Urban Calculation

[Scythe13]

Hi Everyone

I've been doing some heavy thinking about the Urban Survival Situation.

This is the data and the foundation on which I base my ideas.

The average house holds 3 days worth of food.
The average supermarket hold 3 days worth of food.
Homes near a supermarket (within walking distance) hold 2 days of food.
The average supermarket is stripped within 5-7 hours of a disaster being called.
The average petrol station is stripped within 6-8 hours of a disaster/fuel strike being broadcast (information from a friend that's an Esso garage manager).
The average car has less that 1/2 a tank of fuel.
1 in 4 houses has a 'half decent' medical kit.

The above data has been boringly sorted through and I've been running different scenarios with it.

In an urban situation, it would seem that all food would be out within 5 days. However, people would not be rationing their food or fuel. Moreover, not everyone would be able to get to the shops in time to help strip them of their food, toilet paper and all that.

The people living near a supermarket would be out of food within 2 days, max.

Think about this next statement: People will be rioting within a day or 2, but people will be 'food rioting' for sure in 2 days!

The distinction is huge. A normal riot (if such a thing exists) will be emotion driven. It will be aggressive, but people will enjoy rioting. Like in London and all that, the people will be doing it just for the fun of it. On the other hand, a 'food riot' will be a riot for survival, and people will die or kill in that. They are not being driven by emotion. They will be driven by the will to survive! They will be rioting/looting to stay alive. To keep their children alive, parents alive, friends alive, and things like that.

The food riots will probably start when the fuel runs out and trucks can't supply the stocks for supermarkets, which I'll explain later. But you should expect that within 10 days.

The next thing to happen will be people getting injured and the alike. As the medical kit stat shows, people will be injured and first aid will be few and far between. That will be when the NHS gets called, and everyone will be overwhelmed, so the NHS will shut down what centres they have open. The emergency room area will be shut down because it will be over crowded. Expect that within the first 2 days of 'food riots'.

The fuel will be used up pretty quick, but worse than that, the ambulances, emergency vehicles, and the supermarket trucks will be running to a stand still by the end of day 10. Some depots have their own store, so could maintain their supply of fuel for another 3-4 days. But that means that within 2 weeks, food will definitely be rare in supermarkets. Before the food supply totally stops, people will be looting any truck with a cargo that could be food!!! The trucks will be getting stopped and looted before they manage to get the food onto the supermarket shelves.

It will be like a wild west program, with people jumping on the wagons and looting what they can.

But as numbers suggest, the city should be relatively safe for just under 2 weeks before the REAL rioting happens.

This gives us urban preppers 1 week before we can safely hop the city, into the woods.

Cars will be available until about day 10, but if you keep a whole tank of fuel, you'll be sitting pretty. At the first sniff of rioting, I'm going to be digging in for 5 days, then hopping into the car and vanishing for another 2 weeks or so. Within which time is should be pretty safe to re-entre the cities. But if you leave it a month, you should be running home clear. Most people would have died off through killing each other, and through disease and things like that. But in fairness, would you really want to re-entre a city that smelt worse, had more disease, and less food?

[bigpaul]

when we had the fuel strikes(we were living in Glastonbury then) we noticed that although the big supermarkets didnt get their food delivered, the smaller shops did( they deliver in vans not big trucks) so that may be the ones to go for.

[uks]

With a full tank in each vehicle and 5 jerry cans per vehicle we have enough fuel for 900 mile per vehicle.

[Scythe13]

(2 March 2012, 10:25)uks Wrote: With a full tank in each vehicle and 5 jerry cans per vehicle we have enough fuel for 900 mile per vehicle.

That's a fair point. But what are you going to do with 900 miles of fuel?

You really just need enough fuel to get to somewhere secluded and back, twice.

[mikebratcher69]

I think returning after two weeks may be a bit premature, dont forget the rule of threes...3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. Most chavs have enough beer, vodka, coke etc put by to fill the fluids requirement quite nicely.
and probably could manage to scavenge at least a week or two's food from corner shops, etc. so in all honesty I'd be looking at staying away for at least 3 Months, then a very very careful daytime recce or sniper type observe, getting into place before dawn and stayingput for at leat 24+ hours just observing. Then a fully armed recce patrol with the intent of recce and destroying any attempt at interception by straglers who if there are any left at this point would be highly aggresive, possibly on the last remaining supplies of drugs. Dont forget what hitlers storm troopers achieved on anphetamines. I've had personal experience of fighting two coked up people at once, its a hard fight as they dont go down for long, they just bounce back up, so be prepared to use deadly force instantly or you may find yourself in a fight you cant win. Please trust me when I say fighting with drugged up individuals is VERY different from normal hand to hand combat.

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Entering any city after the 3 months will be highly dangerous.
Not just because of "feral" people still left alive but packs of hungry dogs, possible escapes from local "safari" parks. Do you live near a safari park localy? If so be prepared for contact with an angry 200lb chimp or a hungry lion, tiger etc. Containment at these parks will fail are you prepared for that charging rhino? have you even considered it?

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The countryside may well be home to safari animals who may die off but equally may not. Concider what youd do living near Bristol zoo...
see this map of the uk's zoo's and safari parks
http://www.ukwildlifeparks.co.uk/

[Scythe13]

(2 March 2012, 11:24)mikebratcher69 Wrote: I think returning after two weeks may be a bit premature, dont forget the rule of threes...3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. Most chavs have enough beer, vodka, coke etc put by to fill the fluids requirement quite nicely.
and probably could manage to scavenge at least a week or two's food from corner shops, etc. so in all honesty I'd be looking at staying away for at least 3 Months, then a very very careful daytime recce or sniper type observe, getting into place before dawn and stayingput for at leat 24+ hours just observing. Then a fully armed recce patrol with the intent of recce and destroying any attempt at interception by straglers who if there are any left at this point would be highly aggresive, possibly on the last remaining supplies of drugs. Dont forget what hitlers storm troopers achieved on anphetamines. I've had personal experience of fighting two coked up people at once, its a hard fight as they dont go down for long, they just bounce back up, so be prepared to use deadly force instantly or you may find yourself in a fight you cant win. Please trust me when I say fighting with drugged up individuals is VERY different from normal hand to hand combat.

The rule of 3 is fair. But I think 3 months away is going to be REALLY hard!!! Most people, myself included don't have a 3 month BOB. My kit would be pushed at 2 weeks. But I think 3 would be doable.....just.

The main thing is to be able to view wht is going on, but not to do anything that would attract attention to yourself.

One major item I'd want to have would be the bow and arrow, but also an air-rifle. It wouldn't be deadly force, but it would be enough to get people to run back to where they came from. Then you can track them and see where their strong hold is. But for me, I'd just use that information to know where to avoid.

The safari thing sounds awesome! I'd just have to take out the monkeys though. Most other things would be getting to the roof tops.

If you can survive a harsh winter, odds are the animals cant. But that's okay. You could make it into a fun safari adventure!!! haha.

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Like Jurassic park, but with out dinosaurs.

[uks]

It will get us just about anywhere in the uk if we have to change plans for unexpected reasons.

[Scythe13]

(2 March 2012, 11:33)uks Wrote: It will get us just about anywhere in the uk if we have to change plans for unexpected reasons.

It'll get you everywhere in the UK!!!

But that'd be a huge risk using a car anything after 1 month.

If enough people survive, I think the roads would be blocked really badly. Having said that, you'd be in a better situation than someone without the fuel and capability.

Have you driven a few routes to your BOL?

[mikebratcher69]

With regard to not having enough preps... It's hard in an urban environment but have a look around see if you could bury a box with tins somewhere to enable you to stay out for longer. Even without a car now you coul bus it out somewhere, bury it, record the co-ordinates and recover after shtf.
With regard to cars after shtf.
ONLY drive at night, NO lights, stopping frequently to listen for sounds of people or activity that could compromise you.
stop a mile or 2 before your intendeed target location, hide. bury, disguise your vehicle or leave a guard freferably ARMED.
Yomp to the required r.v. You should recce the route on foot first BEFORE attempting it with your vehicle as the route could be booby trapped or impassable etc.

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Night time is your friend, night is a shield from prying eyes, be careful though sound travels further at night. fire can be seen from a great distance at night, your burning ciggy end can be seen from over a mile away over open ground, as can torches etc.
Try being out at night at your bol location see how different it looks, try doing those everyday task at night.
No you cant do everything at night, but the night can be one of our assets if used correctly.

[NorthernRaider]

A surveyt carried out only two years ago found that in some locations like large cities such as Leeds in Yorkshire and most University towns and cities that the closer to the city center you get where more students, singles, yuppies, and high density housing is, served by these 24 hour Tesco stores etc that in fact the amount of food kep by the urnanites is less than 1/2 a days worth. Indeed a footnote reported that whilst for example village dwellers kept on average 4 litres of milk to hand, when you get to the suburbs it fell to 1 litre but in the city center areas many apartment dwellers bought only small 500 mm cartons of milk on a daily basis. Similar findings were made with loaves of bread and bread making supplies.

There appears to be a corrolation that the more fast food shops, cafes, diners, convenience stores etc you have in an area the less food people keep.

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(2 March 2012, 11:35)Scythe13 Wrote:

(2 March 2012, 11:33)uks Wrote: It will get us just about anywhere in the uk if we have to change plans for unexpected reasons.

It'll get you everywhere in the UK!!!

No Sir it will not, unless you are driving on normal quite every day conditions, but if you have police and military traffic controls, crashes, refugees, crap weather your fuel will be gone before you leave the home counties if you get stuck in crawling traffic.