than they would a pack of rabid dogs...that will be the end of trach until the next time we let them breed and we support them in their animalistic lifestyles.

Now, about the people of the suburbs that are forced to flee. If this can be put off a little while it won't be as bad as the flood from the inner cities into the suburbs. For one thing, the suburbs are less densely populated as the inner cities were and the areas that they are moving into are not nearly as populated. Theoretically, there is room for them in the rural areas. What good are 500 acres of corn if you can't harvest it and even if you do there is no way to sell it or transport it to where it is needed?

Where I live we have more cattle, goats, pigs, and chickens than we can eat. Without powered machines or even lots of horses to pull plows 1000 acre farms are impossible. 25 acres can totally support a big family with ease. Two or three acres of garden and the rest as pasture land and they have all the food that they can eat plus some for trade material.

At the end of a year or so all the people dependent on medicines to live will be gone. A lot of the older people are just not going to be able to deal with a harder hand to mouth lifestyle and are going to die. A lot of people are going to be unable to deal with their fears and worries and will commit suicide and some are going to die a violent death. In the end, there will be plenty of room for the survivors to spread out and live.

Some will make their living with their skills. Some will farms and ranch As things settle many of the old skills and trades will be reborn. Coopers, Smiths, Cobblers, Tailors, Weavers, and so many other Names will again become professions. I suspect that it will take a couple of generations before technology will again start to arise. I hope that they will learn from our mistakes but I actually doubt it.

 

Good morning all,

I want to add something to clarify. I understand the above posts but some readers arriving at MSF.com might not / probably not.

Under the classical "All things being equal, the best....": Of course a rural location residence is usually on the top of the list. "Usually" because rural areas like Skull Canyon, Utah, with nearby testing of certain matters, isn't the best locale.

Yet, disaster preparedness is NOT a function of topographic geography. One can live in a rural area, like I do, and neglect or refuse to prepare. Sometimes, with the aging process at work, some must relocate to an area that can support their aging infirmity. When then do not, currently, (I anticipate a MAJOR change) many rescue workers are diverted from the uncertainties of life to rescue these people.

One can prepare for disasters and worst while living in an apartment or condo in an urban area. In my earlier years I've done this and the place was safe for sheltering and for evacuating.

I do volunteer responder work and deal with many doctors and dentists. Many of 'em live in condos in urban areas. Their living arrangements are augmented with much preparation for disasters, both natural and semi-human trash events.

It's about the same for the post WWII surburb areas.

Less the geographic location as most important, it is the - support system - that is developed. This was thoroughly learned in the Fukushima 11 March 2011 and onward disaster, response and recovery (still going on). It was thoroughly learned by those who wanted to learn "best practices" and not learned by the subsidized socialists living off of others 'hard work and money.

Like the adage says: "Where one can live, one can live well".

I already mentioned here that I was asked to help someone enhance their high rise condo association's emergency manual.

Yesterday, someone at my veterans' meeting said he's moving to a new apartment high rise apartment building in near downtown Phoenix, Arizona. He asked me to help him prep a preparedness list. I'm one third finished by this PM.

...

Lone Wolf, The Brit's, like the Americans' emergency stockpiles and "cache" are part of the support system. They are protected and protection not by moral suasion.

...

Thus, the need to develop and constantly refine one's support system. That's why clubs/ societies/associations are important. I am not referring the pro forma ones; the real ones. They used to be vibrant and then went into decay. Slowly we're rehabilitating our society.

 

Good afternoon Lone Wolf,

I was referring to your mentioned "distribution depots...(Morrisons depot is near...)". My reference was to mention that the distribution centers are guarded security zones. Most are public-sector; some are private-sector with "arrangements".

Your follow-on post regarding your exclusive ownership, possession and use of your emergency stockpile is NOT exclusive.

If your inventory is eg an extra 100 dozen cans of sardines ... the matter is below even nominal.

If a private person's emergency stockpile perhaps contains eg a couple of halon fire extinguisher systems for an oil rig (I'm from the oil industry; Prestwick Airport is super !) or perhaps a case of lawfully owned oxygen candles ... and the authorities have a dire need or want,.. can, in some circumstances, "requisition" aforesaid. An official receipt will be issued.

I had an indirect experience with a scenario involving a 20 ft on a motor chassis dental trailer (Br English: caravan). The box was "climate-controlled" and built for road haul, air lift and sea lift. An area county passed a regulation that no rolling stock could be present on private property. Follow-on arrangements ensured none of these dental trailers were present in the enlightened jurisdiction. A note: So here we have dentists providing volunteer professional labor to segments of the public, eg responders, people like preparedness folks who evacuate to their cabin in the hills and get hurt enroute, and you know the rest of the stories.

We finally have a political team addressing matters like this nonsense. It does take time and D.C. is even built on a swamp.

I am now in the mood for an English muffin and instead of with sardines: herring - but not red. My British colleagues told me stories.

 

Good afternoon Lone Wolf,

*** This post might not be completed. I'm under a thunderstorm watch and this closes down my connection for this new-fangled telegraph key. ***

......

If all Hades breaks out, US roads can be closed and traffic restricted to certain categories of vehicles eg ambulances, gasoline trucks. If there are rioters enroute to supply depots, law enforcement officers can be placed there.

All above is, of course, in theory. Flooding closes roads and all the et cetra.

In theory all above done at the lowest political level ... in reality, much is coordinated with the state and Federal counterpart authorities.

Don't you have the basically exact same arrangements under your Civil Contingency Act or what ever new name assigned to the devolved government emergency/disaster procedures ?

Still, all private citizens must be prepared as best they can because all this is a real mess.

...

My other point was that some private citizen with, for example, industrial supplies or medical equipment, can be requisitioned by governmental authorities. I cannot speak for the Wales situation but here the plans have been used and they do work. Again: a real mess. Also, again, all private citizens must prepare for realistic, worst case situations.

...

So far no storm; just scary thunder and email alerts - thus a bit more of scribbling here: A weak link here in the States...all this is my personal opinion only...is medical care, specifically advanced life support. This is the level above the Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts care of broken bones, CPR. Here in Virginia law enforcement is basically good during emergencies. A police or Sheriff's car would be accompanying a gasoline truck if situation warranted it. A main reason for the good law enforcement is because the military is around the Chesapeake Bay and they get much priority.

 

Lone Wolf, you have mentioned people driving around with very little fuel in their cars and trucks. I suspect that that is more of an area type thing than national. People that live in an urban area often act like a 15-mile drive is a long voyage. this is true anywhere I suspect. the farther out from those urban centers the more likely you are to keep your vehicles filled. Texas is big and people are spread out even in the big cities. NYC has 4 times the population of Houston but is less than half as big. Houston has the biggest metropolitan population in Texas but is not the biggest metropolitan area in size. If you are going to go very far even in Houston you will need a lot of gas. the city alone is 627 square miles. That is 1,624 square Kilometers.

Most of Texas has little to NO mass transit of any kind so we drive a lot and don't mind driving what other people consider extremely long distances to work or to play and shop. When there is a storm brewing in the gulf we keep our cars full. I used to keep about 55 gallons on hand most of the time. Most of our trucks have more than one tank on them.

If urban people did this they wouldn't end up in a traffic jam that just stops moving because people run out of gas. the thing that I have noticed about city folks is that they are so used to having a convenience store and gas station every three blocks that they don't ever feel the need to have much of anything "on hand". They will evacuate with a soft drink and a bag of chips in a car with a quarter tank of gas because they can't imagine being someplace where gas or food is not nearby.

If you are going to evacuate you need to cover all the bases. I carry water in gallons and bottles, I have a filter too. I have a tent, bedrolls, spare clothes often with air mattresses. I have a gun, an ax, a trenching tool, and a big kukri. If I get stuck in one of those traffic jams I will pull over and camp rather than sit there like an idiot until my car runs out of gas or overheats. I also am going to have SEVERAL hundred dollars in coin and small bills. You want GOOD detailed maps so if you have to hunt alternative ways to go you can plan them.

 

Lone Wolf,

That weight matter with the gasoline load is applicable to long range aircraft. The more fuel load, the less load of cargo, passengers or combination.

For cars, soccer mom vans, pickup trucks, the fuel load is nominal.

Note that stuck in traffic consumes fuel.

Something indirectly related; Those green vests seen by the protesters in France are a requirement in case stranded and walking along side road. I was told the French protesters wore the vests to their demonstrations to inherently explain the economic circumstances of the economic situation requires them to drive to work because they can't afford to live in the "nice" neighborhoods.

At least the French motor safety officials are concerned about their citizenry's safety.

 

Here in quasi isolated British Columbia Canada, very few people drive around town with less than 1/2 tank. Most everyone fills before they go out on the Hilary. The exceptions are the very young, and the very poor. Out on the highway most locals carry an extra set of seasonal clothing, water and some food. With one highway in and out of town wn, which can be closed by traffic, forest fires, mud slides etc it would be crazy not to.

 

I used to have a big pickup. It had two gas tanks. The driver's side dashboard had a switch that determined which tank was operative. The fuel gauge metered the operative tank.

In winter if not carrying a heavy load, I'd keep both tanks near full so as to add weight atop my rear wheels. Plus, I built a wooden frame to hold cap blocks in the truck's bed directly over the rear wheels. When the weather went to heavy snow and ice storms, I'd mount studded snow tires in the rear. These studs are tiny metal spikes that are embedded in the tire tread. This was in Southern Appalachia, up in the hills, but not in the worst of places. People who lived way up in the hollars often had 4-wheelers ... such was the case with my cousins who lived where most folk would not even attempt to enter.

Back in the early 1970s, the Forestry Service's 4-wheeler percentage among all of its trucks was low (maybe we had two in our workcamp, the rest were 2-wheelers/regular). This being in the Cherokee National Forest. The 4-wheelers were for areas where, quite frankly, I wasn't too keen on going. I was a kid and valued staying alive much more than I do now. I've been in full pucker mode when atop ridges with little or no road to be had and the weather horrid. When you look off to the side and see that the drop is >300 yrds of bouncy-bouncy flipity-flipity-flip, you think you're gonna bite off a piece of the seat.

In the MidWest, many folk use studded snow tires, plus keep full fuel tanks. It's ice all winter. One thing about it, the MidWest is _f_l_a_t_. Don't want to go off into a serious ditch -- don't get me wrong.

Don't think that studded tires are some sort of Jesus-salvation. They just raise the odds in your favor.

 

Building on what @Old Geezer said. Studded tires and four wheel drives are great tools but they can get you Farm more stuck than not having them ever did.

 

I was on a mountain road ... stuck. I was not alone. Several other stuck truck folk helped me. I spun a tire. Rocks flew and maybe even some studs flew out of the tread. A guy pushing my car got "strafed". I felt terrible. We finally got it out. I needed a winch.

Ice night, flat road, studded snow tires, everything OK, car begins to spin, no sound or feel of losing traction, just an Olympic skating routine with an automobile, turning steering wheel just a sad joke, here comes Mr. TelephonePole, not good, miss pole by 7.3576 inches.

... And dozens more stories of the Fates having their fun with me and my "solutions" to icy roads. Quite frankly, I cannot remember being particularly amused during any of these events.

Do I have a winch in my vehicle today? Yes.

Do I ever have a wench in my vehicle? I am now rather old for such activities. Dim memories do flood in. The Fates are at it again.

 

There is a rule that no matter how long the winch cable is, the nearest suitable attaching point is 5 feet further.

Every first time 4x4 owner I know (including me) seems to think it means they can go anywhere and ends up so stuck it is going to take hours at a minimum to get out. I have seen more than one require a D8 cat to hook on and pull them out. Mind you I have also driven some muskeg ‘roads’ that had Cats stationed just to make sure you could get by. Typically that was on winter ice roads as the thaw was beginning to happen

 

Forestry Dept.; jeep slides off walking trail (let's not go into that); mountain side; very dangerous location / horrid "slope of doom"; forestry winch was available and more than robust enough to get this done; no pulley -- let me repeat, no pulley; profoundly awkward angle; we had to run the steel cable around a tiny tree, maybe one foot diameter; tree trunk becomes pulley; successfully extract jeep; old-guard foresters so angry at driver, I thought he might get beaten-up; no one got hurt ... humans that is. The cable had cut over half the way through the tree. Poor tree.



The pulley I keep in my SUV is more robust that the one I show above, however the pulley has a side-opening mechanism that allows the easy threading of rope or cable. Put the line in, then lock back the side plate. The photo above shows a pulley that is NOT adequate for heavy jobs. If the pulley is inadequate, somebody is going to get hurt ... or worse.

For those reading this who have not worked with this sort of equipment, know that when wrapped steel cable breaks, it unwraps. Actually the better word would be "explodes". If any part of that steel strikes you, it will lay you wide open -- can go through the meat into the bone. What to do? What I've done, what I've learned from those who routinely have to run steel cables, is to wrap the steel cables in thick manila rope. If it explodes, the cable strands are contained inside the loops of rope surrounding ... hopefully. I don't like working with high tension anything.

I'm editing this and adding some safety info. Even back 45 years ago we ALWAYS used safety equipment, hard hats, steel toed boots (got a pair today), thick leather gloves, we had shin-guards, ... . I keep leather gloves in my vehicle toolbox; I have several pair of gloves (I've worn them out cutting firewood), they are all over the place actually. Working outdoors doing medium-sized work and above, you can get hurt and hurt bad. Guys who do this sort of labor, year in and year out, have nasty scars and healed bones. Injury happens in a microsecond. Trees when cut can kick back off the stump and will snap your leg as if it were a dry twig. In the name of God, keep this in mind!

Safety equip. + having an exit path cleared of everything = staying alive.

 

Men who do serious chainsaw work, and perpetually so, wear chainsaw chaps. When I was a kid working up in the mountains, the big guys with the monster chainsaws wore huge/heavy leather chaps. We have better materials in this day and age.

I knew one guy, amateur, who nearly cut through his quadriceps. Surgeons had to rebuild his upper leg. Knew a guy, amateur, who caught a chainsaw to his face when the thing kicked back -- big nasty scar under his eye. One inch higher and it would have torn out his eye.







https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-563474-Chainsaw-Safety-Protective/dp/B016YVOHPM

Yes, they make safety helmets with heavy-duty face shields for workers who use chainsaws. This rig looks like it wouldn't fog up. I use safety goggles -- inadequate, but they keep flying chips out of my eyes. The goggles I use fog-up. And my hearing is shot-out. I'm getting too old for this sh##.

 

In an urban environment, using a chainsaw would be like ringing the dinner bell for every piece of "human" trash in at least a 1 mile radius.

 

You've hit the nail on the head.

This is the long and short of it all. One cannot survive amongst hordes of people who are more addicted to electricity than a heroin addict is to his needle and spoon. And this is but one addiction among the urbanites! Zombie apocalypse, maybe the premise isn't so far off the mark.

We've all seen and heard the chaos that explodes in urban areas over pathetic issues. In the Western world, racial and political tensions are now at the point of blowing loose and in an unimaginable way. The riots of Los Angeles 1992 and England 2011 were, in my estimation, super-petty events compared to what is coming. And chaos IS on its way!

One can be the best swimmer on Earth, however one cannot swim within a tidal wave. You get crushed.

Stay out of the cities. End of discussion.

 

LOL, that reminds me of the old Larry Niven novel "Lucifer's Hammer". A surfer got caught up in a tidal wave. It didn't end well for him. He probably set all kinds of surfing records.