Hi HJL and JWR,
The Harsh Truth About Bugging Out of Cities was an awesome article. Patrice Lewis definitely addresses the knowns, the unknowns, known unknowns, and unknown-unknowns in her article! I totally agree, based on the same data that she and her husband are looking at that most people won’t make it out of the cities alive.
As a collapse theorist myself, if we do indeed have a fast crash (as compared to the slow one we’re currently in), I believe that the current societal trends– the suicides, the mass-shootings, overdoses of legal and illegal drugs, et cetera– would simply skyrocket. (Portland, Oregon alone has on average one illegal drug overdose death each day.)
As a matter of fact, I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my first novel that involves a married survivalist couple who bug-in in suburbia. Their success involves their tactical food growing operations, the force-multipliers they use for perimeter defense, et cetera.
Also, I’ve started my own civilizational decline/collapse/preparedness meetup group, through meetups.com, if you folks know anyone in the Vancouver, Washington/Portland Oregon area. Cheers, – J.Hi,
o o o
JWR:
After reading the article by Patrice Lewis on the Golden Horde, I have a comment. The one item that very few people are likely to have in great abundance after a SHF event is water. Even fewer people have or know of a way to purify water. Our bodies are so used to drinking pure water that water-bourne diseases are likely to make a VERY quick comeback in a SHTF scenario. Many of those millions of people who are in the cities will not make it out alive, if there is no way for them to obtain clean water or to purify water. Within a couple of days of even low level physical activity very few people will be capable of doing anything, if they do not have a supply of clean drinking water.
Now think of the people you know. Who is fit enough to walk 10 to 20 miles every day? Who can do that with several gallons of water strapped to their backs? Not many, I would guess. Then, virtually all of those lovely streams that these people will have to bend to drink at have bad microbes lurking in them on an average day. After the horde begins to move and sanitation is at its lowest level ever, this problem will only increase, especially once people start to die or have diahrea in locations that are upstream from where others are drinking. I believe the die-off will follow a VERY steep bell curve. Within a week of any SHTF event, a huge segment of the population will be dead or dying from either lack of water or from drinking contaminated water. Very few will be capable of anything that resembles combat. Anyhow, that’s my $0.02 worth.
All the best, Tim P.