Flash wrote:AVOID:
Hospitals
- Everyone will think of a hospital. Many of the basic first aid supplies you will need can easily be found in other smaller clinics. Bandages, antibiotics, painkillers, etc. Hit up someplace everyone else is walking past like that OBGYN office.
+ Having trouble coming up with very much upside to a hospital for any longterm plans.
Home Depot/Lowes
- Again home improvement stores will be at the top of everyone's list when they're trying to stock up and fortify their homes. I'd be trying to hit the suppliers I know about. The metal fabrication shops, etc. While these risk the chance of coming pretty close to the next location on my list, there are a ton of these smaller shops a safe distance away.
+ Maybe you'd be able to fortify enough to keep others away using the supplies contained inside, but you won't stay unnoticed for long and will always be worried about attacks.
Industrial/Refinery complexes (This one may be too specific to my personal location but 4 of these are in the Houston metroplex:
http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/inde ... ining#tab4
- I'm not sure how many people would consider heading to any of these, maybe a mistaken belief they'd have easy access to fuel. But I would steer clear simply because of the possibility for explosions and chemical leaks if the processes weren't shutdown completely (which takes time, it isn't as simple as flipping an OFF switch). And once an incident started there would be no one to stop it until the fires ran out of fuel or the leaks vented everything out.
+ The only possible upside would be fuel, but siphoning abandoned cars would be less risk.
Breaking the rule of three I know…
The coast
- A lot of folks might think the opposite, but without NOAA and the NWS I don't want to be caught too close to the gulf coast during hurricane season. Hurricane Ike pushed 22 feet of water on shore and it was devastating. Without modern technology you'd be risking another
1900 Storm
SEEK OUT:
If stuck in a big city like Houston at the start of a zombie apocalypse, patience will be key with the hope of waiting "it" out. "It" would hopefully be a fast cure, but could also be the chance to finally flee the city. I'd be looking for that perfect balance between order and chaos. The chance to slip away will require that society has broken down enough that the quarantine has fallen but that the number of zombies wandering the streets hasn't grown out of control. Authority/government is falling apart, but most people haven't gone
Lord of the Flies yet. It would take a lot of skill and a lot of luck to hit this small window.
Stay close to home
+ I'd stay close to home in the beginning. There is strength in numbers and even when people do go savage they'll find it harder to turn on their longtime friends than on strangers. I know most of my neighbors and wouldn't worry about them shooting me on sight. By working together, keeping the children in a group with moms while the dads go on supply runs, etc. we'd be a lot safer.
+ We could probably find all the supplies we need in our own neighborhood for at least a month, even while "playing nice." By working together and keeping track of which homes have "fallen" we can then raid them for supplies. If this really is the bad "it" then the vacant houses will start to add up sooner then later.
- The downside is that a suburb is a lot harder to fortify than a more solid building. A group of any decent size would need to be spread across several houses which complicates things. But lots of people will be seeking out those "fortresses" meaning we might be able to sneak by unnoticed in suburbia for a little while.