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

[Scythe13]

I'm sorry guys, but this is really a funny thread.

It's given me the image of a load of guys running around the city with bows and arrows, in cycling/climbing/worksite helmets!!! If I was in a city and saw someone walking past looking like that, I'd throw a rock at them and see how effective their silly helmet really is.

If you're walking through a skyscraper area, and a single brick (how many skyscrapers are made from bricks?!?!?!? Or it could be an office chair or something like that) falls from a 10 story building, a small helmet won't protect you. Instead of cracking your skull, it will crush your vertebrae, or cause fatal blunt trauma without the cracked skull....providing it lands on the helmet, instead of on a shoulder or something like that...which is more likely.

Climbing helmets are for when something is slightly above you, like a climbing partner and they cause stones to fall. And even then, if they dislodge something above you, you know you're not safe, even with a helmet. If you take a medium impact (tennis ball sized rock from 5 meters) it still knocks you dizzy pretty badly, and hurts your neck. Image something twice the size, or the same size from higher!!! The same is true with caving and those helmets. They are there for when you bump your head looking up, or not ducking enough to get through a hole.




In regards to entering a city. I'd probably stay nearby for about 3 to 4 days watching for signs of movement and life. Make sure you have plenty of anti-biotics already stacked and with you, then go from there. For me, depending on when I needed stuff, I'd look at going in BEFORE I was in dire need. As BP says, better to make your own. However, it's not always possible.

In regards to the disease questions, I really don't have a clue. But a cold day gives you a better chance of not picking up an airbourne disease.

If possibly, I'd try to get high up to observe the city below me (cliff edge, or skyscraper...something like that). Then I'd use that as a way to check out movement. Late at night would be a vital time to check for lights from fires or torches, especially on a cold night. It will also give you a better view of how the city is in regards to blocked roads and the alike.

Please note, buildings will not be falling down over the course of 2-5 years. Only HUGE levels of vandalism will do that. Rust and the alike will take a rather long time to cause collapses. Just because the scenario is big and scarey, science still applies. Rust takes time, bricks don't crumble quickly. On top of all that, acid rain and such like, will be MASSIVELY reduced, and are thus unlikely to speed the process of building decay.

A city, by structure, should be safe for at least 5 years!!! No need to go out and buy a helmet, unless you're going climbing, caving, or cycling (I've got 3 friends who have had accidents and swear the helmets saved their lives. My fiance, whom is a cycling, has countless others she knows that swear by them).

You'd be best checking out some medical books about the diseases.