HJL,
Regarding grain storage buildings, the danger of corn piles/storage is when corn is being removed from the bottom of the pile. As with an electric auger when filling a semi trailer, the pile then begins to flow and one will be “sucked” through the pile. Otherwise, this is not an issue. With no electricity, removing grain from a 100000 bushel bin will be by scoop shovel (not a threat of entrapment).
A pile of grain will “suck the heat” out of you, as will a bed of ice or a mud bog. Put insulation under your bag. Grain storage structures provide weathertite/varmint protection but are uninsulated and with limited observation points (so they’re vulnerable). It will be cold camping in the winter, but it’s much better than a city or in the open.
Post harvest (thru the following summer) there are billions of bushels of corn/soybeans/et cetera in storage in bins at every farm/small town in the Midwest. Also millions of pigs, chickens, and cows trapped in confinement breeding/feeding buildings. If you get here from your urban cesspool, there will be food. It will not be a diverse well-balanced inventory, and this remains as some farmer wealth. This is not Ma/Pa Kettle “numb skulls”. These guys are running multi-million dollar operations.
This is rural America where every house has multiple firearms. Most of the farmers under 50 have AR, Barrett, et cetera on hand. In a good year on the farm, they can buy them as a tax deductible “business expense” (for varmit control). Older guys will have bolt/lever action and all have handguns. So choose wisely.
Recently the Obumer administration has determined that the Chicago metro area extends thru the center of Iowa and are forced (forcing cities to accept) resettling the professional welfare class for Chicago. They all have coattails to the city that will be hungry and migrating West to join their buds. So, even in small cities you may encounter the same packs of two-legged predators that previously might have been limited to the metro area. – R.S.