Let's say the doomsday people are right

What? I live in rural America and plenty of people here how to grow crops. A big percentage of people have large gardens with significant surplus and know what they're doing. Many also use organic methods. You have no idea of what you're talking about. None. Nada. You just put your statement out there without a shred of knowing the first thing about agriculture.

 

LOL, reread my post, pay particular attention to the phrase "the vast majority of people".

The fact you live in a rural area and have a garden puts you in the minority of the USA population, and while it gives you an advantage it is no guarantee of survival. How often do you and your neighbors go to the grocery? Try turning off your electricity, not using any gas, diesel, or propane powered items, not going anywhere you cannot walk or use an animal powered vehicle, and only living off what you personally produce. Its not nearly as easy as you think.

 

Thank you for your wonderful words of encouragement and hope.

BTW, who will be left alive post a 1 year total collapse in the US?

 

LOL, you are welcome. The hypothesis is that its a total collapse (no electricity, no water and sewer utility, no vehicles bringing food to the grocery, no sophisticated medical infrastructure, etc), and that isn't going to be pleasant.

Its all conjecture, but my guess is that people in rural areas who have formed a community which works together have the best chance. They will have to move close to each other near fresh water and aerable land, and with trees and material to burn for heat and cooking, and there has to be enough people to manually farm, care for animals, build structures and fences, and enough people to dissuade bad guys from bothering them.

But people are amazingly resilient, I'm sure people will find unexpected ways to survive. I would much rather plan ahead then hope I stumble upon one of those "unexpected ways".

 

I have a much better idea of what it would take then you do. If you're talking about NYC then you're right. Most of you are dead. Not so much for me or for that matter the people that I know. All I really have to do is outlast you.

 

If a giant collapse began tomorrow, I think me and most of my own would be alive a year from now.

Maybe you as well

Many of the people we know who weren't worried in the past are worried now. I just helped a neighbor last weekend shoot the handgun, shotgun and AR rifle he just bought---but had never shot---being almost a virgin shooter. He won't make much of a survivalist, but he's at least one less person who will be totally unprepared.

 

Hey y'all, I just got back from Alaska where we camped out...were hunting and fishing...supposed to be 2 weeks but turned into three because of an early snow. So much for global warming. Plane couldn't get in there to get us for 3 days, missed my commercial flight back home and had to wait a couple days. Still was and always will be one of the best vacations...I can't wait to retire and move up there permanently. For those of you who have expressed concern about whether or not people could survive...Take a two or three week vacation up to the wilds of Alaska and find out if you could.

 

People in New York will have millions of meals in the form of the carcasses of the dead. Yes people will eat Grandma's gamey butt before they starve. As for rural people, maybe, maybe not. Without fuel and parts for their tractors they may be struggling. Given the number of farmers who have single crop operations, they still may be starving. Ranchers would probably have a better shot than farmers at surviving.

 

In the specifics, you don't know anything about me. But if your attitude is all you have to do is outlast the people around you, then you are a goner. Individuals suffer a huge disadvantage, your chances increase tremendously with reasonable numbers of people.

 

Which is why urban people do stand a chance. Sure there will be a mass die off at some point early on, but just the number of hard surfaces in urban area that can be converted to water harvesting would give them an advantage people do not readily see. Lots more roofs and gutters. After the car traffic stops, roads and storm drain systems can be converted to very effective collection systems. On the other hand, folks in rural areas are screwed if they do not live on/have access to surface water. In my area at least, wells, which require electricity for the pumps, are essential parts of farm operations.

 

It is known what immediately happens in a social breakdown. Immediate mass scale looting with rolling young mobs destroying all they can for the joy of doing so.

 

Very few areas of the country lack potable or easily made potable water. Only a tiny percentage of water is used for drinking and cooking. Food would be the problem - as would personal safety - not water.Rural people, and particularly coast area rural people, would have the best chances. They would not face the violent chaos of gangs mixed with starvation.

 

Survivalism would require a high initial dependency upon red meat and even better, sea and water life (fish etc.) In under 24 hours we could harvest over 1000 pounds of sea life and probably a quarter ton of pork (wild hogs). Adding other critters and make it half a ton and that is only counting alligators. Gardens would be exorbitantly difficult to safeguard. Again, water based plant foods is what would be available and could be more made available quickly.

Urban areas would quickly become disease and mob violence centers rapidly worsened by hunger, desperation and panic.

Who could MOST withstand total social breakdown? People who live remotely in coastal swamp lands. Endless supply of food, endless supply of water that can be made usable, and very isolated from mobs and human disease.

 

No thanks, I'll try to survive by not doing dangerous adventures. I already have spent a year near Seattle---and it's too wet---Alaska would be too cold and wet. Besides, look what happened to Grizzly Man & his girlfriend.

 

I think many of the smaller Cajun communities would be ideal for overall defense. That is, until the gas for their boats and bug spray run out. Not having AC 9 months of the year would be like a death sentence.

We have gators, beavers, water birds and lots of other wildlife literally a stone's throw out back. I'll stick to a supply of buckets of wheat, rice, beans and other long term canned stuff. I can add the critters in later. People must also have a means to cook all their food with the fuel to do it.

 

That is your assumption. People more isolated would have fewer people to assist them in protecting themselves. Humans are social creatures. They will organize themselves in tribes for lack of a better word, probably oriented around their own neighborhoods. Food is abundant in the cities. Material resources are more abundant in the cities. The more hands you have, the lighter the work. Rural people tend to be dependent on the urban area for their survival. Even people living in the middle of nowhere Alaska need bush pilots to bring them in supplies. The violent gangs you fear would be purged right out of the gates in the urban areas because they are dependent on Walmart ammo and Exxon gas to do their drivebys. They already use hundreds of rounds just to hit a dozen people. They will not last long.

 

There has to be a balance of people and resources. Urban areas have far too many people for the resources. There won't be enough food, scavenging will only last a short time, and potable water will be in very short supply, and people will get desperate and violent. I'm sure some lucky resourceful people will figure it out but most will die.

Rural people have a much better chance, but they need to band together for protection and because they need the manual labor.

Farms have wells, but field irrigation wells are wide enough so you can drop a pvc section capped on one end down the well, its slow but doable. Solar pumps are now good enough to pump from a deep well, and if the ground water level is within 200 feet of the surface a manual pump will work - but you have to have the solar or manual pump before the collapse. I collect rainwater off the roof of my house, a moderate rain overflows an empty 1200 gallon cistern - since filling the cistern, it has never run dry.

 

I know enough about you to know that you don't know what you're talking about.

 

We are in a large sense "preppers" or survivalists, pick your word. Great deal of thought and planning into it, though not in a life disrupting way. We live at virtually the perfect location. Endless supply of food, water and year round climate acceptable for living, though would dearly miss air conditioning. Nearly unlimited supply of sea life as this is the largest sea life breeding area of the USA, and significant wildlife for food due to a wild hog epidemic. Off the beaten path, highly defensible including by natural barriers (try to walk across a mudflat and sawgrass marsh sometime). There also is a great deal of remote land that could be quickly cleared/planted on the scale of gardens (not wheat or mass tracts of crops) - land that anything you plant grows like crazy. Lots of rain, virgin rich ground, lots of sunlight.

But we also factor in other people, for which the idea is if it is an enduring dystopian crisis the need would be to establish a site location nuclear community. That is the real challenge. How many? How to maintain order and have a community acting together rather than individuals acting all independently. Its almost like a mental challenge fun thing to sort thru. What if within days hundreds, and then thousands of people are showing up. Gun them down? Of course not. Organize them to tasks and chores. Food hunting, catching, gathering and preparation. Building better housing structures. Organizing activities to occupy time and entertainment. Community security and rules enforcement. There are countless details. For example, even if you have the food is their the means to prepare it? What is it served on? What about injuries? What about people who may be contagiously sick? On and on.

What I think is not a good idea is relying on government to save the day. Government would save itself first and protect itself first. Actually, potential problems from government is the most complex figuring of all. What if the government shows up, armed, to take all your supplies and food for itself claiming it was for "redistribution?" But, then, tanks can't drive across mud flats and marshes. So the idea would be to form an alliance with whatever government aspects that showed up. Anyway, its an collection of interesting challenges.

The alternative is to go blue water (offshore), but that poises a very different complicated sets of challenges that ultimately can't be solved. The third alternative is to go to the islands, small shell islands that liter this entire region that are the most a few miles off the mainland, which is nearly entirely dense, rough, and fresh meat crowded. So if bunkering in was failing, then a series of essentially retreats hoping for order to be restored socially until running out of options. A person can plan to do all they can, and that's all a person can do.

But I have no doubt major urban areas would become horrific urban war zones and with a shoot-first attitude of government added to this. I recall the plans of the government for the avian flu scare. 1.) stock up enough of helpful medicine (tamilflu) for government and key people. 2.) order everyone to stay indoors. 3.) shoot or imprison everyone who doesn't. In short, the only plans of government were to protect those in government. Everyone else just stay in your houses and hope you don't die or starve.

 

Katrina shows how much the government cares when a large number of people are in a crisis disaster situation.

 

Um... what?

 

Prove I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

You have an opinion and not much else. In WW2 many people if not most had a victory garden. It's not that hard unless you're a liberal.

 

That was then, that's not today.

In the 1920's and 1930's, about 1/3rd of the USA population was rural, grew a significant portion of their own food, had their own water sources, few had indoor plumbing or even electricity. Many urban residents grew up rural and were "first generation urban" and could return to their childhood rural home. Even commercial farming was more of a local activity with many farms across the country. That's why the Great Depression was not catastrophic for the USA (it hit some European countries much harder) - a large part of the nation was self-sufficient. That carried over into the WW2 years.

That's not today. In the USA today, 0.2% of people claim to be farmers, about half of those actually engage in farming and the big producers are big mega-corporate operations. Most people are multi-generational urban and have zero knowledge of life outside the highly structured modern world, even many so-called rural people are dependent upon the modern infrastructure and will be lost without it.

During the Depression era, the USA was carried by the 1/3rd to 1/2 that were self-sufficient. In a depression today, the 5% (maybe?) are not going to be able to carry the entire nation.

 

I didn't say that everybody would be able to do this, just a lot would. The big cities would be lost and on that we agree. The farther you get away from this the better you'll get. However, the number of people who are what are termed preppers are increasing and markedly so. There's a lot more talent out there than you think.