How long post SHTF before a city is safe to re enter?

[Ghost]

It has often been mentioned that all cities will become a necropolis after TSHTF and it is for this reason that many of us are prepared to bug out. But it is likely that many of us will also need to scavenge these cities when our preps begin to dwindle.
My question is this.

How long should you wait before it is safe to re enter a city? How can you be sure that diseases like cholera and typhoid have run their course and died out?

I am of the impression that a year or at least a harsh winter will clear the city of disease. Am I right or wrong?

[Metroyeti]

Might have to burn the bodies yourself, do a cleanup.
Not entirly sure on a timeframe to be honest.

[NorthernRaider]

(15 October 2012, 21:58)Ghost Wrote: It has often been mentioned that all cities will become a necropolis after TSHTF and it is for this reason that many of us are prepared to bug out. But it is likely that many of us will also need to scavenge these cities when our preps begin to dwindle.
My question is this.

How long should you wait before it is safe to re enter a city? How can you be sure that diseases like cholera and typhoid have run their course and died out?

I am of the impression that a year or at least a harsh winter will clear the city of disease. Am I right or wrong?

I was taught THREE years , cos first its the initial die off, then the inevitable disease outbreaks among survivors, the second die off then the plague of vermin and pestilance that follows until all the " edible" material is going and the rodent population falls again.

[BDG]

It depends on what the disease is and how long people continue to survive there and act as a disease reservoir. A better idea and one which I expect anyone who survives long enough has is to scout in to the city over a period of months.

After all, you are not going to charge into a town or city center without knowing you have a way out - you may have safely got in through miles of suburbs on the only safe route - once dicey thing causing you to have to make a run for it any you could be way off course.

Also, unless you completely cut yourself off from people you are going to meet people who you may get news from, information, are refugees still coming out of the cities, how long have they not being coming out for etcetera.

Water borne diseases as mentioned can be overcome by boiling water, the bigger threat is people.

[bigpaul]

this was what i thought was so silly in the new series of Survivors(the p.c.one) they all went charging into a city looking for a lost kid..who wasnt even related to any of them!! to my mind once you have got out of a city-STAY OUT!..there is NOTHING in that city that is worth giving your life for...make do without!

[Hrusai]

depends on the situation, as a general rule i'd say give it 5 years MINIMUM, but tbh why would you wanna go back?....if you need supplies chances are they are already gone sure maybe medical facilities, but if you need to use a hospitals facilities, chances are none of you can use the equipment and the person is dead already

although if you insist, send a small group, and i mean no more than 3 people MAX they can move quickly and quietly to get where they gotta go, but if its a pandemic induced collapse, dont even bother going, its not only a suicide mission for those going, but if they get back they'll infect everyone else

[NorthernRaider]

Lets just say for example just ONE rat gets ashore from just ONE of the thousands of ships that arrive here EVERY DAY carrying MILLIONS of containers. and lets just say for example that one rat got bitten by a tick or flea in some place east of the Med or south of the equator.
And that flea / tick has plague!!

That one bite infects the one rat, the one rat them passes the infection to the rest of its on average 200 fleas, the rat then dies and the fleas bugger off in all directions looking for other rodent hosts, Black & Brown rats, Voles, Mice, Hairy arsed tree rats, etc etc.

Theoretically that herd of flees could infect hundreds of other rodents within days, within weeks there thousands of rodents infected with plague feasting off the detritus of our collapsed society. You will then get a biblical plague of rodents with huge numbers of them carrying infected fleas.

Then you go into the city on a scavenging trip, you either walk past a recently deceased rodent, or take a drink from a bottle of water found in a shop not realising an infected rat had pissed on it only seconds before. Or you choose to rest in a travel lodge for a few hours and the bed already has a resident flea looking for a warm body !!!!!, Or the dying squirrel in the tree over your head scratches one of its fleas onto your head. etc etc.

Three years and still full NBC kit will be needed in some areas I reckon.

You MAY need to go back to salvage cetain items of kit say like rel;oading presses or bow presses or weldiong kit or whatever, but if you do you must go as though you were walking into a hot zone.

[Ghost]

Thanks for the advice. Well it's looking like a three year no go zone as a definite and after that only enter wearing full NBC kit, and then only if you have no other choice.

[bigpaul]

to my way of thinking there is ALWAYS another choice, my parents and grandparents didnt have all the stuff we have these days and they managed WITHOUT-thats what i'll be doing!

[Ghost]

SCENARIO.
What if I run out of arrows and the tools I had for making more have also broken? My only option is to enter the city and head for a shop that I know that may still have the tools to make more or maybe even some arrows that were over looked.
I am not entering the city out of choice but out of necessity. For this reason I need to know what precautions to take and how much possible danger from disease I may be facing.