Years ago, as a young man, I was impacted by the 1970s gasoline crisis, making for long gas station lines and the accompanying angst, which was preceded by a few years by a strange market-driven meat-shortage. I remember that episode resulted in ground beef prices soaring, and even companies coming out with “textured soy protein” mixes in cartons as a substitute. That series of events probably steered me into the emerging survivalist-prepper culture, and ever since then, I’ve always had a full pantry of tuna, beans, bullets, and water wherever I went. I carried that mindset over to my career in law enforcement, by keeping a case of MREs in my patrol car trunk, those courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service fire crews, who rotated them out and into my care, from time to time. I worked in the California high country, with a large portion of Yosemite National Park in our county, and thousands of acres of wilderness to rescue “tourons” [“tourist morons”] from their ignorance-predicated calamities. We also had our share of small airplane crashes, and a couple of brushes with serial killers, kidnappers, and bank robbers, who thought the remoteness made for a good hiding place. I was active as a Range Master, and Tactical Team leader, and added skills learned while participating in those training regimens to my tracking, and woodsmanship experience growing up in the rural american southland. A job-related injury, and development of PTSD, led me to retire somewhat early on a partial disability, and I started working in the medical field, adding even more knowledge and skills to my prepper base.
Dissatisfied with the anti-gun and liberal political environment in California, I moved to the elk and salmon saturated serenity of the Pacific northwest coast. I am active in the local CERT program, and my wife is a county law enforcement officer. This area is well suited for my brand of prepping, as the ocean water temperature of mid-50s, moderates the daily air temps throughout the year. For example, the winters are very mild, although windy and rainy, yet we rarely get frost, icy roads, or snow. In fact, wood stoves, or wall space heaters are the norm, and nobody I know has an air conditioner as the summer daily temps are upper 60s to near 80. The grass needs to be mowed almost all year round, and though it requires short-growing season hybrid tomato sets for that crop, cole, potato, cruciferous, and root crops flourish with the addition of “hoop-style” plastic covered hot house-type gardens year-round. If you want temps a bit warmer, simply relocating inland 5-to-8 miles produces daily summer temperature lows of the upper 40’s to highs in the 80’s. Winter temps are comparatively in the mid-south range, with occasional light snows, and mid-40s highs. Water is not a problem, as the winter and spring provide an abundance of rain water for collection and storage, yet the summers are warm, mild and dry. Fishing, and hunting are a huge part of the culture, and many duck hunt, smoke salmon, venison or game , and families have an elk camp, or tradition of deer hunting, clamming or halibut fishing as well. Firearms laws are fairly generous, Oregon is a “shall issue” state for concealed carry, and there are no restrictions on high-cap magazines, permitted suppressors, or full-auto/select fire semi-auto rifles. Open carry is permitted, and I see folks packing on occasions, more so especially the farther east one travels in the state.
In my particular area of the central coast, the “golden hordes” would have to have a full tank of gas to get here, and I believe the local sheriffs policy would be to secure the roads into the county with check-points, and “hunker down”. The roads coming into the area run through many miles of wilderness, and the entry points are down to two, from the east, and one each from the north and south. The Pacific coast itself is a rugged barrier to the west. This area has mountains running down to the seashore, and earthquakes and related tsunamis would affect us only minimally mainly with potentially taking out one main coastal north-south bay bridge, but there are other alternate routes in that locals know and would use in that case. Our house sits at near 200 feet of elevation, and I can drive 5 minutes and be 1,000 feet higher. There are no potential megavolcanoes in our back yard, unlike the areas around Yellowstone, although the northwest does have numerous dormant an one semi-active one, and we are far away from any ash or nuclear bomb-generated wind-blown radiation paths.
Living here, with all of my neighbors with whom I’ve dialogued about a SHTF scenario being on-board the “hunker-down and watch each others back” plan, we can survive quite well. I can supply my household with plenty of fresh water, walk 200 yards down the hill to the beach, gathering blackberries,and by fishing, foraging for shellfish, or Dungeness crab, come home every day with food for my family and neighbors. If I choose to bug out, my trailer is stocked and numerous gravel roads shoot off into miles of forest less than five minutes from my front door. I believe that in a TEOTWAWKI scenario, the fishing industry here will be a source of food, trade, and an economic boon, after a Dollar crash, supplying those items to the rest of America, along with firewood and hydro power. Back to the local CERT teams, operated by each local fire department, they are all tied in to the county-wide EMS structure which is a fine-tuned, well-oiled and managed system. They train constantly, and have ham-backups for any comm. breakdowns, or power outages. If you join them and take the training, you are issued a “kit” with vital handie-talkie radio, and emergency equipment, valuable in a TEOTWAWKI scenario, and you are “in the loop” for intel and supplies if that happens.
As to the power grid issue, the northwest’s power is almost totally generated by dams on the Columbia River, and are well maintained and should continue running in most scenarios. Unlike my experiences with the reliability of electric power in California, and West Virginia, I’ve yet to have a storm knock out the power in any home I’ve lived in here for more than a ‘flickering” moment in the past 9 years! Wind affords many hobby-opportunists the ability to generate power virtually year-round, and I’m working on that project accumulating the parts for a windmill/battery bank set-up. [JWR Adds: With photovoltaic panel prices still falling to below $1 per watt, I do not recommend wind generators for anyone living south of the Arctic Circle. They are just too expensive, have low, sporadic yields, and most of them are mechanically unreliable.]
My wife and I have participated for many years in cowboy action shooting, and I have a complete reloading set-up for many pistol and rifle calibers, along with a supply of bullets, primers, shot, and powder for use and barter. So, in wrapping up my picture of the Oregon coast as a great prepper location, let me say I’m surprised that it’s not included in recommendations for preppers to relocate here along with “American Redoubt” areas of Idaho, Eastern-Washington, Eastern-Oregon, Wyoming, and Montana.
This truly is God’s country, and he has blessed us in living here, with a land of bounty and protection. I’m not saying that I’ll be eating Dungeness crab and baked potatoes while I hunker down by my wood stove post-TEOTWAWKI, but I can virtually guarantee that my family and neighbors will have plenty of water, heat, shelter and food that living elsewhere, even in the much-touted “Redoubt”, would come only with much more struggle and effort.