Quick opinion survey- Distance from a major metro area?

well, i am unfortunately only 50 miles from murder city USA (Detroit Michigan) and kind of surrounded by 3 other metro areas moving my way.

but we do live on a dirt road that I have plans on turning into a dead end street if the need be. Not even a tank is gonna make it through that swamp when the road bed is gone. well at least not without someone noticing. then the only access to my place would be down 5 miles of really crappy dirt road past about 20 'country folk' .

if you ain't gonna bug out, make it tough to get to you and yours i always say. Unless the zombies are dropping from planes or got copters. this is not one street where the 'boyz/girlz/unprepared yuppies from the hood' are gonna last very long.

just my 2 cents.

forgot to mention, the Army Improvised Munitions Handbook is a really interesting read! Amazing what might be in there

 

True enough bubba,Then you know that it take's trained people like me to bring on well's or to kill a well.So whom has the power now??

 

Rig man? Most excellent, you'd be one up as long as you stayed undetected. Trick is staying undetected.

 

I do have 25 acres in the middle of nowhere michigan. lots of trees,deer and water. that i could bug out to but, it's like a great big swamp. With lots of ticks and mosquitoes.

in a long term situation, the soil is poor and the roads are even worse. and it's about 100 miles from any city of size (marquette michigan) or areas that would support trade. And they get like 300 plus inches of snow.

and 2 full tanks of gas to get there over a 5 mile long suspension bridge ... um, not a very likely bugout for me.

i'm pretty sure that if does get that bad, the freeways are gonna be littered with broken down cars, gas supplies enroute gone. so not worth it to bail.

note to self... need more bullets.

 

Rig's uugh man,I'm in production,working on producing the oil and gas on a fixed platform or island as the Fed's call us,We flow the well's,seperating the oil,gas, and water...

 

Even better!

 

There's really no such thing as far enough out these days. Road development and modern vehicles getting the mileage they do has changed the game considerably.

Availability of modern accurate maps also. If any map shows a water source near people will seek it out. They will follow terrain features on foot that will lead them to water. When the balloon goes up water will very quickly become the #1 priority for those not still looting big screen TV's.

Byte

 

Hence some nice, flat semi-arid terrain, a deep well with solar/battery and hand pump, not a place where water gathers naturally. Windmill pumps are rather conspicuous.

 

FWIW, I suspect that future encroachment on the hinterlands will be a shadow of what we've seen in the last few decades. For one thing, there are 4 million existing homes on the market and another 8 million on the way in the next few years. (More on how I expect the next two decades to play out here: InvertebrateNation: A Few Statistics On That Pesky Recovery) One thing I didn't mention in that post is that a number of people now own second homes, and when you combine the rising cost of living with the shrinking economy, I expect a lot of them will be added to inventory as well.

Thus, 60 miles away from town should more or less remain that way from here on out. Add to that the fact that most people are running around on less than half a tank of gas, with maybe a gallon or two in the garage for the mower. Then look at the gridlock that results whenever a city evacuates in advance of a hurricane. So, you're probably fairly well off in a SHTF ending to this saga.

Now if it's a more gradual collapse, I'd expect to be dealing with a lot of refugees. Your terrain sounds pretty good for that, but you'll need enough folks on hand to keep up some kind of guard if you want to hang onto that livestock. Got teammates? Dogs? Seismic? Night vision? Thermal?

 

369 miles North of Detroit and I am considering moving farther away.

 

Mountains, forests and 100 miles...If you're too far, you might not be able to get to your place...

 

Without going into too much detail and ruining my OPSEC, yes.

 

I' m new here but I thought I'd add my 2 cents worth. I believe a small distance 25 miles would be enough as long as you are near like minded people. I feel you are safer in numbers as long as you hold the same values.

 

We are about 10 miles from a city of 30K, 45 mi from a city of 75K and a little over 200 miles from the first city over 100K. We are about 5 miles from a state highway and the 30K city is on a major interstate highway. Our major weakness is that we are also located on a substantial river.

As a backup location, we now have 2 gold claims on federal land 10 and 15 miles respectively from home. Both are off BLM logging roads and have good creeks (though 1 creek is only a 10 month creek, the other is year round).

Just a note....gold claims are an excellent option for a backup BOL...or even a primary for people who cannot yet afford owned land. At least in my area, a 40 acre defensible claim without major mining potential can be had for as little as $1K already staked and located...or nearly free if you locate your own.

 

For myself, about 25 miles from a ~45,000 pop. city is probably what I will have to settle for. Not ideal, but the wife's job and the bills will demand it. I just hope to find a plot of land that is more strategically located away from modes of transit and not simply in the middle of nowhere. More of a hidden in plain sight kind of theory on it I guess. Who knows maybe it will turn out to be like Switzerland. Surrounded by the enemy, but left alone. Or not, time will tell. Do what you can with what you got, I guess.

 

27 miles from a town of 50,000

My postal address lists a town of 115, in another county, but that is the wisdom of the postal system. Drives that county nuts when they send me jury summons. All I know is my back porch is my shooting range, and that is what counts!
KYOT

 

a 10 year old thread?

Huummm

There is no place far enough away.

I took a map of the sparsely settled Western US. Around every city with a measurable "urban population" I drew a 300 mile circle. Google maps has some rally neat tools.

Places like Midas Nv fell outside of the ring. 300 miles on a good day is an all day drive to a doctor, bulk food shopping etc....

And little towns have their own set of issues.