Survival Situations/Senarios

[unswydd]

2 Senarios, many different outcomes, routes. I'd like to hear from you about how you would handle the situation, what would you do? Pick it apart, but be nice. LOL

I am going on a trip (with a girlfriend, no not like that) out west to the mountains and was discussing this with some forum members and decided to put a couple of senarios on here to see what you guys come up with in case TSHTF, while I am away from home.
First Senario:
I am backpacking alone in the Beartooths, outside of Cooke City MT, while my friend is in an Art class in town. I feel a charge in the air and decide it's nothing but continue hiking. Well, after hiking for a day I turn back to town to the cabin we've rented for a week and find out that there has been a nuclear bomb go off in the eastern part of the nation. Problem is that there has been effects from this all the way out to MT. and I'm stuck in Cooke City. I know no one, I'm 2,000 miles or more from home in IL and need to get home. What kind of effects? Come up with some. EMP?

How do I get home. Here's the catch.
The girlfriend I am with is an Ostrich. She has buried her head in the sand and knows nothing about prepardness or survival. I will, therefore have to take the lead but I must convince her that we need to get home or somewhere safe asap.
Knowing that there are no trains from MT to WY so that's out. No tracks.

Second senario:

We are backpacking in The Wind River Range in WY 60 miles from any town. We have 3 or 4 days worth of food. 2 fishing poles 2 fillet knives, plus normal gear for a backpacker.
There's been a EMP and we need to get home to the BOL. We are short on food stuffs, plenty of water from lakes in the area but we must get home. We have all the normal Backpacking gear. GPS(useless), compass, cell phones (useless), and topo maps of the area. Once again the "Ostrich" is paniced and doesn't want to try to get home just to the nearest town. I on the other hand want to stay away from towns and try to get home the shortest route possible. Or if not possible what is the next best thing to do.
Thoughts and suggestions?

[herbalpagan]

In either situation, I think you would be able to get to a shelter/safe place. Telling Ostrich girl "I told you so" would be the fun point.
If the event happened in the east with a nuke on the ground, the EMP affect shouldn't reach you there and you could possibly drive home.

These kinds of scenarios are why I don't do stuff like that.:o

[unswydd]

In either situation, I think you would be able to get to a shelter/safe place. Telling Ostrich girl "I told you so" would be the fun point.
If the event happened in the east with a nuke on the ground, the EMP affect shouldn't reach you there and you could possibly drive home.

These kinds of scenarios are why I don't do stuff like that.:o

Well, This could happen that's why I put it out here. Would like some feedback. Get specific, play it out.

[herbalpagan]

other than the people around you or govenrment restrictions, what could the effects be? EMP from a nuke that touched ground wouldn't reach that far. The country you will be in is rural and people in rural areas are fairly self reliant and not prone to panic. You could wait it out for quite a while in the cabins.
I just have no way of grasping that situation...I paniced when we had to fly to Austin...lol

hmmm, you could fill your time teaching the Ostrich about survival.
I just don't know what I'd do if I was thousands of miles from home in that situation. I'm thinking that I'd be making friends with the locals, finding a way to pay for food and such (waitressing) until I could drive back home or outfit myself for a really long freaking walk! When a situation that you mentioned occurs, if you didn't have to and the locale was safe, the best thing to do would be ot wait and see what is going on and what happens.

[Oscar Wilde]

UD.....:rolleyes: Ok we'll make this fun....how are you traveling? Given your concerns take an SUV.....with a trailer. Place everything you think your going to need to live the rest of your life ( recall our camping for ever dialogue) in the trailer.... your girlfriends too....your not going to like her much anymore if this gets to phase two and she isn't prepared. Place whatever you like inside your spacious SUV. When you get to where you want to be....find a storage facility nearest your hiking start point and park that trailer in a vehicle storage structure, not in the open....then off you go on your wild adventure relatively carefree. While you are out on your adventure take notice of other people....look at them....IF something occurs would you want them with you....make a mental note of the area/ direction in which they went....conversely.....this may be reeeeal important IF anything bad should happen. For all intents and purposes....if something of this magnitude occurs while your there.... you are home....:( this of course applies to both scenarios....sorry kiddo. Also carry in your hiking pack a GMRS radio to confirm your fears or put them at ease....most if not all of them have a dedicated NOAA weather channel and the gov will undoubtedly commandeer the airwaves to advise the masses..... a pair of binoculars....in the unlikely event.....you'll want to carefully make you way to your storage area and look ahead and around you to see what is happening....don't get caught up in any crowds....if you can't safely get to your stored stuff, climb to a secluded high point where you can safely continue to observe....this may take days....weeks.....your artsy girlfriend is on her own and hopefully in good hands.....a small pair of wire cutters or a hacksaw blade to get back into the storage area in the event there is no attendant.....if you see people in there who don't really seem to belong there stay away....most important....do your best to not let people see you.....you watch them....and then step up when your certain its safe. I will pray for you and you will have a most excellent adventure. :)
O.W.

[twincougars]

YOUR BACK PACK HAS A RADIO, YES? Is it working? IF not, then your area probably got hit with emp. If it is, get news. You need to know what's going on and if your area is expected to get dangerous fallout and when. Forget about what you WANT to do and think about what you MUST do to survive. That comes first, even if it means staying put in a church basement in the nearest town. In your first scenerao, you and your girlfriend are not together. You need to get to her in town. She may have made friends with other art students and you two may be able to shelter with them. In the second case you have 3-4 days of food, but you are short on food, so I presume that you have a longer than 4day journey. FORGET IT! IF there was one blast, there will be more, maybe closer, and you will be out in the open. Plus, depending on winds, fallout could reach you in that time period. Give up your idea of getting to your hidy-hole and make the best of what you have right where you are. Get underground to a cave if close by, or a basement in town--but find a place with not too many people. A crowd of scared, panicky people is not what you want...remember Kitrina?

[Skyowl's Wife]

Can I ask a question before I come up with a route/plan?

[Oscar Wilde]

[Can I ask a question before I come up with a route/plan?]

Depends on the question :confused: probably.....sure....
O.W.

[beebopcop]

I may post more on this later, but I have done some reading up on Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). If a small nuclear device is exploded as high as 200 miles above the service of the Earth over the central United States the resulting electron mega shower will fry the entire US grid. More that a million people will die in the first 24 hours. Every aircraft in the sky will immediately plummet to the earth. Everyone on the planes will die as a result of the impact, not to mention whatever and whoever the planes hit. Next hundreds of thousands on life support in hospitals will die. No, the back up generators will not work, they got fried along with everything else. Anything and everything with circuit boards will be fried. The US will be blown back to the stone age and it will take many years to recover. The DOD has admitted that the US is not prepared for such an attack and that little if anything can be done to prevent it. Kinda gives North Korea a whole you look doesn't it.
So, having said that, you can throw away your GPS and anything else electronic in your back pack because now it's dead wieght. As far as getting home you may luck up and find someone with a pre-sixties car that has no circuitry that was damaged by EMP, however something tells me he/she is going to busy.
The only hope for your long necked friend is to convince her that there is strength in numbers and then inform her of which way you are going. I bet she follows.
bbc

[unswydd]

Can I ask a question before I come up with a route/plan?

Ask away.
These are all great ideas and plans. Keep them coming. There are many solutions to this. I am interested that you're picking your own brains for this.

[kenno]

It is not an actual proven fact that all planes will fall from the sky or that all cars will stop running, influencing terrain details such as Mtns, canyons and large bodies of water may decrease or increase the EMP effect, also vechicles stored in metal buildings or otherwise grounded may be protected, older vechicles, especialy military vechicles and farm tractors will probably be immune as will old generators pumps and the like.
Much depends on the power, height and type of nuke deployed. In either case head for Idiho or Utah

[Centurion]

Relax

Wow what two rosey scenarios. Let's see in either case the first thing to do is form a plan and think things through. The reality of the situation is the facts. In all regards you will never have enough "supplies" so you have to use your witts to overcome all obsticles. In your situation you are hiking in the mountains and the U.S. recieves damage from an EMP pulse generated from an ICBM which means we are under attack. Stay in the Mt.'s for safety and limit travel till all is well.

[unswydd]

these are good but I'm surprised, with the great minds here that you have not come up with more solutions to this problem.
There are several more options here.
Think people. Place your self there.

[Skyowl]

these are good but I'm surprised, with the great minds here that you have not come up with more solutions to this problem.
There are several more options here.
Think people. Place your self there.

I'm guessing that you have already identified several "options" for these two scenarios. Guessing that you want to "get home" to "somewhere between a corn field and a soybean field", wherever that is, I will identify two possible answers to the problem...

One, if the distance "home" is more than a couple hundred miles (say 300 or so), you will be better off trying to make it in whatever town you are staying in. Trying to hump several thousand miles to IL with no supplies to speak of will take you forever, if you avoid the roads to keep away from the zombies. Your 1st scenario did not indicate the availability of weapons to protect yourselves, so I'm assuming you have none with you. A forced march with rucksack took us 6 hours to cover 26 miles, and I was 27 at the time. We were not hunting for food, trying to protect ourselves from roving bands of badguys, or spending the night in the field. Just humping it in along a paved road. Cross country would have taken much, much longer. Trying to do it in an emergency situation after SHTF would be next to impossible without a lot of help along the way from sympathetic folks. To do that, you would have to travel along roads to make any sort of time between point A and point B. Folks would have to be willing to help you by giving you some of their limited supplies which will probably not happen very often.

Two, stike out for home and pray a lot along the way.

[unswydd]

LOL SkyOwl!
I was just trying to get some people thinking is all. there is one scenario that was not thought of. Since I would be in Yellowstone I could hook up with the river and stay on the water. Plenty of food on waterways and not many people. I could head south and forget about going home. There would probably not be much left there anyway. My friend would of course have to be lead, as she is not "survival minded". No weapons to speak of just a knife and a saw. I'd have to make something such as a bow and spears if I wanted weapons. I was kind of hoping someone would come up with something like this but no one did. I believe as you said, that there would be no way to make a forced march with a backpack (rucksack) all the way to Illinois. So, that is out. I couldn't rely on anyone to help me so I'd have to make do the best with what I had and my common sense.