ColdClimatePrepper – at 14:18 suggested, I would expect the cities to self evacuate in a prolonged power outage. People will have no choice but to leave, if indeed they can get transportation out … and to where?
This may happen, at least in many parts of the world. What could be done? Has this been discussed in other threads? If so, please redirect me and close this thread. If not, maybe this is worth pursuing.
Or maybe it’s not flu related.
Sorry to be dense, but why leave? Why would a certain city have power outtages and not cities elsewhere? I live in a city. If the power goes out I would stay if my only concern is whether or not I have power. (I might decide to leave for other reasons—food, crime, etc, but not power.) It has been my experience that the power companies focus on bringing back on the power for the largest population centers first. It sounds very bad when they announce — “500 thousand customers are without power.” So they try to get those numbers down first by focusing on the lines to high-population areas.
I don’t see how evacuating cities will help anything. If the R0 is large enough for there to be a true pandemic, it will spread very fast in today’s high-speed transportation interconnected society. Thus there would be no place to evacuate the people to since in all likelihood everywhere will be hit about the same and at near the same time. It just doesn’t make since to expend valuable fuel and resources to move a (possibly sick) group where there is water systems, sewage systems, supply networks, shelter and other infrastructure to where there is non. The only areas where a large population could be supported are other larger cities and it is most likely they will have the same problems.
why leave?
:-( I can think of one unpleasant possibility (probably brought up earlier by someone on the Wiki); fire that gets out of control and causes an urban (or suburban) firestorm?
(Or, if mob mentality rumor says that there is somewhere to go that has what people lack - even if there isn’t?)
To me, fire and crime would be the only logical reasons to leave, but there will probably be a lot of both. (I still remember Watts and the Washington DC riots, among others.)
The big problem on top of all this is that it will probably take the non-preppers a week or so to figure out that the power ISNT coming back on and by that time, there wont be any fuel for transportation anyway. I would expect that gasoline and diesel would be top priority for government rationing or withholding for military or emergency services. So people will be sick, stuck, and starving.
If you are even considering relocating, do it at the first hint of trouble. Dont wait until your back is against the wall. You probably wont be able to get out.
crfullmoon – at 18:16 mob rumor-
If the “mob” says go south, I would stay or go north.
SaddleTramp – at 18:28 Dont wait
Yes, and be sure you know where you are going. Remember, sooner or later, about 1/4 of the city will be trying to leave as well and will be “on your heels”.
Anybody on MY heels better have tracked vehicles and be crossed with a billy goat and a porpoise. THey don’t call us “mountaineers” for nothing.
And Anonymouse, I am afraid that you are a bit dense. You are assuming that the power is coming back on. That may not be the case, and as has already been pointed out. Fortunately for those who leave early, those who leave late will have some real problems trying to get out.
Why leave? Because people will be hungry and thirsty and scared. If social order breaks down, and there is little food, and little potable water, I think many will take to the roads, either by car, bicycle or by foot. They will travel to find food, escape the violence, and basically look for better conditions. They may also try to flee the flu itself, if it is in their city.
As you all mention, it won’t be logical. Its not likely there will be much more food in the suburbs, but I still think people will migrate.
The other option for people may be to quietly starve to death, or die of water born disease, or the flu, or the violence if there is a lot of looting and stealing of other people’s supplies.
It may get very ugly. Our society is a house of cards. “Civilization” may be just an illusion.
I think any city that has gang issues will see a loss of residents. People will be hungry and wanting to live the “high life” in the neigboring “rich” towns. We have gangs in cities all around us, maybe 10 - 20 miles. I expect this will be a major issue.
Sorry for the pessimism everyone. Its just that as a biologist, I see the capacity for humanity to devolve to its most basic survival mode.
Think about how you would react: no food, dirty water, sewage everywhere, your kids are crying. Do you sit still and hope for a rescue you know is not coming, while your kids starve, or do you go somewhere and try to find something, anything to eat?
The instinct to fight for survival is extremely strong. Strong enough to overpower reason, and make peaceful people into fighters. Many won’t have the luxury of sticking to their principles, what ever those were before the crisis, in terms of acting civilized. The strongest drive is the drive to live, and to protect your family.
People live in the country for many reasons. One of which is to get away from the craziness of the city, the number of people and the city attitudes. Not sure what kind of reception you would expect from a well prepared, fairly self sufficient (as most country folks are) country family as they watch the city folks comming into town looking desperate.
If the electricty goes out for a certain length of time — not sure how long — I expect that there will be no water coming to me here in the close suburbs of Washington DC. As I understand it, water is pumped to our town via electrical pumps. No electricit = no water.
After a certain number of days, I would expect to see everyone mobile in the city attempting to congrgate near whatever water sources there were. River, stream, reservoir. Whatever they could get to by whatever means they could reach it.
I am in a low population area. We have 23 houses on a small community water system (mountain spring tapped below surface). We have 7 full time families. We do fine most of the time. However, during the 4th of July and Memorial day holidays the “part timers” come to their “vacation” cabins. Well it takes about 1 to 2 months of storing water in our large community tanks to have enough water for those “part timers” on those holidays. My guess is that some of those will be thinking they will just ride it all out in their cabins. But if they all try- there will not be enough water- they will be in for a shock. So the first few people might be welcomed, but a city full- no way.
I don’t expect to have either water or power supplied to my rural position. I would not welcome any “plaque carrier” on my property. I just don’t understand where the city dwellers expect to go unless they prepare a place before hand.
I’ve really been wondering about this as well, ever since reading that article someone posted about Vermont expecting its population would swell in a pandemic as people from the cities (and suburbs) in Massachissetts and New York and Connecticut would head for the hills. The article was kind of blase about it — thinking about how the hotels and motels and cabins would be filled to capacity — but I found myself wondering, what do all those poeple think they will be eating? Would they bring their food with them, or wold they expect to be able to eat at the local restaurants every night?
I think the problem is, people who haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about this situation can’t quite grasp the concept of simultaneous effect. If I as an individual have a problem in my house (termite infestation) I can drive to a hotel and stay there for a week until the problem is fixed. But everyone in my city can’t do that, and they couldn’t do it if everyone out in the hills was having the same problem. It takes a while for that fact to sink in though.
I doubt large city evacuations (implies something of an orderly process).
What I am sure of is large-scale urban flight- to stay over Grandmom’s, Aunt Grace’s etc- and showing up with no warning. And those of us in the wee little rural areas (36,000-but we’re talking the Delaware Valley here) who are trying to cope locally, will find ourselves overwhelmed with a (IMHO) almost doubled population. And the increased population that either gets sick or brings sick with them; but not food,insurance cards or medications.
LMWatBullRun – at 19:10
re: “Anybody on MY heels better have tracked vehicles and be crossed with a billy goat and a porpoise. THey don’t call us “mountaineers”’…..
I admit, I am jealous. Would love to be there and only have to worry about me and mine….
Example- say ONLY the largest 50 US cities are affected. That totals about 50 million people. The average household is about 3 per home. So those 50 million need to be housed in 250 million/ 3 per home or 83 million homes. That is, you need to place around 1 person in more than half the houses in the US. And what if some of them where sick? Do you really think that the entire rest of the US could handle that?
Can you imagine a 50 million “tent city” somewhere? Or even 1000 tent cities of 50 thousand? And that is if only the largest 50 cities are affected and the rest of the US escapes. How do you get food to them? If you could get it there, why not the city they came from? What about sanitation? Do you stop all services to the cities and try to support the tent cities?
I am not there yet, but the three most important things in preparing for the severe pandemic I expect will be LOCATION, LOCATION AND LOCATION. Right now we are about 15 miles from Billings, with a population of about 100,000. Hope to relocate before this develops into effecient H2H transmission.
One possibility is to ride out the first wave here and then relocate. I am with Robert Webster on this, “head for the hills” is my full intention. Prepare for the long term is my goal.
Something most of us are discounting is how fast the pandemic will take people down. If the Spanish Flu is any example, people might be collapsing on the way to work, maybe even dropping in the streets.
At the very beginning of the pandemic, I just cant see a whole city full of people getting on the road and evacuating overnight like the Israelites from Egypt. They wont be able to put it all together fast enough and the flu will catch a lot of them before they smarten up. Some of them, of course, will head out to Gramma’s place in the country, but not everyone has a Gramma-in-the-country.
While ultimately there will be a very strong sense to flee, the first instinct most of the unprepared city dwellers will have is to go to ground in their homes because (a) it their home; (b) they have no idea what else to do; and ©they’re starting to feel crappy, either real or imagined - remember the “worried well” syndrome?
Then they will go to the hospitals, where, as we all know, things will get very ugly very quickly. When they finally realize that there is no food or water and nothing medical that is going to save them, the rioting and gang violence will start. By that time, their ranks will be thinning out.
So can we expect an increase of 10% coming into other towns? In my case that would be 8000 extra people coming to this little town at least!
Birdie Kate – at 10:36 sounds like your town is 80,000 that is not very “little”. The US census uses 2500 for the line of rural and urban and 50,000 for urban fringe: http://tinyurl.com/f7x9w
for a brake down see: http://tinyurl.com/hl87a
79% live in urban areas, 80% in and around metropolitan areas. 21% are in rural areas and with 16% in areas of less than 1000.
In my near by small “village” of about 600 it swells during tourist long weekends to about twice that. The dumpsters are over flowing, the water reserves are exhausted and so on. It is not a sustainable condition.
Again, IF you leave your home, you should do it VERY early and be sure you have a prepared place to go to. I still have visions of 10 million NYC people all getting in cars and buses and heading to a field with no food, water, santitation, shelter and fishing from a pond that the best fishermen were only able to get 100 fish from all summer long. What would the same people do if people moved into one of their bedroom town houses and started to try to take over their property. It would not be a nice picture.
Average Concerned Mom – at 21:35, when I lived in VT, a couple of decades ago, the after-dinner talk used to turn to odd things, and I’d hear the locals discussing possible nuclear attack and NYC’s ect, evacuation plans to come up (a very narrow highway!) into VT. I imagine the locals are still as well armed and ready to defend their properties and families as they sounded to be back then.
I posted this to the news thread, but I thought it should go here as well. It is the score card for city evacuations Kansas city best (90%), LA worst (26%), most would not be able to get out of LA., but this is for a sudden 12 hour evacuation:
Dennis, no my town is 15,000, neighboring towns are 80,000
This conversation reminds me of systems thinking and the tragedy of the commons. It makes sense for each individual to head for the hills, but it is a bad idea if done in huge numbers. So we people are in fact trying to out-think each other, aren’t we? And thinking about huge numbers in order to protect our very own families, right?
My temporary conclusions are:
What would we like to see?
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