Wrote the following for a couple other prep sites, (anonymously posted) trying to introduce the idea that no amount of prepping or skills acquired will save you if later overrun by hordes of the unprepared, thus you need to try and pick a final location that most others would not have atop their list to also want to later go to.
Anyways, little to no response, either it was over their heads, and/or I'd presented the concepts poorly, or it's just asking too much for most to consider modifying their existing plans to try to incorporate it, but here it is, see if it makes any sense to you...
- Shane
_________________________________
Getting to, or already being at, someplace well away from your closest large population centers won't be enough, IF it's not also the least attractive place escaping refugees would ever want to head towards, too.
Nothing is more essential to surviving TSHTF than your final location for when ‘the music stops’, not preps, skills, nor even a super squared away group, nothing will save you if you’re in a place to be later overwhelmed by a stampede of desperate unprepared hordes.
You not only need to be well away from any high population centers, which we all already know, but ideally it needs to be in a remote area WITH MINIMAL ATTRACTION FOR ANY OTHERS to later want to also attempt to escape to it, too.
Make sense?
Nobody knows if the ‘music stopping’ will be instantaneous to where everybody is locked into their 'chairs' where they are right then, with no chance to leave, or if there will be a day or more first for people to get on the road. I'm planning for the worst case scenario, where masses of unprepared people will be on the move, and in droves.
Any time panicked hordes get in motion they could easily cover 500 miles or more in a day, every day.
Your preferred final location needs to not only be 500 or more miles away from any population centers, but it also needs to be the LEAST ATTRACTIVE DESTINATION for most others when TSHTF. Ideally, it won't be where most would ever first think to, or want to, go.
What I’m suggesting is if there’s a choice to pick a less appealing destination to the masses, but one that you can make work for yourself, it’d be smart to choose to do so to minimize the risk of too many others also later flocking there, too.
For instance, here in Texas, half of the 32 million state population is in a narrow I-35 corridor which extends from the Red River in the north through Dallas-Fort Worth, Waco, Austin, and down to San Antonio. And, Houston metroplex off to the southeast adds another 8 million to that 16 million, making it potentially then 24 million trying to escape those urban areas in a panic.
Most fleeing those congested areas, when spooked to do so, will go east, north or some little ways to the west into the Hill country, but not much farther west on into the 100's of miles of desolate dry deserts of far West Texas.
To minimize your family being overrun later, if you can be settled in and established beforehand, or at least have awaiting you, a self-sufficient stocked place way out there in far West Texas, your odds of survival greatly increase just by having so few others headed that way later.
That unforgiving desert mountain area, if you'd positioned yourself, is then your dry moat surrounding your castle, unsurvivable for most outsiders to transit, much less try and survive in, thus fewer will ever even try, as they'll instead go for the piney woods and streams of East Texas or the Hill Country close in on the west side of the I-35 corridor.
For instance, Brewster county in West Texas, which includes Big Bend Natl Park and Terlingua, is nearly 6,200 sq miles with a population of 9,500, most of whom live up north in the county seat of Alpine (6,000), which leaves a population density for the rest of the county at well less than 1 person per sq mi.
With good reason, this desolate & harsh mountainous high desert is sparsely populated, and that’s to your advantage and why it'll be your protective shield that so few would later ever venture to escape the cities by coming out here.
Even with about 200 miles of Rio Grande river bordering with Mexico, this county has very low smuggling issues compared to counties 150 miles east and west of it as the terrain here is so impassably rugged and inhospitable on both sides of the Rio Grande.
But, tough & rustic as it is, many residents here for decades have figured out how to survive & thrive, and you could learn how-to, too, if this strategy makes sense to you,
If you can make it work for you, by having gotten everything pre-positioned, well beforehand, where anybody else likely wouldn’t even dare risk trying to via they showing up at the last minute, that's real security.
There may be other remote and equally less than attractive low population locations elsewhere in the country more to your liking, but something special about this particular county is the following...
It's overbuilt stand alone vacation rentals in the last decade, currently over 600, with many off-grid, and the real estate & rental market is cycling down, they are now coming onto the market and getting cheaper by the month.
With higher fuel costs and an ever-tightening economy, more people will start to go someplace closer to their homes for any future vacations. This Big Bend area and the Natl Park is not on the way to anywhere, where you'd have people passing through, as it's referred to as a destination park, and is over 100 miles south of the east-west running I-10.
Additionally, when tourism in the southern half of this county evaporates then 95% of the current population down there now, that is solely supported & employed by that tourism, will go away, too. Terlingua, the ghost town, will quickly be a for-real ghost town again.
If you don't want raw land, which can be as cheap as $500/ac and with little to no building codes, the majority of these rentals were built in the last 5 years and are set up well. Some have municipal water and electricity, however many do not and rely upon their off-grid solar/batteries and rain catchment. A lot of them are stand-alone with nothing else around for miles down a dirt road. There's also water delivery services while awaiting your first rain to fill up your cistern water tanks.
Local game includes deer, bear, mountain lion, elk, audad, javelina, quail, etc.
Locals raise chickens, rabbits, pigs, quail, goats, etc.
Growing food potential ideas here...
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Anyways, if of interest in exploring further, let me know.
We are not a realtor, have no property to sell, have no relation to the books listed above, but am always eager to help any like-minded folks that potentially might later become another valuable self-reliant neighbor.
Anyways, little to no response, either it was over their heads, and/or I'd presented the concepts poorly, or it's just asking too much for most to consider modifying their existing plans to try to incorporate it, but here it is, see if it makes any sense to you...
- Shane
_________________________________
Getting to, or already being at, someplace well away from your closest large population centers won't be enough, IF it's not also the least attractive place escaping refugees would ever want to head towards, too.
Nothing is more essential to surviving TSHTF than your final location for when ‘the music stops’, not preps, skills, nor even a super squared away group, nothing will save you if you’re in a place to be later overwhelmed by a stampede of desperate unprepared hordes.
You not only need to be well away from any high population centers, which we all already know, but ideally it needs to be in a remote area WITH MINIMAL ATTRACTION FOR ANY OTHERS to later want to also attempt to escape to it, too.
Make sense?
Nobody knows if the ‘music stopping’ will be instantaneous to where everybody is locked into their 'chairs' where they are right then, with no chance to leave, or if there will be a day or more first for people to get on the road. I'm planning for the worst case scenario, where masses of unprepared people will be on the move, and in droves.
Any time panicked hordes get in motion they could easily cover 500 miles or more in a day, every day.
Your preferred final location needs to not only be 500 or more miles away from any population centers, but it also needs to be the LEAST ATTRACTIVE DESTINATION for most others when TSHTF. Ideally, it won't be where most would ever first think to, or want to, go.
What I’m suggesting is if there’s a choice to pick a less appealing destination to the masses, but one that you can make work for yourself, it’d be smart to choose to do so to minimize the risk of too many others also later flocking there, too.
For instance, here in Texas, half of the 32 million state population is in a narrow I-35 corridor which extends from the Red River in the north through Dallas-Fort Worth, Waco, Austin, and down to San Antonio. And, Houston metroplex off to the southeast adds another 8 million to that 16 million, making it potentially then 24 million trying to escape those urban areas in a panic.
Most fleeing those congested areas, when spooked to do so, will go east, north or some little ways to the west into the Hill country, but not much farther west on into the 100's of miles of desolate dry deserts of far West Texas.
To minimize your family being overrun later, if you can be settled in and established beforehand, or at least have awaiting you, a self-sufficient stocked place way out there in far West Texas, your odds of survival greatly increase just by having so few others headed that way later.
That unforgiving desert mountain area, if you'd positioned yourself, is then your dry moat surrounding your castle, unsurvivable for most outsiders to transit, much less try and survive in, thus fewer will ever even try, as they'll instead go for the piney woods and streams of East Texas or the Hill Country close in on the west side of the I-35 corridor.
For instance, Brewster county in West Texas, which includes Big Bend Natl Park and Terlingua, is nearly 6,200 sq miles with a population of 9,500, most of whom live up north in the county seat of Alpine (6,000), which leaves a population density for the rest of the county at well less than 1 person per sq mi.
With good reason, this desolate & harsh mountainous high desert is sparsely populated, and that’s to your advantage and why it'll be your protective shield that so few would later ever venture to escape the cities by coming out here.
Even with about 200 miles of Rio Grande river bordering with Mexico, this county has very low smuggling issues compared to counties 150 miles east and west of it as the terrain here is so impassably rugged and inhospitable on both sides of the Rio Grande.
But, tough & rustic as it is, many residents here for decades have figured out how to survive & thrive, and you could learn how-to, too, if this strategy makes sense to you,
If you can make it work for you, by having gotten everything pre-positioned, well beforehand, where anybody else likely wouldn’t even dare risk trying to via they showing up at the last minute, that's real security.
There may be other remote and equally less than attractive low population locations elsewhere in the country more to your liking, but something special about this particular county is the following...
It's overbuilt stand alone vacation rentals in the last decade, currently over 600, with many off-grid, and the real estate & rental market is cycling down, they are now coming onto the market and getting cheaper by the month.
With higher fuel costs and an ever-tightening economy, more people will start to go someplace closer to their homes for any future vacations. This Big Bend area and the Natl Park is not on the way to anywhere, where you'd have people passing through, as it's referred to as a destination park, and is over 100 miles south of the east-west running I-10.
Additionally, when tourism in the southern half of this county evaporates then 95% of the current population down there now, that is solely supported & employed by that tourism, will go away, too. Terlingua, the ghost town, will quickly be a for-real ghost town again.
If you don't want raw land, which can be as cheap as $500/ac and with little to no building codes, the majority of these rentals were built in the last 5 years and are set up well. Some have municipal water and electricity, however many do not and rely upon their off-grid solar/batteries and rain catchment. A lot of them are stand-alone with nothing else around for miles down a dirt road. There's also water delivery services while awaiting your first rain to fill up your cistern water tanks.
Local game includes deer, bear, mountain lion, elk, audad, javelina, quail, etc.
Locals raise chickens, rabbits, pigs, quail, goats, etc.
Growing food potential ideas here...
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Anyways, if of interest in exploring further, let me know.
We are not a realtor, have no property to sell, have no relation to the books listed above, but am always eager to help any like-minded folks that potentially might later become another valuable self-reliant neighbor.
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