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Monday, February 28, 2011

Guest Post: Imagine 6 Months After, By Northern Raider


© 2011Northern Raider

Imagine the countryside 6 months after TSHTF if we got a proper societal collapse? Just after the remainder of the city dwellers panic if the government has not yet saved them, they start to migrate in desperation seeking help, what will they find out of town?

No Chickens to be found nor Pheasants, Grouse, Rabbits, Hare, Squirrel , Ducks, Geese, Wild ponies, Wild pigs,  etc because the rural communities have either killed everything, or more likely trapped and caged enough to start a captive breeding regime.

No fertiliser, no weed killer, it takes OIL to make Ammonium Nitrate Fertiliser, the same for pesticides. Crop size will immediately start to reduce due to various blights.

Most herds slaughtered or secured where scavengers can’t get them without fighting a well armed, well prepared and entrenched rural community.

Fish farms are emptied, as would be battery chicken and rabbit farms, those creatures not rescued to start new breeding programs are left to die in their millions months ago..

Scrappy, BSE, Mad Cow Disease, Parvo, Bovine TB, Rabies, Mixy, F&M return reducing the animal numbers substantially and also scare the bejesus out of folks fearing Rabies outbreaks.
Oh and don’t forget the south east of the UK now has fairly frequent outbreaks of malaria mosquitoes for some insane reason (warming due to climate change?).

Most easy recoverable firewood, sea coal etc used up and the rest secured by the residents of those areas that still have wood and coal.

Most lesser roads will already being reclaimed by nature pretty quickly footpaths, bridleways, lanes and minor roads will become heavily grown over, providing the locals with even more places to hide animals or set up ambushes to keep townies and refugees out.

Many major routes will be clogged with abandoned vehicles or possibly be blockaded by belligerent locals or brigands.

Many earth reservoirs etc will start to leak as no one regulates the sluices any more, in time many of the Victorian earth berm types will fail completely causing flooding and reducing the amount of gravity supplied water to the affected areas below.
Drainage dykes, ditches, sluices etc start to sediment up and overflow, soon areas like the Somerset levels would be flooded much of the year as the natural order of things will reclaim much land.
Drains and sewers will for at least three years after TSHTF cause biological waste to find its way into many water sources that survivors will be drawing drinking water from.

Smaller semi self sufficient communities become more like fortified villages, outsiders not welcome. These self reliant clusters plus the preppers are the only ones left who can feed and sustain themselves.  It is those preppers who took preventative measures in advance of the collapse who were best placed to survive by way of being already established and known  in the rural communities they chose as BOLs.

Now imagine what the Cities will be like 6 months after TSHTF

No power for the previous 26 weeks means the water storage tanks in most buildings are now dry for 99% of the city. The sewage treatment plants failed the minute the power to the pumps, aerators and sedimenters stopped, many sewers are now nothing more than cess pits backing up and overflowing into the streets.  No phones work, no street lights work, most back up generators in government and hospital buildings are now out of fuel, so no light, no pumps or refrigeration is available. Insulin is no more, Beta Blockers no more.

No fuel or power means no rubbish bins gets collected or streets cleaned, 6 months of rubbish line the streets including human waste as people take to using alleys and stairwells as toilets.
Millions of cars, buses and trucks litter the streets, victims of crime, disease and starvation are left to rot in the streets because there no one to collect them. Nor is there fuel to cremate them or transport them besides the temporary cemeteries in the parks are full.

There are plenty of disease carrying rat’s crows and pigeon flourishing as they gorge on the dead and the waste, and yet people still trap them for food which because of fuel shortages often gets eaten under cooked, the spread of disease is rampant. Bubonic and Pneumonic plague which has never been totally eradicated in the UK returns to terrorise those survivors without very strong hygiene protocols in operation.

The subways and underground lines are abandoned and flooded as the power to the rails was also the power to the pumps that kept the tunnels dry, The rising waters leak from the tunnels by the billions of gallons eroding the soil and foundations of roads and houses above.
Parts of the cities are still smouldering ruins after desperate survivors had accidents with knocked over candles, fuel leaks or other incidents that caused fires in most tower blocks (the sprinkler systems long since drained of precious water). No Fire and Rescue services came to help as they are long since out of fuel, besides most roads are permanently blocked with abandoned vehicles or barricades set up by gangs of survivors.

The few remaining urban preppers survive by rigging wind turbines and PV cells to the sides and roofs of the apartment blocks they have taken over, the inner courtyard areas secured by barbed wired topped walls contains the few animals they keep for food, chickens, pigeon, rabbits, pygmy goats, small pot bellied pigs and even guinea pigs fed on whatever the preppers can harvest from the surrounding area. The flat rooftops of the apartment block are covered in cloches, greenhouses and poly-tunnels that provide the only SECURE place to grow food crops.

All the apartment blocks guttering is now redirected into water tanks in the courtyard and the survivors living in terror of a long dry rainless summer. The only glazed windows remaining face either into the courtyard or are above the fourth floor if on the outside. Only one doorway remains, the rest concreted up and permanently blocked the days after the first break in by scavengers.  An island of hope in a sea of desperation.

What hope do our two groups of preppers have that one day they can start to rebuild and establish a new society based on barter and trade??  Neither community knows of each others existence as both were formed independently from members of prepper groups and forums who had little interaction or cooperation.  One glimmer of hope lay in the fact that a few people in each group actually remembered a debate they once had online to agree that if no communications system was available that each year on the summer solstice preppers could meet to barter, trade, talk, share etc in the grounds of either Stone Henge or Glastonbury Tor providing the Somerset plains have not been reclaimed by the sea.

Its your choice, plan and communicate with others, together there is hope, or face a lonely struggle in isolation.

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