PREP Channelization -- BOL to survive ~70 miles from the city, when some die 200 miles away

MinnesotaSmith

Membership Revoked
https://survivalblog.com/channelization-and-lines-of-dr/

Channelization and Lines of Drift

By James Wesley Rawles | August 8, 2005

"Most major routes out of major cities will be very dangerous places to be in the event of a massive involuntary urban exodus. Imagine the situation WTSHTF in small towns on either side of the Snoqualmie Pass in Washington, or near I-80 across the Donner Pass in California, or on the Columbia River Gorge (dividing Oregon and Washington), or virtually every other stretch of interstate freeway that is within 150 miles of a metropolitan region. These channelized areas (also called “refugee lines of drift” by Military Police war game planners) should be studiously avoided.

Conversely, there are areas between lines of drift that will likely be bypassed by refugees and looters, due to poor access.(Constrained by small winding mountainous roads, water obstacles, intervening canyon lands, et cetera.) Some of these bypassed zones may be fairly close to urban areas. It is a dangerous gamble, but if for some reason you must live near a city, I suggest that you carefully search for what may be a largely bypassed zone for your retreat and/or home.

A few regions that may be bypassed come to mind, based on my travels and from first hand accounts by my associates. (There are many others that are similar–do some research to find ones in your region). These include:

Portions of the Ouachita Mountains, west of Little Rock, Arkansas
Some islands in the Great Lakes region
Parts of Sabine County, south of Shreveport, Louisiana
The periphery of Harry S. Truman reservoir, 60 miles southeast of Kansas City, Missouri.
Portions of Dewey and Custer Counties (80 miles west of Oklahoma City.)
The Santa Rita Mountains, southeast of Tucson, Arizona
The Chiracahua Mountains, in the southeast corner of Arizona
The Mount Hamilton region, Alameda County, California. (East of San Jose, and south of Livermore.)
Parts of the San Joaquin River Delta, east of San Francisco, California
Some islands in the Puget Sound, Washington


Driving the back roads of your region will probably reveal other similar areas that might be bypassed."
 

end game

Veteran Member
Big Horn National Forest, Wyoming.

Fort Davis, Texas.

Pringle, South Dakota.

Jet, Oklahoma.

Redstone, Colorado
 

hiwall

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Many areas in the southwest would likely be safe just due to the lack of water and the unrelenting sun.
 

Windy Ridge

Veteran Member
Some of these places are not very survivable for people with limited supplies and no well stocked cabin. The Bighorn National Forest consists of a high mountain range in a state (Wyoming) that is not noted for mild winters even in the lowlands. Fortunately, most of Wyoming is so thinly populated that they may be considered as already "bugged out".

With the proper research and some Sunday drives you could find some good but little known routes out of the cities. Some practice driving off pavement is also a good idea. It's my experience that most city people suck at map reading and regard even a good two-track with horror. They will be clogging the Interstates when you have already reached your destination.

Windy Ridge
 

Publius

TB Fanatic
I can see this being a problem for outlying areas around major population centers. Interstate highways are the likely path for motorized and foot travel.
We live in a rural setting with only residential/farms homes that are spread out and no gas stations or supermarkets or strip malls, the location is not attractive to citified vagabonds that want all the modern convenances.
 

hiwall

Has No Life - Lives on TB
It looks like we will be moving soon to a location that is well over 200 miles to the closest large city. But that sure does not mean we will be safe there. Everyone just has to do some planning and make do the best they can with where they are located.
 

tanstaafl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Check out some old railroad maps. Even if the tracks aren't currently active they're still likely to be the best generally unknown route around for a low grade (that is, small rises in elevation) evacuation footpath. It's been popular to turn old urban and suburban tracks into bike and walking paths, complete with maintained bridges. But even old railroad bridges are likely to stand for decades after being abandoned -- they generally built them TOUGH. Bridges might become chokepoints, but you might be surprised just how many streams and rivers there are out there that become major obstacles when you have to hoof it. For fun, one day when you drive around your locale try to count all the bridges crossing streams, ravines, major highways, etc. that you drive over ... it can quickly become dozens and the further you drive it could become hundreds. While I think railroad tracks would fairly quickly become targets for bandits (once they've "mined" the major routes), in the short-term they might be better evacuation routes than roads.
 

tanstaafl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
A chain saw and a case of dynamite and this county can be isolated.....

Close off just twelve or so points (not counting shipping and air traffic) and the entire US PNW (everything west of the Cascades) could be effectively isolated. Add a few more and you cut off western British Columbia as well. The Cascade Mountains are actually quite a formidable obstacle and there really aren't all that many significant roads and railroads through them. Heck, depending on the season you might not even need human-created chokepoints!
 

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
_______________
Portions of the Ouachita Mountains, west of Little Rock, Arkansas

Where I am right now.

Amazing how it goes from hellish Little Rock traffic to remote in just a few miles.
 
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