Small Town Retreat
October 18, 2011, Submitted by: Ken Tweet
Assuming you’ve made reasonable preparations, the greatest single danger to your survival when ‘the’ crisis strikes will be your proximity to concentrated masses of systems-dependent people. Even living in a relatively out of the way place in a high population density area is extremely hazardous when it comes to ‘the’ crisis.
The major consideration for determining your retreat location is the population density. The location should ideally be a tank of gas away from any major metropolitan area while the local population should be low. Why? Because those who are not prepared, especially the bad element at first, will overrun and loot as desperation sets in.
Another consideration should be the location’s proximity to any nuclear power plant. Even if a nuke plant is say, 100 miles away, if you are downwind from the prevailing winds of the region, then you are in harms way. Nuke plants need electricity to remain safe. Without it, well, just look at what happened in Fukushima Japan.
Be cautious of choosing a retreat location that is embedded into a major forest, as a forest fire may not be contained during ‘the’ crisis as it would be otherwise. Isolationism is not the answer.
Consider the possibility of nuclear war and the potential target areas thereof. Although most people cannot fathom the possibility and brush it off as something that would never happen, the fact is the threat remains.
Other considerations include a reasonable climate, agriculture, hunting, fishing, and trapping.
During ‘the’ crisis, retreating to isolation or living in a remote isolated region, is probably not the best thing. Instinctively many would think it to be so, however when you consider that a large marauding group can easily overcome a small isolated group, and when you consider that long term survivability depends upon the working and complimentary skills of many people, you may conclude that an ideal retreat location may be in a small rural town of sufficient numbers of like minded folks.
The ideal rural small town of preference will have a population of 5,000 or less. Most of these small towns have populations that look out for themselves and their neighbors, they mostly know each-other, will barter together, they recognize outsiders, and will probably band together during crisis with a greater sense of responsibility than perhaps the bigger town.
According to the 2000 census, more than 80 percent of the nation’s population resided in one of the 350 combined metropolitan statistical areas.
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Ken, you are so correct about being overwelmed by masses of people in densley populated areas, or gangs of criminals that can overtake small number of people. Let’s face it the TV series Jericho is basically the perfect fictional place where you would want to be to the above description, or a little smaller. I suppose if you had an enormous amount of money you could tunnel out a mountain somewhere and construct some type of self contained biosphere, a type of practically impenetrable fortess. I can imagine some of the wealthiest people have done just this.
There is something to complete isolation, depending on the circumstances though. For example if a deadly plague broke out you probably would want to be as isolated as possible somewhere far, far away. Probably after World War 3 you also would want to be as far away from everything as possible and where the air is constantly rising so fallout does not come down on you. I think there is an extreme broad range of what exactly someone is trying to survive from will dictate the best location where they go and how many people are there.
I cannot see much benefit from living in a densely populated area unless you are looking for career opportunities and the modern conveniences that a big city offers. For some people this is right for them and they might survive in this situation for the rest of their lives. Whatever works for the individual is right for them.
For me and many others survival means getting as far away from the problem centers of the world like Ken says, and that is where the concentrated masses are. Good article to make people think.
@Ken; This is your site and it is not my place to “tag” you, but I read your other posts about feeling the two earthquakes…..please, please move. Here’s why. Here’s my list of the most possible five things to happen.
1. Financial/social/ civil collapse
2. Super-volcanoes
3. World wide famine/pestilence
4. Society-altering pandemic
5. Terrorism response (unintended consequences)
Financial/social/ civil collapse, is there any doubt? Greece will collapse by this spring, early summer at the latest. The satanic intertwining of banks owning other banks, owning them and the TRILLIONS of derivatives in between…..the best we can hope for is just bad, as opposed to the Greek riots/OWS bull shit everywhere and complete monetary collapse. This is the most likely to occur at this time and as I have stated the financial collapse is my most feared scenario. It leaves the infrastructure intact but lets the terror run free.
Super-volcanoes; don’t know why I put these second but they scare me since there are three in the U.S. An eruption in the U.S. will ruin the national economy and plunge the world into severe winters for years. This will cause financial collapse and severe international relations.
World wide famine/pestilence will cause the same things.
Society altering pandemic, again it will cause the same things.
Terrorism and response; this will cause great strain on the law abiding citizens but no the lawbreakers.
All of these will allow the dishonorable to take over population centers. If you live there, leave, now. When the collapse comes, from the most likely sources, the gangs and lawless individuals will control the cities and they will rule with an iron fist. You can fight them if you wish, on their ground or you can move and if you have to fight them you can fight them on your ground. Enjoy.
@TripodXL, Actually, I’ve been gradually emptying my house during the past month and my cargo trailer is almost packed to the roof. We plan on departing the SF Bay Area during December if all goes according to plan. We will be moving to a chosen area for a number of reasons, and while not ‘the’ ideal location for the ultimate preparedness retreat, it will fortunately be less population-dense than our current location, hopefully on several acres (or more), will be close to our families, and will be away from earthquake zones and super-volcanoes (although super-volcanoes will affect everyone worldwide).
If there were to be social collapse (which is a high probability in the future), all of the metro areas will be in big, big trouble. It will be a relief to move to a small town
I agree with the article stating that it is probably best to be in or near a small town in the event of any of several worst-case scenarios. People in small towns, however, do not always know each other. Many small towns that are within 40-50 miles of a major employer (even if it isn’t in a major metro area) are essentially bedroom communities whose citizens spend the bulk of their time elsewhere. The time to strengthen such communities is now, before trouble starts. Getting to know your close neighbors is a good start. Even if your neighbors are not friendly, it would be better to find out about that sooner than later in any event.
@CitznKate. Really like that about knowing your neighbors, even if they are not too friendly, find out sooner than later. This is the common sense that will get people knowing right off where they stand. It is way different when you move from a densely populated area into a much smaller city or town. One thing everyone seems to notice about people that come in from California is that they bring their paranoia about crime and the way people act with them. They not only turn on the car alarms automatically, but also put the bar across the steering wheel as added precaution. Then they find out this is a waste of time. Ken, when he moves with probably take that closed in feeling of a big city for awhile then he will discover a wonderful joyous freedom that will lower his stress level many points.