Damn. Somebody’s really up on his survivalist screed.
Cue the Black Helicopters.
Broomstick where did you get the idea we are talking about Chicago specifically? Read it again, carefully. WE ARE NOT LIMITING THE DISCUSSION TO CHICAGO.
And where, oh where, did anyone suggest bulldozing concrete?
Fuel is not a problem. Hand fuel pumps are available at every farm suppliers in the country. Petrol impeller pumps that will handle fuel are also widely available.
Trust me on this one - I live in the industrial armpit of the Chicago area. There is a LOT of very toxic stuff around here. It isn’t just natural gas and oil being stored in tanks around here. Sure, the helium depot (and there is one, in Hammond next to the South Shore Railroad) won’t be a factor - worst thing there is a few minutes of Donald Duck voices before it heads for outer space - but the industrial chemicals will be a problem.
I didn’t think you were famillar with the area… and yes, there was specific mention of Chicago. But really, any Chicago-sized city (and that’s really just NYC and LA, we’re STILL 3rd largest in the nation) you’ll have to take geography into account. Think about it - winters in LA are MUCH milder than in either Chicago or NYC.
Your best best is to have more than one source of water. Getting back to Chicago - there are considerable periods of time when we don’t have rain, and I think that’s true of LA, too. You’ll need either a really big water tank (or series of them) or a back up supply. That could be a spring (but there aren’t any in this area I’m aware of) or a well (if you can figure out how to get a working pump to get at the water) or, in Chicago, a trip to Lake Michigan or a river and then decontaminate the water. Distillation is your surest means of doing so - I believe it will even remove things like heavy metals and other nasty, non-biological contaminants if done properly, but the key word here is properly. And, of course, you’ll need a heat source.
It’s an interesting problem. Hope I never have to deal with the reality.
That’s right, that’s why I said you have to avoid low lying areas etc. General desicription for a general city.
From the OP:
But I have no objection to broadening the discussion.
Sure… but tell me, after the city-wide firestorm, and the lightning strikes, and other events that can blow up storage tanks… where do you find a supply of fuel? What’s sitting around after the disaster is what you’ve got forever - there will be no more made.
OK, let’s say you’ve got your road-clearing bulldozer ready to go - how many miles to the gallon? How many times will you need to refuel in a day? How do you get the fuel from your source to the mobile bulldozer? You’ll need a supply line.
If, after the Fall of Civilization, you want to get into the heart of Chicago your best low-tech answer is a boat. The rivers and lake won’t be clogged (or as clogged) as the roads. I think the same is true for NYC - if you want to get to Manhattan don’t take the bridges or tunnels, take a boat. Or land a small plane in the middle of Central Park (or better yet, a helicoptor - IF you know how to fly one!). Well - with the aircraft solution you still need to find a decent source of fuel, boats can work with wind or muscle power. As for LA - I don’t know enough about that city to speculate, but for at least some of it you have ocean access. St. Louis? Go by way of the Mississippi, Merrimack, or Missouri rivers. MOST large cities are built near a lake, river, or ocean and the water may be the easiest way in or out. Given how much time sheer survival will take up, I think I’d opt for the easiest and least time-consuming method of entry and exit.
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Sure… but tell me, after the city-wide firestorm, and the lightning strikes, and other events that can blow up storage tanks… where do you find a supply of fuel?
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From the surrounding towns, truckstops etc. I’m fairly sure thare are gas stations outside of Chicago.
I could have told you 10 years ago. It’s better than you’d think and this is light work. Call it 10 gallons an hour or 200 gallons all told. Assuming a 150 gallontank that means 1 refuelling stop on the second day.
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How do you get the fuel from your source to the mobile bulldozer? You’ll need a supply line.[/qupte]
No, you will need one on pickup with a fuel tank, which is standard for dozing work. Why would you need anything that could be called a supply line?
You missed thepoint again. “How far out could we expect that the highways/roads would be too clogged to take trucks (for retrieving supplies)?” and “Assuming that we wanted to move back in to the city at this point, what logistical problems would we have (cleaning up debris, clearing roadways, etc.)?”
Assuming you want to, as you put it, mine the cities then you will either need a fleet of boats or a squadron of aircraft all with appropriately skilled crew. Or you could assume that almost every adult can be taught to frive a PanTec in a few hours at most and you need to find one dozer operator.
I agree that if you just want to explore a boat is the way to go. If you want to move large amounts of materials out before the place burns to the ground the only way to go is road unless you happen to have the skill base required for such a large air or water operation. Perosnally I don’t but I can move a dozer and everyone I know can drive a light truck.
From the surrounding towns, truckstops etc. I’m fairly sure thare are gas stations outside of Chicago.
I could have told you 10 years ago. It’s better than you’d think and this is light work. Call it 10 gallons an hour or 200 gallons all told. Assuming a 150 gallontank that means 1 refuelling stop on the second day.
No, you will need one on pickup with a fuel tank, which is standard for dozing work. Why would you need anything that could be called a supply line?
You missed the point again. “How far out could we expect that the highways/roads would be too clogged to take trucks (for retrieving supplies)?” and “Assuming that we wanted to move back in to the city at this point, what logistical problems would we have (cleaning up debris, clearing roadways, etc.)?”
Assuming you want ot, as you put it, mine the cities then you will either need a fleet of boats or a squadron of aircraft all with appropriately skilled crew. Or you could assume that almost every adult can be taught to frive a PanTec in a few hours at most and you need to find one dozer operator.
I agree that if you just want to explore a boat is the way to go. If you want to move large amounts of materials out before the place burns to the ground the only way to go is road unless you happen to have the skill base required for such a large air or water operation. Perosnally I don’t but I can move a dozer and everyone I know can drive a light truck.
True enough - but how far out. It certainly isn’t an impossible problem, but those are questions you’ll have to consider in such an operation.
I could ask where will you find a bulldozer and suitable fuel truck, as well. As I said, not impossible, but you’ll have to figure it out.
In our area, freeways can back up and clog up to 30 or 40 miles outside the city - you might do better taking side streets rather than an Interstate. Or just driving across a park area when possible, instead of adhereing slavishly to car/truck clogged roads.
Well, OK, that answers the question - Hey, I know jack about bulldozers.
I could teach a person to take off and land a C172 in about 4-6 hours - if you’re not dealing with regulations, other traffic, and so forth. Stick to really nice weather days and you should be OK. You don’t need a “crew” for single-engine piston planes
Not sure how easy a Cessna Caravan is to fly, but it’s a single-engine designed for cargo work - should be available at Fed Ex depots, since Fed Ex owns about 2/3 of the existing Caravans. Also plenty of C182’s. Rip out some of the avionics you don’t need anymore to allow more payload. Used for cargo all the time in Alaska. Maintenance will be become an issue at some point, but we’re not talking 747’s here - many of the small single-engine airplanes are simpler to repair and maintain than most recently made cars and trucks.
As for boats - depends on how big an operation you intend to have. Is it just you alone, a group of 5, 10, 15…200? A small pickup truck can haul all the food, water, and building supplies needed for a lone survivor, but if you’re supplying a village that’s a different matter… but you’d also have more manpower. Sail power was used for cargo long before the internal combustion engine came along, and if your survivor knew how to sail that might be a very practical means of getting supplies into and out of an area - save the petrochemicals for applications where you really can’t do without them.
Skill base… that’s the key. I don’t know anything about bulldozers (I can drive a truck). In the Chicago area, and in New York City, there are large numbers of adults who never learned to drive a car or truck… because they never needed to do so. The problem is very different for them than for you. Just as I would think of using a small plane to travel, because I’m a pilot, and you likely wouldn’t consider it because you don’t know how to fly (I assume - if you’re also a pilot go ahead and correct me on that). For you, a bulldozer is the easier answer. For me, maybe it’s an airplane. My landlord is a competitve sailboat racer - he’d have no problem using sail power to get around, even solo. So much the better if there are a couple of folks around willing to learn to crew.
Over the long term… roads will deteriorate, making that journey more and more difficult over time. Airplanes can get you in and out quick - but how long can you maintain them in safe condition? Long term, you’ll need boats eventually - rivers don’t require maintenance like roads do, and you can move large amounts of stuff on them. Eventually you’ll also need to get horses or some other suitable draft animal like donkeys and go back to wheeled carts and pack animals, unless there are enough survivors world-wide to restore a far-flung transportation grid and industrial capacity to refine fuel.
Can’t argue with that.
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Someone mentioned Chernobyl as an real world example of a physically intact city where the inhabitants vanished.
Here (http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm) is a link to a very cool site by a person who lives in the Chernobyl area and explores the dead zone as a hobby. It takes about 30 minutes to tour her whole site. I strongly recommend it.
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