Hello Jim:
After doing Industrial Security in some of the roughest English Industrial Towns, we found that “moating” vulnerable doors and walls against heavy equipment traffic was a great help in preventing the equipment from prizing open doors, or more simply being run backwards through the doors and walls. The floors at the man doors and protected vehicle doors had a two foot deep by three-to-four foot wide ditch dug and a light weight (two inch in many cases) concrete topping poured over an infill of mostly styrofoam bead.
When we needed to bridge in with heavy gear we used overlaying steel [trenching] plates to spread the load, but if a forklift ventured on the spot-loading would break through and the lift would go down.
Our inspiration was a rural 19th century US Postal Service post office construction technique of having a small concrete island under the floor safe, surrounded by flooring & joists purposely sized too lightly for the safe to be dragged away – the safe would fall 10 feet into the cellar if rolled off of the concrete island. 73s, – Steve W
Mr. Rawles;
I enjoyed reading tonight about the prospect of “hunkering down in a commercial building”. We have two warehouses and actually live in one of them! No one has any idea, either! You cannot tell from looking at them. They are located on a short dead end street, so there is no traffic to speak of. There is land between the two buildings that I will begin to garden this spring. I would love to be on 20 acres somewhere way out of town, but this is where we are now. It is convenient and close to everything that we do. We also have a location out of town on several acres to go to when the Schumer Hits the Fan. Sincerely, – Mrs. Downtown
Mr. Rawles,
Just wanted to point out that if you follow this gentleman’s advice in regards to this line: “If outdoor growth is not a viable option, try indoor crop growth with lamps, skylights, or mirrors. As growing things indoors can be difficult at first, it may be good to practice this well in advance of the need to do it for your life.”
That, I am fairly certain that if you have a moderately clandestine location with a large indoor growing operation you are at way more risk for a [police] SWAT raid than of TEOTWAWKI in the (very) near future. If the feds find a bunch of grow lights etc. (and especially if they are associated with stockpiles of food, weapons, and preparedness supplies) there is no way they wouldn’t prosecute for a drug crime, confiscate all money and goods (they don’t even need to prosecute to keep it — you have to prove it wasn’t drug money). Even if no illegal drugs are found the lights and equipment are considered “drug paraphernalia” for the purposes of prosecution. That could be tough to explain. – Bill B.