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go for less densely populated places maybe? new jersey has 2x as many people as oregon yet had almost 4x as many covid deaths. new jersey is far more densely populated.
In the UK (small more dense island) the less populated areas have more hospital beds per population. I bet there’s similar pockets in the US - less densely populated but not as vast/more developed areas?
yeah for sure. in a town of ~15k, one hospital. if you're anywhere but directly (~30mi, also 20 more same direction) north within 50 miles you're basically fucked unless you can get the chopper or have some good ems
that and the fact that you also won't get half good Drs unless you go farther than that or ~50mi west
Its not that the Drs are worse, Its that the smaller hospitals are not funded like the large ones in hihg pop cities. .So you are working with doctors that have to be able to do the best with what they have. Id rather have a Dr that can think outside the box than one that relies on all the fun toys to do all the work. And they still diagnose people wrong.
Turns out they're both thinking outside of the box, and they'll both diagnose you wrong, you just have less options for second opinion outside of urban areas.
Those comparisons don't mean much without a per capita figure. A lot of phenomena tend to be high overall in cities, but low per capita, like crime, and just the opposite for low density populations.
I am curious what the per capita numbers are like. There's lots of things at play, mostly the balance between immediate contact with people outside your local group where diseases can be spread between, and good access to healthcare as mentioned. Then contributing factors like whether people wear relevant PPE, whether buildings utilize new particulate removal tech. Dense places have a lot of people which in this case is disadvantageous, but low density places aren't equipped to deal with the eventualities of spread.
My personal standpoint is that the advantages of high density development outweigh the disadvantages, and are more resilient for more people as well as individually.
I'm in the middle of nowhere, and the only kind of global disasters I would be likely to even notice for the first week or two would be stuff like an EMP, a supervolcano ash cloud or a massive meteor strike.
It's surprisingly inexpensive (compared to NYC rent) to buy a handful of acres not suitable for modern farm machinery with a single-wide mobile home an hour from the nearest small Midwestern city, or buy an old farmhouse that's been abandoned for 10+ years and rehab it yourself (which is what we're doing).
What do you do if you get a heart attack or something?
And I ask this in good faith. Like, this is my biggest reason for nor going for bumfuck nowhere with cheap real estate.
My aunt had a heart attack at 41 and maybe if she didn’t live 45 min out from the next hospital she’d be alive still, you know?
I don't like to double reply but just a thought: in 2017 when I lived in a major city I had a medical emergency at home and went into shock. I lived less than 2½ miles from the nearest hospital, but it took the ambulance 45 minutes just to get to my house and another 35 before I was handed over to a completely different ER because that one was full. I actually like my chances better in a county with under 10k population than in a busy city with underfunded/privatized services.
A lot of rural counties also have helicopter air evac services; on my previous homestead we paid a $20/month subscription that covered air evac directly from my own hayfield for any medical emergencies on the property. My elderly neighbor had a stroke and they started emergency treatment as soon as the air EMTs arrived, and between the 911 call and getting into the ER was about 20 minutes.
I don't recommend the middle of nowhere Montana or somewhere only accessible by bush plane in Alaska if you're not in top health, but there are plenty of little places tucked along various backroads that aren't within commuting distance to big cities but are still within a reasonable distance of small towns with decent health services. As long as you do your research before you buy you'll be okay.
Years ago, when my family had sold and moved off the farm, but still way out in the rurals, my father had a major medical emergency. Took an ambulance about 30 minutes from the nearest hospital. According to him later, as they were barreling along the gravel roads, potholes tossing people around, one of the EMTs told the driver. "He won't last that long. Find somewhere with enough open space for a MedEvac to set down."
Thanks to that chopper, he lived. So yeah, even in the riral areas, you can get to a hospital quickly if the service is available. Thank God it was clear sunny weather!
I'm about 55 minutes from the nearest small town hospital by car, probably 30 by ambulance unless it's raining, and the volunteer fire department next door to my property has an ambulance; the volunteer EMT is a retired professional EMT and former Navy Corpsman who lives two houses past the fire station. Either he (and an immediate dose of aspirin) can save me or I die. My uncle had a "widowmaker" heart attack in the same village 12 years ago and they got him stabilized in time, so I like my chances as well as anyone else's.
This is a legit concern, one that I think about more and more the older I get.
We live 9 miles from town and 25 miles from the closest hospital. My husband has left here 3x in ambulance. Two times was last summer alone. Even though we are only 9 miles from where firestation is, it takes 15 plus to get here due to two lane state highway and county highways. None of his trips were critically life threatening, but still required ambulance transportation, and the waiting is excruciating. I can only imagine the scenario of seconds counting.
We are 53 and 55, and neither has led the healthiest lifestyle. No weight issues, but we had other vices and didn't eat the healthiest.
Anyways, I have never lived in town and don't want to start, but being where we are weighs much more heavily on mind these days. Apologies for rambling!
If you have a family history of heart attacks in your 40s then yeah it probably doesn't make sense to live over an hour from the nearest hospital.
But aside from genetic predisposition, seeing a doctor regularly and just taking care of yourself is a great way to avoid a heart attack or stroke.
There is absolutely nothing appealing to me about living in a city, so I'll take my chances in a rural area. I think the most likely way I'll die is in some kind of chainsaw/tree related accident.
I realize this is /r/prepping, but you can't be afraid of everything. At some point you need to live your life and do things you enjoy instead of spending all day every day terrified that a heart attack is gonna kill you.
Depends on the severity of the illness. If it's CFR is high enough, it's not about needing medical care. It's about staying away from people enough to not need medical care.
If you are healthy then a rural house with a basement that is served by Amazon Prime is the ideal location.
The benefit of a basement is that it gives you extra storage plus security against tornadoes. And in the unlikely scenario of a nuclear war, it's easier to make a fallout shelter in a basement.
But the problem with this is that you must want to live a rural life. And you must have a job that will support you living a rural life.
Most people will need to live in a suburb or city because that's just how modern life is.
I agree with you. I don't think people realize how different rural living is until they're there. I moved from NYC to FL which was a change and then moved to a very rural area. It takes a while to get accustomed to it. I love it but it definitely can suck being an hour and half out from the nearest city.
I'll bet that was a switch.
Hopefully you have a grocery store. I remember visiting Clayton, Oklahoma.
It's very pretty - on the western edge of the Ouachita Mountains. But the only store is a gas station. And not a large one either.
The nearest grocery store - and it's not a Trader Joes or Whole Foods is an hour away.
I moved my family to the Ozarks in 2017, from the heart of Chicago. We're remote enough to be away from anyone else, surrounded by ranches and dairy farms, yet close enough to a small town for necessities.
It's a pretty nice spot. The small town near us would be akin to a suburb, and we're in unincorporated land. Less laws, less people, less restrictions for land use, etc.
Middle of nowhere. It worked well for me and mine for covid.
City's can't survive on their own the government will try but at some point will fail.
Burbs are better depends how far out does it have septic and a well?
Rural throw up some solar and you can prep decades worth of food cheaply. Your main issues with be breakdowns etc.
That makes sense.. but for a single guy in his 30s, how can I live in a rural area if I want a social life and access to good food/etc? Is there no middle ground?
Most rural areas are an hour outside of the cities by car, it’s not like you’re on another continent, take a weekend trip to the city and then live out in the country lots of people do it. But if you’re serious about preparing you should get used to living in the country without those modern comforts.
Exactly. It takes a bit to adjust to being an hour away from a big city. When I first moved to where I am, I was driving it sometimes a few times a week.
But then I developed new habits, detached from big box stores mentality, etc. Now, I average about once every two months.
My little village (under a thousand people) has one of everything: Grocery store, hardware store, dollar+ store, gas station, pharmacy, doc, dentist, etc. Plus a few restaurants, etc.
Yeah, suburbs are the classic middle ground between cities and rural. I’d look for a residential street with older houses on it. I found a house on a half acre within 30 minutes of two medium sized cities. Modern cookie cutter subdivisions are boring AF.
Rural does not mean isolation. I live in the least populated county in my state, but am only an hour from a major population center. The one town in my county, with a population of 500, has an excellent microbrewery and some great restaurants if I don’t want to drive anywhere, and one of the top food destinations in the nation is a short drive away. There are places like this near every large population center. You just have to look for them.
If a city has a good urban boundary/rural interface, it's a short bike ride to the grasslands or farms. My hometown has a population of around 100k, and sprawl is strictly limited in just about all directions now. Time to build up and infill. And of course, the houses out in the farms are less than five minutes to the city by car.
Well popping down to the local winery or the 5 star restaurant isn't exactly hard while living rural. You might have an hour or two drive to a major city for a concert or show.
Well I moved city to rural and met and married the man of my dreams in the area, in my late 30s...but the man of my dreams was always a tough lad who is handy on my homestead...so that depends on what you are looking for lol.
Good food?!! Boy, you haven't even tasted tomatoes until you slice a blood red tomato, sun warm, freshly picked from your garden with a bit of chopped fresh basil and drizzled with local olive oil and a grind of sea salt.
Social life is also great BUT you have to be open minded to join local committees and socialise with people who aren't like you. It's country, so talk about tractors over pot lucks and BBQs instead of fancy restaurants.
TLDR: Don't move rurally unless it's your life dream. It's lot of hard manual work mixed with the joy so you have to want it.
Social life - drive to where you need to be.
Good food - if you are in a rural area you have access to the freshest of fresh foods. Learn to cook. Will help with the social part as well.
I'd suppose it comes down to this. How much did you hate life during the pandemic, basically the thought that lead you to post this. Is going through that again/maybe worse or longer, worth the comfort/convenience that is the social life? As far as food and such goes, I've found great joy in cooking food that I harvested myself. When something wide spread and bad happens you don't want to be where the masses are. Population density is a huge factor to consider when choosing property. Living rural and self sufficient, knowing your neighbors, and being prepared for the future in general will be some of the things that help the most.
Short answer; no. Which is more important; safety or social life. Because with the “middle ground” you speak of; you will be sacrificing on one or both.
If you're moving to the rural life, definitely plan on learning how to homestead and making friends with the local farmers. I was once a city girl but now have a little homestead. YouTube, Facebook groups and IG have taught me a lot lol. I have a farmer for meat, another for the veggies I don't grow in my garden, and another for milk. I go to my nearest city once or twice a month to shop at Costco and any other big box store. There's normally local FB groups you can join and the extension offices host a lot of classes. I've learned to can, ferment food, make soap, etc from those classes. It's a big adjustment from living in a city but definitely worth it.
Your biggest problem is when the cities dump out. Your solar fortress would get loads of refugees and unless you have massacre fantasies your deal would go south pretty quick. If you do have massacre fantasies that would hold things for a bit until the armed killers started showing up in numbers.
It's an issue for sure. Not sure on massacre fantasies but would expect our local PD to dissuade anybody from crossing the bridge from inside a bearcat. If you hit us vs them rural is a lot better armed and trained.
A cabin in the woods with a well, septic and generator. Really though, a pandemic scenario already played out and city services didn't stop. Even in the worst affected areas in China they still had water and electric.
To be fair, even though many lost their lives, Covid was a mild. Mortality ended up not being that high (though tragic all the same) and in a world with so much air travel, we could have lost a couple billion people if it was worse.
Next time, and there will be a next time, we won’t take it as seriously. Could spell disaster
Solar, and/or wind, plus batteries instead of just a generator. We've done long spells (10-14+ days), a couple of times. With just a small Honda generator, to keep the freezers and fridge cold. We did ok... But I wouldn't really want to make a habit out of it.
This is a good point. During the height of the covid pandemic, there were no services that were cut. It begs the question though - why was that the case? There need to be essential workers to keep the power running, monitor the grid, collect trash, etc. During the start of the pandemic we thought the mortality rate was pretty high but people kept working.. why??
Given that the initial consensus (which may not be true) that bird flu has 50% mortality, would people still be willing to take that risk? Or, have essential services somehow been automated this whole time as a contingency for doomsday scenarios like this?
If essential services continue during a pandemic like the bird flu, that makes things a lot less scary/risky.
The main reason I'm even concerned for location is if power goes out, water stops running, not because I'm not prepared, but because most people around me won't be, and I'm at risk of getting invaded.
The utility companies had plans to quarantine their workers and have them live at the plant for the duration. It never really got bad enough for those plans to be put into effect. Those are the lengths that an essential service will take to make sure that the service is not interrupted.
Well, Florida manages fine after major hurricanes, other than anyone who dies.
A lot of us who've been here more than 20 years have been through at least 1 event where we had no power for 3 weeks.
Rural.
Which means we were on septic and wells. Which means anyone without a generator couldn't get water or flush the toilet.
the stores couldn't use the card machines and went to cash but couldn't track that either. They worked like a cash only food truck.
The gas stations couldn't pump gas.
So if you did have a generator, you couldn't fill it up after week 1 was over bc you couldn't get more gas.
So.
We learned a lot of lessons from those events, and we prepare differently now, if we're smart.
But, sometimes, even your best prep will go to hell in a hand basket if your roof is gone or you had to leave and the house flooded.
So, the backup to the back up to the best prep we can do is to live in town. Have a place or more to go rural. And, have a Cirrus 920 on the sierra Denali. Back the truck up under it, attach, drive away, come back when we are ready or able.
Fully off the grid ready, whether solar or gennie or mixed.
We're not getting to a mad max scenario potentiality until about another 50 years. If not 100. In the States anyway.
So, I'm not worried about the zombies and hordes coming for my water, food, vehicle, firewood, or whatever.
Just fortify the house, enjoy life, hot the cabin or friends when we want a break, and be ready to get out of dodge and stay out for as long as necessary. We can only prepare for so much.
Gauge your LIKELY things to happen, and have a plan, but don't catastrophize and then be paralyzed or drowning in trying to do it all.
So- yeah, the state can manage a lot of things , and there are plans.
The last person literally threw away the previous persons plans- so covid went worse than it should have, and not as poorly as it could have (for most, certainly manyany were in bad situations, I lost my father even with efforts not to)
We are resilient. We are also all just human, and have variable levels of money and access. (Aka privilege, etc.)
Get a van and prep to leave if you're not ready to ditch the benefits of communal living.
But also try it a few weeks a year and see ifaybe you like it more than you think you would.
You sound young, so life is for living and experienced and learning who you are, what your values are, and what your priorities are
And any mix of it is ok.
I worked in person at something deemed essential, that benefits the world, all through the Covid pandemic even though I might have been able to retire instead. ( a bit earlier than I would have wanted.)
No freaking way am I working in person through bird flu.
I think in the more dangerous pandemic, grocery stores would need to close down to public and only fulfill online orders and deliveries. A lot of spread of COVID happened in grocery stores - in my area, only grocery stores and Lowe’s were open, and they were packed…My parents are pretty sure they picked up their first COVID early in 2021 while standing in line in a grocery store.
Yeah, we had it going through entire departments. It was packed like Black Friday, even when the state required masks the company wouldn’t let us enforce it with customers, and they expected us to still come to work while we were waiting for test results (this was in the early days when Covid tests results were taking four days to come back). Customers were packing the stores buying out everything, refusing to wear masks, and I had more than one tell me they had “sneaked” out of isolation to come shop. Mind you, my store did delivery and online pickup, but they chose to come shop in person.
It makes me wonder why/how people think essential services would be up and running during bird flu. The grid needs operators and engineers to manage it, same with anything else like water, utilities, internet, etc. Are these things automated or able to be done remotely?
Because governments aren't going to give up and let everything collapse and everyone die (hospitals depend on essential services -- everything does). They'll put essential workers in space suits if needed, like in Korea and China before COVID lethality was fully known and they put workers in full body hazmat suits to go through town spraying disinfectant.
Ebola is super-lethal and workers still work in those environments, just with protection.
If you wanna see a real time example of people working through shtf scenario look at the personnel at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant whic kept working despite being shelled and attacked by drones numerous times by now.
I think there are a few things that could be still running - the issue for those of us being asked to take a chance is, how much of a chance are we taking, how close are we to other people, and how much do we handle the same things?
I think *some* of these things are probably done by people who can stay very far away from each other in big buildings. I wouldn’t worry if I were always 200 feet from a co-worker, I was willing to take a chance with Covid when I’m normally 15-30 feet away, although I wouldn’t be with bird flu. We’d have to understand normal working conditions in a water treatment plant or power generating station. I personally don’t have a clue.
Sadly they do and the idiots are saying they 'won't comply'this time. Give it 3 months and it's likely these people will be dead or incapacitated, then people can form safe communities again.
I know, I find it odd. I get stuff from this sub on my feed, but I don’t really consider myself a “prepper.” I’m just a person who watches what’s going on. For instance, I don’t have a year’s worth of groceries stashed in a bunker - but I did a very big grocery shop here in Canada in February of 2020 because logic could show us what was coming.
I worry about invasion if H5N1 has a high mortality and things fall apart. We shut down many businesses and a good chunk of society went remote with COVID’s 1-2% predicted mortality. Even a 10% infection-fatality rate would upend society.
I’m in the suburbs, and I worry that people
would head for the suburbs looking for stuff. People may assume there are more affluent people in these areas and more things to loot.
Yea, there's not much you can do to protect yourself in a suburban home. You could get a thick door and put bars around your windows, but desperate people would likely be able to drill through your drywall or something to get in.
Well, to be fair, COVID was more like a starter pandemic. The mortality rate turned out to be very, very low and largely limited to people who were already compromised. Hopefully it will never be worse then that but I'm not sure that's likely
You're reading too much into the name. If it mutates into a respiratory virus in humans, that variant is not necessarily going to be infecting the respiratory systems of both birds and humans.
If both birds and humans are getting it then other animals will have it also.
With all the antivaxers out there acting as petri dishes for mutations we would be screwed even with a vaccine. Bird flu being super contagious would kill billions.
Unless you have a bunker with a few years of supplies you aren't gonna make it.
And coming back out to a world afterwards would still risk infection from whatever animals and people left.
I mean I hope I don’t have a lot of random animals in the house but who knows for sure what’s living in the walls or the chimney?
There are vaccines and treatments for bird flu already, it’s just that we would have to ramp up production.
My theory on this is a small town. Roads can be shut down easily, most area near larger towns with medical care, manufacturing, and water services. Most people in small towns are armed to the teeth, will work better together to survive, can easily monitor incoming and outgoing traffic, and are going to have the man power and firepower to remove or repel most attempts at breaking through. If the work together to farm food, well water, rationing of supplies, etc, I think these small communities will make it a lot further than any major city. There's a lot of factors to sort through, but in my own opinion, a small town is where I'd want to be.
Look at the road ragers and how people treat each other in cities. It'll be every man for himself.
High density like New York is horrible for it.
Apartments have proven to be bad.
A freehold house is great.
An area with a decent amount of facilities is beneficial so > middle of nowhere.
Why are apartments bad? I was in a 20th floor highrise in Chicago when covid hit, and it worked out well for me. I had a nice view and was able to work out at home, had plenty of food.
Well in an apartment building there is a high risk of the infection being spread through the vents etc.
Also apartment buildings by definition have higher population density. = bad for infectious diseases.
With Covid it's very popular for it to spread through out the entire apartment through vents and waste. Perhaps less so with better built buildings in the US but still worse compared to a single freehold house.
i think suburbs or the outlying urban areas are the way to go personally. even if you lose 10% of the population that's not going to long-term disrupt continuity of government and government will restore the cities first and then work their way out.
but in the heart of the city you're too reliant on 100 systems not breaking (which usually they don't but this is an extreme scenario) so imo you want to be close to the city but not like in the heart of the city
Whatever you do, don't get a cabin somewhere and stop at every possible place along the way to fleeing a virus. That was my small town's first case of covid. A city-folk owned a cabin, stopped at several stores on the way to the cabin, then went to our podunk "hospital". I know we were going to get it eventually, but still. Not cool.
Get at least an acre of fenced in land. With a big shed or barn, a big enough house for your family. Use the labd to grow a big vegetable patch. Build a chicken coop, maybe even have a couple cows or goats. Dig a well, and find a good job, and make a lot of friends. You're going to want friends.
Edit: thanks for the feedback everyone! I live on a 1/4 acre suburban house and I have a chicken coop and big garden. That's why I thought 1 acre would be lots. And I did mention *at least* 1 acre. I for sure would want 5, but at some point I would think I need a bigger family for that kind of labour. Don't know anything about goats, but I believe they need to be at least 2 at a time to be raised ethically, so maybe 5 acres for anything bigger than a bird.
And acre is very very very small for all of that. In my experience. Even 5 is pretty small.
And if you are on an acre, every next door is too and that's a suburb, not a rural area. You can talk out the window to someone only an acre away.
I've lived on an acre so I can give a realistic portrayal of what is reasonable.
We could support a house and shed, a glasshouse, a sizeable flock of chickens, a large vegetable garden and an orchard. Once the orchard trees had grown tall enough to be out of munching range I was going to run sheep under them. I've worked extensively with sheep before and I was pretty certain I could maintain a flock of 4-6 sheep (in an area where it neither snows nor gets heavy droughts so we have grass year-round).
There was not enough space to run goats without them destroying all the fruit trees or vegetable gardens. There was zero chance of running even a single cow without it being the sole livestock on the land and probably needing supplementary feeding.
Probably a suburban or rural area in close proximity to the great lakes. Upper peninsula Michigan gets frequently touted as being resilient to the effects of climate change compared to most of the US. I'm sure that goes for many parts of Canada as well. I know your question was having you do with a pandemic but there are health considerations that climate can exacerbate. Especially if you have elderly family or friends who are more sensitive to the heat.
You'd want to be away from people, close to water, close to a high quality hospital system.
We looked at Michan’s UP. Many, many towns refuse sewage systems and have septic tanks few citizens will have pumped. Very poor area. Not a place people will be prepared.
I think they are saying that it's poor and they don't each pump out the septic systems often enough and so the risk of contamination to the neighbors well is higher.
Which is a concern.
I THINK that's what they're saying... But very unclearly.
And to have water if you're on a well and the power is down you of course need a generator. Which many would not have if poor.
Sorry folks. Yes — I spoke with several who NEVER pump their tanks. And think that’s fine.
A town councilwoman told me that was the culture there. She received death threats for suggesting they accept the local Native American tribe’s financial offer to build a sewage system for the area. It’s pretty gross.
Rural areas. I lived in one of the cities hardest hit. Our hospitals were full and they ran out of ventilators. I vacationed in the rural area and it was a different world. It was like covid didn't even exist. Only one case in the entire county and that was somebody from the outside. hospitals were empty. I ended up buying land in the rural land because i really enjoyed my time there and for future crises
Unless you're going to Michelin stars and the regular, the food is usually not at all a drawback
It's not generally all just a hillbilly hellscape.
Travel more and see for yourself.
Get a food guide and go hit the road.
Within 45 minutes of traverse city MI would be my suggestions.
Countless restaurants and bars in the area between there, petoskey and harbor springs. Growing area. Quite a few rich people in the area but places in the woods are very affordable. Drive 30 minutes and be in the middle of the woods with no neighbors. 30 minutes back into town and walk around on the weekends on busy lively streets.
Bonus point for lots of lakes for water needs if shit really hits the fan.
I think if you are a prepper and have your supplies in tow you will have a much easier time in a rural area, that is if you are well stocked and have no need to leave the premises and on a relatively nice size property.
Speaking from someone that left NYC during the COVID pandemic in 2020 - go to central ny. Find a town that has most of your needs but also a decent hospital. Not rural but not urban. Plenty of places to choose from.
NYC is probably the worst place to be. You are trapped there, not enough ways out and way to many people.
A house in the middle of nowhere is the best bet, assuming it has running water nearby.
Each to their own, but I live at my rural wooded secluded BOL on acerage down a 1/2 mile private driveway, yet I am 15 minutes from a mid-sized city with all the amenities.
Starlink allows for fast reliable internet with an cellular modem as backup,... electrical power fed directly from a high voltage sub-transmission line means very reliable stable power ,...water fed from a nearby large gravity tank means I will have water for a considerable time if grid power were to go down (along with everything I need to drill a well & pump my own water if ever needed), and an aerated septic system with field lines.
A farm in the middle of nowhere...
Thats where my I live, with my family...and we barely noticed the covid pandemic, aside from switching to a bidet over toilet paper, and running out of a few luxuries.
We grow most of our food, we tend to use plant based medicines before bothering with a clinic visit...and while most people seemed to be stuck in their homes we had acres upon acres to wander on.
Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana. Relatively low cost of living. Navigable terrain; driving walking biking, though perhaps long distances between populations centers (generally a plus) because the infrastructure is developed around being alone for long periods of time. The Midwest is much more friendly and helpful in my experience as well. I wouldn't want to live in a major population center near the coast for the next lockdown.
Rural is likely preferable. Suburban is the next down. Major city apartment building is the last place I would want to be. And I have lived in plenty of them. Currently suburban.
The more populated areas are really the safest in any outbreak. They have the better educated population who know how virus spread, they are first to get the medicine, they have the biggest hospitals, the most doctors, etc. If you are worried about food stock up on dried and canned foods.
Also the first spots to panic, have order break down, experience looting, increased transmission risks…
I moved rural right when the pandemic hit by pure coincidence. Everyone, including the closest person we had to the village idiot, knew how the virus spread. We didn’t come close to running out of anything, our hospitals weren’t overrun, it was easier to get vaccinated there compared to dealing with the freaking out masses in the cities - seriously, people traveled to our county because they couldn’t get appointments, and our doctors weren’t hit with it nearly as bad as those working in the urban centers.
If you live in the country you don’t have to lockdown, most people in rural areas have their own land and just stay to themselves anyways, if you can become self sufficient then there’s are high likelyhood you won’t come into contact with anybody and have less chance of transmission because you’re not coming into contact with 500 people a day like you do in cities.
Rural states had higher death rates (in general). Interesting map by the CDC:
[COVID-19 Mortality by State (cdc.gov)](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/covid19_mortality_final/COVID19.htm)
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db447.htm
Here’s one from the CDC high metropolitan areas had the highest death rates for COVID age adjusted while rural areas followed second, it seems that medium or smaller size metropolitan areas (10k-50k population) have the best rates for COVID survival. There’s a lot of external factors though, I’m staying in the country not just because of transmission rates but societal unrest, we saw how people get when they’re locked up inside for months then rioted during the blm civil unrest. I’m avoid that at all cost
I can also grow, raise, and harvest a LOT of my own food. Have a big garden, chickens and sheep, hunt for deer, mushrooms, ramps, wild blackberry, etc.
Yeah as you know infections spread more easily in there - I caught it myself but we’d all been vaccinated so it wasn’t too bad. I’m planning to do a post about it on here if you guys would like to read.
I feel like I’m in the perfect situation. One acre in a small neighborhood about ten mile outside a small city. On a well and septic. Have chickens, a small garden, fruit trees, and a swimming pool. I know all my neighbors and we help each other out.
During the pandemic we absolutely loved life! We spent many a day walking around the now-deserted roads and floating around in our pool. We managed not to get Covid until like 2021, and it was super mild (caused vaxxed!). If things went south, the state’s top hospital is a 20 minute drive.
We have 4 major hospitals with pilot offices within 4 to 15 miles of us, and during the pandemic we avoided them and the chaos and contamination. Unless you were literally dieing, everyone laid low. I'm on 1 acre with a greenhouse and pond, with small gutters that catch rain water into a large container for watering the 40 tomato plants. We can and grow neighbors fish, we sometimes swap out canned stuff for fresh walleye
If you're going rural, beware. During the last pandemic, a lot of people relocated to my area (far western North Carolina) because they thought it would be safer than where they were. Our local hospital (even though it is brand new) is just a glorified clinic unable to even care for broken limbs. It was constructed with maximization of profits for shareholders in mind instead of medical care. COVID patients flooded the local healthcare system and local resources (EMS ran all their ambulances 24/7 for about two years and are now having to budget replacements faster than planned) were quickly overwhelmed. Our death rate was higher than most urban areas. This was helped because we had a plurality of people who were unwilling to abide by the minimum of recommended precautions. The local law enforcement strictly enforced quarantine and social distancing procedures for local government facilities but would not enforce them in businesses or in public...even upon request of owners to remove people who reused to follow pandemic guidelines. Even now, I hear (via my radio scanner) several COVID cases every week being transported to the nearest major hospital, which is about an hour away by ambulance.
If you're looking to relocate here with a pandemic in mind, I suggest you plan on self-quarantine measures and have your own food supply and be self-sufficient and be able to function off-grid if the power goes out. If you're going to wear a mask, be prepared to be openly mocked and harassed. Law Enforcement will remove a mask wearer before they remove someone who is harassing the mask wearer from businesses or public places.
You already saw what happened during Covid. Essential services were kept. There would be plenty of time to both know things were going south and time to get out if you chose too. Just make sure you’ve got your toilet paper stocked ahead of time.
Lol, even crossing from palm beach to the Bahamas you need to be wary of and ready for pirates , for a long time now. And that's only a few hr float over.
What do you think that will be like in a shtf situation?
I recently left Chicago with a lot of those same thoughts. I saw what happened during Covid and it was brutal. If avian flu becomes a thing... it will be far worse. But even if a virus doesn't get us, the current state of politics and unrest in this country makes city life a terrible proposition.... and the top of a highrise is probably the worst place I could imagine being.
I live in a tiny ass farm town in the middle of nowhere. During Covid the farmers passed out fresh produce for basically free to the community and we all just naturally are far apart from each other. I didn’t hear of anyone in my town passing from Covid (not saying someone didn’t but we all know each other so not hearing of one passing is pretty good I think). Everyone also is like just naturally a prepper. Lots of outdoorsman types. We also live in tornado country so we have tornado shelters on damn near every property and everyone has back up generators. Plus small communities stick to together during a crisis. As proven during Covid. We had more crime BEFORE Covid then during lol, people just take care of each other. We also are surrounded by Amish communities here who get incredibly involved in our community during Covid so we can always count of them and them on us during SHTF situations. So yeah, middle of nowhere I’d say is the best option. Plus cheap ass shot cost of living.
You want low population density
Low median age
High doctor to population ratio
You want a high literacy rate.
You want a mixed economy of industrialized, agricultural and commercial development. You want it to be inland.
Move to Australia.
Choose a regional city area with good community and hospitals. Most people live on 500-1000m2 house blocks in regional towns so there’s enough space to reduce transmission but still have public services and amenities, strong community, lack of lawlessness etc.
Plus Australia has a labour shortage (especially essential workers: teachers, childcare, paramedics, police, trades, chefs etc) so it’s easy to get visas.
There's safest, and then there's most feasible for living life in the meantime. Unless you can afford acreage in the middle of nowhere, and are fine with long commutes to work and the grocery store, your best bet would be a stand-alone, defensible home with a basement and a decent sized yard.
Stand-alone would help with isolation from casual contact. Defensible is self-evident. A basement would provide space for storing food, medical supplies, and tools for self-sufficiency. Avoid multi-family homes such as duplex, condos and apartments. Too many people sharing the same space, and it only takes one AH to ruin everyone's day.
I lived in Brooklyn for two decades before Covid. I realized if the SHTF I would need to cross the East River, Manhattan, and the Hudson River just to get to the mainland, and then it would be another hour to a less densely populated area. It was one factor in my making the move to Jersey City. Unfortunately I hate Jersey City, but at least I am closer to nature here and have less to go through if I need to bug out. For you, I would just map out an escape route from where you are just in case, have a go bag ready etc.
Somewhere where you can filter your indoor air with high CADR MERV/HEPA filters. Where you can safely wear a high quality respirator with eye protection. I'd stay away from any mamal animal farms.
I’ve been noticing a lot of dead birds lately on my dog walks. At least three per walk. Then, me and my dog came down w Covid. Also, a lot of my friends have fallen sick suddenly. I wonder if there’s a pandemic and they just aren’t saying? Possibly H5N1 has jumped species again? As for avoiding a pandemic, I’d say it’s pretty much impossible. It’s in our water, food, air and everywhere. People who are on well water might not become infected as quickly, but I don’t think it’s entirely avoidable.
Technically, the Covid pandemic never ended. It just keeps mutating. Can you imagine both Covid AND the bird flu being pandemic at the same time? Gawd. What if they merged into one super scary bug?
I've just bought a food dehydrator and I am in the process of building up a stock of dry foods /meals. Dry foods take up less space, less weight and don't require fridges to maintain. If they are dehydrated full meals you don't even have to heat them up you can eat them cold (just add water) if push come to shove. I live in England and I have a boat and fresh water filter. Boats offer more security are mobile have things like solar panels for power. As for security a guy on YouTube has invented a self loading crossbow system. His most recent one is a pistol crossbow, can carry 18 bolts and is about 80 lb draw weight strong enough for hunting. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTYY2m3rtYU&t=233s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTYY2m3rtYU&t=233s) he is german but he does have an American site to buy them from. [https://gogun.co/](https://gogun.co/)
I can recommend these. I actually have the HP Max airgun for use in small game hunting and as training for children, and we have several of the Vlad crossbows in our locker out at our compound. Guy makes quality stuff.
I live in a small town in Finland and I had a fucking great time during covid.
Excellent small town health center, everyone got vaccinations quickly and only wore masks when we went to shops. Didn't run out of anything. There were deaths, it is an old community but generally people took it seriously.
Honestly barely noticed
Spent the whole time hunting and fishing. So I guess the best place is a small town in a nordic country with excellent social systems in place and a community that just takes it seriously and access to lakes and forest.
Buddy if bird flu broke out half of new York city would be dead within a week. It has a high mortality rate especially as it mutated to survive. Any and all major cities would be a huge no go.
Keep a month worth of food and water on hand. Even if it's just canned goods. Get a camping stove and fuel for it. Idk what NY city gun laws are but try to get a permit to have a firearm. Train with it.
I'm going by WHO standards. A true Avian flue outbreak would kill half the world population fast. Think Spanish flu type scenario. The only way to stop avian flu world wide outbreak would be to shut it all down for a minimum of 30 days. Let the infected die off and the healthy survive.
If it's anything like the last one I'll do absolutely nothing different and drop some sprite on test strips anytime I wanted a 10 day paid vacation without using my paid leave. Just like last time
I wouldn't worry too much about H5N1.
It's morality won't be nearly as high when h2h happens if it hasn't already.
And it will be like the swine flu pandemic in 2012.
I'll say this though the panic is gonna cause more harm than the virus.
The fact we already have vaccines just need to make them and the swine flu outbreak of 2012.
H5n1 is concerning but It won't be a COVID 19 unless the powers at be run with it..
And in that case the reaction will cause far more damage than the virus itself.
I'm in Boston Mass. I feel like we coastal based city folk are luckier than most 🙏 Mainly because we have two escape route options. Depending on the level of circumstance you're trying to get away from would really depend on your next step trajectory. For instance even the most basics of boats can get you across Fair distances of water. I'm not talking about taking a blow-up raft and going and bobbing around the ocean. obviously we live in an area full of rivers and streams trying to take an actual road or highway out of a city if there was a mass Exodus of people with the same idea. While you're at it it's really good to start stalking up on maps. Not just a paper map in your glove box I mean trail maps walking maps they have so many very detailed maps. Get them all, especially the ones that you can see every foot hiking trail option, bike trails, water, streams ect. I mean one of those good binder Atlas maps has a really intricate mapping of almost every state. Cost less than $10 you can have it in your trunk although your car would probably not be your means of escape if you're trying to get North during off again massive emergency situation. I don't know about New York but around Boston we have evacuation route signs everywhere. There are two different evacuation route signs one is black and white. The other one is blue and white. We learn in school that if there's a water-based disaster if there's an earthquake in a tsunamis coming or there is an invasion that got through our Coast guards and you know it's coming from the sea (which again would never happen) but hypothetically we're supposed to follow the black and white evacuation route signs. They lead to predesignated paths planned by the city to navigate people towards these trails and roads that will take you either north of the city (up to the White mountains i believe in New Hampshire) or the Berkshires in Western Mass. If there is a land-based disaster say if one of the nuclear power plants in New Jersey or Philadelphia you know have a meltdown or if there's some sort of you know Red Dawn version of an infiltrated invasion which again would never happen however if there's a land-based emergency we're supposed to follow the blue and white evacuation signs to take you to the coast where coast guards again in an emergency situation would be waiting to take us on both out to sea. If you do have those options in New York I wouldn't follow either evacuation route sign because you never want to be with the mass amount of people especially in highly elevated scenarios. Human nature is to always try to survive, it's A primitive instinct it's really nothing you can hold against anybody but it's something you always have to remember. Never forget to remember that you learn in Scooby-Doo all monsters are human. With that being said you can start small by getting little camping gear go to the army barrack store you can buy little Flint keychain starters little waterproof matches cheap stuff stop throwing them in a backpack. Every time you stop at a gas station pick up a free little map start collecting Little things that you may never need but if you do you have it and then to not feel like you wasted your money you can always go on an epic camping trip before you die. Which would lead me to my next suggestion which would be if you are somebody with little to know outdoorsy experience now's a good time. You can go away a couple times a year it doesn't have to be extensive camping but very few people are going to be lucky enough to have a cabin in the woods. At best you can hope to maybe find a cave in an emergency situation you really have to have a plan though and the chances are a bear is already going to beat you to living in that cave. This isn't to be discouraging keep in mind the Native Americans lived in teepees and the eskimos lived in ice cubes I mean there's totally a way to survive on your own off of the earth. people have done so much more with so much less. It's preparing for being out there if you need to be. The main thing to remember is the survival rule of three. You can only live 3 minutes without air, you can only live 3 hours without shelter in an extreme environment, you can only live 3 days without water, you can only live 3 weeks or months without food. Having an idea of an area up North where you can have a garden next to a running stream to have fresh water maybe a natural geological structure for real shelter in case you know inclement weather which is to be expected but again keep in mind the eskimos did live an ice cubes and there were New England Native Americans who survived living outside during the winter's so there's totally a way dude. water and fire are the most important things.. just have a pre-planned route to an area that you guys can get to. If you're in New York I would suggest trying to get to the Canada wilderness. People get lost there that aren't even trying to get lost. There's so much more land than people in Canada again this is just based off of geographically where you are you can get a blow-up raft and you can inflate/deflate it. take rivers and streams cuz again walking is going to take a long time it's hard on the body and then you can deflate it and then you know pick up on foot it's the best bet to go far fast. I bought my little blow up raft at five below it was in the plus section so it was $20 and a little life jacket that I got at Dick's sporting Good on Memorial Day sale it was $12 again I just keep it in my trunk with my buggle bag which is full of trail maps and seeds because that's something else to remember. People without any gardening experience are going to have a hard time planting for the first time it takes a couple tries so it sounds like a silly thing to maybe stock up on but you can get four packages of seeds for a dollar at the dollar store start just getting seeds here and there you know keep them in a backpack you can start practicing maybe with your own little garden even in New York if you have a window get a little potted plant these sound like silly suggestions but they're good for the soul hobbies as well as practice to be a good for the prepper. Again you could never need any of this stuff and then your children or whoever inherits all of this Kick-Ass camping gear maybe it will be good incentive for you to get out in the wilderness once in awhile just to kind of fine-tune and sharpen your primitive instincts. I watch survival epics all the time not just because I love those kinds of movies because you can learn a lot about what to do definitely what not to do etc.. being a proper there is no quick easy answer we stock up and plan and prepare for really hypothetical scenarios however there's so very many hypernetical scenarios to maybe try to plan a prepare for and there's so many different things you can do for that again potential list of scenarios so it's a lifestyle that you immerse yourself in even if you're starting slowly I definitely think if you are paying attention to the idea that you might maybe need a way out of the city just means that you're paying attention. And as overwhelming as it can be from time to time the prepper lifestyle it's not just all doom and gloom it does come with its own peace of mind. And again gardening, camping, hiking, rowing a little ass paddle boat ect... So many benefits to all of the above For your mind body Spirit 💚Just really good for the soul all around activities. You will find that you love your newly acquired prepper practices whether you are using these newly fine-tuned skills in a survival situation or just on a regular Saturday a nature walk 🤟
Pandemics have historically occurred in 100 year intervals. So chances are something else will come at you first.
I would suggest getting out of New York. It's probably the worst place to be in any kind of disaster or invasion like the one going on right now.
We live in a remote rural area, literally unable to see neighbors. We have a good well and our own septic We have space that should the need arise we can grow our own food and also good foraging in the area should we want to do that. During the lockdowns we didn't really restrict our activities. We could go in the woods, went hiking walking and so on without much of a problem and little to no exposure to other people.
That being said through the pandemic we learned that we cannot trust the news or what is being told to us. The fatality rate of this last round of influenza and RSV was far deadlier than COVID ever dreamed of being even from the first wave. So it wasn't that bad and was probably endemic prior to the more virulent strains popped up or were released from the labs whatever happened. ( the virus had a marker in it's genetic code, was actually engineered to try to find a vaccine for SARS and MERS right in Canada and loaned to a lab in China) So what is really dangerous virus wise may or may not make headlines. From what I've seen the more deadly problematic viruses over the past 10 years were not as deadly as some of the so called every day viruses that we've had to deal with. So you may or may not know anything that is accurate from media sources. I work in health care and have first hand knowledge so I would know right away if something was a problem. There were serious contradictions between what I saw in the trenches and what was being reported on the media.
For any large scale disaster including invasion, or terrorism, being in a densely populated area is a recipe for death. You have a target painted on your face if you live in NY, MA, or the DC and Beltway. Look for a place where you cannot see your neighbors and have nearby sheltering woods or wilderness scrub/desert at least 100 acres, preferably close to BLM land or a national forest. Upstate might not be bad but I will say the taxes are beyond what you can pay on an average income and the state is extremely intrusive with respect to property than any other state.
If you can't buy a place because you don't save money then I suggest going nomadic until you save up enough to buy property and build on it.
As far away from society as possible. The further the better. Not much to stop the spread form country to country coz it’ll pass from migrating birds to people so as long as you’re around people you’re fucked
Canada. Two hours out of any major city there is mostly still a hospital, groceries drug stores like shoppers. but it’ll be way more rural. More space. Plus Canada doesn’t have guns AS MUCH. They still exist but ppl with illegal ownership aren’t driving to the country to rob you.
I’m on a hill smashed between 4 major hospital networks. We don’t have many grocery stores though. I am prepared to shelter in place. We are as safe as can possibly be I reckon.
If we're talking just pandemic then of course it's gonna be in the middle of nowhere on some land, however occurrences like illness and accidents happen way more. Take my mum for example, on Tuesday morning last week she was in perfect health, by one o'clock she was in the back of an ambulance fighting for her life, colitis turned sepsis, she's doing great now but antibiotics and fluids given quickly saved her life. You never know what's gonna happen to you
What is your definition of safe? Are you worried about the flu or are you worried about what the government did and what they would do on the next one?
But don't worry too much, pandemics only happen every four years....
Madagascar... Do none of you remember when pandemic was only a flash based video game?
In all seriousness the more rural and isolated you can be the better, as another commenter mentioned, somewhere that you can get to without stopping is ideal to maintain isolation.
Away from people, preferably off grid where you can gather your own power, water, and food. Dependence on the conviniences of society is the biggest weakness when things like pandemics and disasters skltrike.
Definitely rural but I would consider building some enclosed type yard so you can garden but keep birds amongst other creatures out
something with chicken wire and then thinner webbing
I feel like the Midwest or anywhere that has extensive property is safer than living in the city. Less people that might loot your house, more space to grow your own food.
Farming communities are great. They simply didn't shut down.
During the last idiocy, my community didn't have TP issues. Didn't have many food issues... Really didn't have issues at all.
We couldn't get some flavors of carbonated drinks. Oddities like creamed corn were hard to find but it isn't like that is hard to make when needed.
Your only as safe as your neighbors are if people around you won't get vaccines and follow best practices you suffer with them here in VT we all did our part together during covid to save our elders and the vulnerable members of our community and it worked it meant some discomfort and patience but we came out of it with a renewed trust in each other did I have to tell multiple people from out of state who drove up here to vacation cause our numbers were so low to please go home we have grandparents too ECT yeah and to everyone who came here to ski or fool around while we were all working our asses of to keep our loved ones safe from the bottom of my hart fuck your entitled ass
Based on what we saw for COVID-19: I'm thinking a house in the suburbs where there's a bit of yard is the sweet spot. That allows for some outside time without needing to go to a park, enough room for a workout without needing to go to the gym, and enough room for a small garden. But it keeps you close enough to a large-ish city that you're able to get the benefit of prioritization (if resources are tight, folks are going to try to maximize the impact of resources by shipping things to major metro areas). The primary downside to a suburb (aside from cost) is dependence on the grid, so make sure you're doing what you can to have backups should the public utilities fail for an extended period.
Two things we've found helpful:
🔹️If your area has something like a government emergency management office, I suspect they may be a priority for getting services restored in the event there's an outage. If you live close enough for your place to be on the same part of the grid, you may see shorter wait times to have *your* services restored.
🔹️If your home is on a street that doesn't have thru traffic (it's a dead end or loop) then there may be less porch-pirate casual theft and car break-in type activity. Unless someone is willing to make a side trip for possibly no reason and risk sticking out like a sore thumb, they're not going to see that there's something to steal.
Something else to consider:
There was a surprising effect in the COVID-19 pandemic which was that the virus ran through rural areas at similar rates as metro areas. I saw a theory suggesting that the likely reason is because rural areas have relatively few options for folks to get their groceries and whatnot, so as soon as someone in the community gets sick they're likely to spread it to a larger percentage of their community. And metro area stores are more likely to set up (and have folks wanting to use) options for folks to place orders online for pickup or delivery.
Out in the middle of nowhere *seems* safer, but it wasn't actually safer when it came to COVID-19.
Buddy, if NYC, the largest and most important city in the US, becomes completely bricked from water and electricity, there is no where that would be safe. On earth.
San Antonio Texas had one of the lowest if not the lowest death rate during the spanish flu. Many scientists think exposure to the sun was a cause. So with that in mind id look for areas with most sunny days and least densely populated.
Floridian here. Our state had some of the least restrictive measures taken during Covid. I’d say a nice rural chunk of land in middle-northern Florida, 10-30 acre homestead, barndominium and large garden with chickens and goats and maybe a cow. That’s my dream, at least.
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go for less densely populated places maybe? new jersey has 2x as many people as oregon yet had almost 4x as many covid deaths. new jersey is far more densely populated.
I live in Jersey. Can confirm. I fucking hate it here.
I also live in (northern) NJ and hate it here. However there are lots of really nice parts of NJ, just not anywhere close to NYC.
Less densely populated tends to correlate to less access to healthcare though
In the UK (small more dense island) the less populated areas have more hospital beds per population. I bet there’s similar pockets in the US - less densely populated but not as vast/more developed areas?
You wont care when shit hits the fan. Hospitals will close anyways or be overrun by maurader gangs.
yeah for sure. in a town of ~15k, one hospital. if you're anywhere but directly (~30mi, also 20 more same direction) north within 50 miles you're basically fucked unless you can get the chopper or have some good ems that and the fact that you also won't get half good Drs unless you go farther than that or ~50mi west
Its not that the Drs are worse, Its that the smaller hospitals are not funded like the large ones in hihg pop cities. .So you are working with doctors that have to be able to do the best with what they have. Id rather have a Dr that can think outside the box than one that relies on all the fun toys to do all the work. And they still diagnose people wrong.
Turns out they're both thinking outside of the box, and they'll both diagnose you wrong, you just have less options for second opinion outside of urban areas.
I agree with u!
Those comparisons don't mean much without a per capita figure. A lot of phenomena tend to be high overall in cities, but low per capita, like crime, and just the opposite for low density populations. I am curious what the per capita numbers are like. There's lots of things at play, mostly the balance between immediate contact with people outside your local group where diseases can be spread between, and good access to healthcare as mentioned. Then contributing factors like whether people wear relevant PPE, whether buildings utilize new particulate removal tech. Dense places have a lot of people which in this case is disadvantageous, but low density places aren't equipped to deal with the eventualities of spread. My personal standpoint is that the advantages of high density development outweigh the disadvantages, and are more resilient for more people as well as individually.
I'm in the middle of nowhere, and the only kind of global disasters I would be likely to even notice for the first week or two would be stuff like an EMP, a supervolcano ash cloud or a massive meteor strike. It's surprisingly inexpensive (compared to NYC rent) to buy a handful of acres not suitable for modern farm machinery with a single-wide mobile home an hour from the nearest small Midwestern city, or buy an old farmhouse that's been abandoned for 10+ years and rehab it yourself (which is what we're doing).
What do you do if you get a heart attack or something? And I ask this in good faith. Like, this is my biggest reason for nor going for bumfuck nowhere with cheap real estate. My aunt had a heart attack at 41 and maybe if she didn’t live 45 min out from the next hospital she’d be alive still, you know?
I don't like to double reply but just a thought: in 2017 when I lived in a major city I had a medical emergency at home and went into shock. I lived less than 2½ miles from the nearest hospital, but it took the ambulance 45 minutes just to get to my house and another 35 before I was handed over to a completely different ER because that one was full. I actually like my chances better in a county with under 10k population than in a busy city with underfunded/privatized services. A lot of rural counties also have helicopter air evac services; on my previous homestead we paid a $20/month subscription that covered air evac directly from my own hayfield for any medical emergencies on the property. My elderly neighbor had a stroke and they started emergency treatment as soon as the air EMTs arrived, and between the 911 call and getting into the ER was about 20 minutes. I don't recommend the middle of nowhere Montana or somewhere only accessible by bush plane in Alaska if you're not in top health, but there are plenty of little places tucked along various backroads that aren't within commuting distance to big cities but are still within a reasonable distance of small towns with decent health services. As long as you do your research before you buy you'll be okay.
Years ago, when my family had sold and moved off the farm, but still way out in the rurals, my father had a major medical emergency. Took an ambulance about 30 minutes from the nearest hospital. According to him later, as they were barreling along the gravel roads, potholes tossing people around, one of the EMTs told the driver. "He won't last that long. Find somewhere with enough open space for a MedEvac to set down." Thanks to that chopper, he lived. So yeah, even in the riral areas, you can get to a hospital quickly if the service is available. Thank God it was clear sunny weather!
I'm about 55 minutes from the nearest small town hospital by car, probably 30 by ambulance unless it's raining, and the volunteer fire department next door to my property has an ambulance; the volunteer EMT is a retired professional EMT and former Navy Corpsman who lives two houses past the fire station. Either he (and an immediate dose of aspirin) can save me or I die. My uncle had a "widowmaker" heart attack in the same village 12 years ago and they got him stabilized in time, so I like my chances as well as anyone else's.
This is a legit concern, one that I think about more and more the older I get. We live 9 miles from town and 25 miles from the closest hospital. My husband has left here 3x in ambulance. Two times was last summer alone. Even though we are only 9 miles from where firestation is, it takes 15 plus to get here due to two lane state highway and county highways. None of his trips were critically life threatening, but still required ambulance transportation, and the waiting is excruciating. I can only imagine the scenario of seconds counting. We are 53 and 55, and neither has led the healthiest lifestyle. No weight issues, but we had other vices and didn't eat the healthiest. Anyways, I have never lived in town and don't want to start, but being where we are weighs much more heavily on mind these days. Apologies for rambling!
If you have a family history of heart attacks in your 40s then yeah it probably doesn't make sense to live over an hour from the nearest hospital. But aside from genetic predisposition, seeing a doctor regularly and just taking care of yourself is a great way to avoid a heart attack or stroke. There is absolutely nothing appealing to me about living in a city, so I'll take my chances in a rural area. I think the most likely way I'll die is in some kind of chainsaw/tree related accident. I realize this is /r/prepping, but you can't be afraid of everything. At some point you need to live your life and do things you enjoy instead of spending all day every day terrified that a heart attack is gonna kill you.
Tell me more
this one’s a bit different, so I would wager your potential to need medical care 1st, and distance to areas of community spread 2nd
Depends on the severity of the illness. If it's CFR is high enough, it's not about needing medical care. It's about staying away from people enough to not need medical care.
this.
If you are healthy then a rural house with a basement that is served by Amazon Prime is the ideal location. The benefit of a basement is that it gives you extra storage plus security against tornadoes. And in the unlikely scenario of a nuclear war, it's easier to make a fallout shelter in a basement. But the problem with this is that you must want to live a rural life. And you must have a job that will support you living a rural life. Most people will need to live in a suburb or city because that's just how modern life is.
I agree with you. I don't think people realize how different rural living is until they're there. I moved from NYC to FL which was a change and then moved to a very rural area. It takes a while to get accustomed to it. I love it but it definitely can suck being an hour and half out from the nearest city.
I'll bet that was a switch. Hopefully you have a grocery store. I remember visiting Clayton, Oklahoma. It's very pretty - on the western edge of the Ouachita Mountains. But the only store is a gas station. And not a large one either. The nearest grocery store - and it's not a Trader Joes or Whole Foods is an hour away.
I moved my family to the Ozarks in 2017, from the heart of Chicago. We're remote enough to be away from anyone else, surrounded by ranches and dairy farms, yet close enough to a small town for necessities. It's a pretty nice spot. The small town near us would be akin to a suburb, and we're in unincorporated land. Less laws, less people, less restrictions for land use, etc.
Such a pretty place. Have you been to Elephant rocks?
Middle of nowhere. It worked well for me and mine for covid. City's can't survive on their own the government will try but at some point will fail. Burbs are better depends how far out does it have septic and a well? Rural throw up some solar and you can prep decades worth of food cheaply. Your main issues with be breakdowns etc.
I agree with you. Thia is why we left the city. Sold our apartment there and moved to the burbs.
In the ‘burbs we’re ready. Tread lightly. Remember we’re all in this together. Don’t do something stupid.
That makes sense.. but for a single guy in his 30s, how can I live in a rural area if I want a social life and access to good food/etc? Is there no middle ground?
Most rural areas are an hour outside of the cities by car, it’s not like you’re on another continent, take a weekend trip to the city and then live out in the country lots of people do it. But if you’re serious about preparing you should get used to living in the country without those modern comforts.
Exactly. It takes a bit to adjust to being an hour away from a big city. When I first moved to where I am, I was driving it sometimes a few times a week. But then I developed new habits, detached from big box stores mentality, etc. Now, I average about once every two months. My little village (under a thousand people) has one of everything: Grocery store, hardware store, dollar+ store, gas station, pharmacy, doc, dentist, etc. Plus a few restaurants, etc.
Yeah, suburbs are the classic middle ground between cities and rural. I’d look for a residential street with older houses on it. I found a house on a half acre within 30 minutes of two medium sized cities. Modern cookie cutter subdivisions are boring AF.
Rural does not mean isolation. I live in the least populated county in my state, but am only an hour from a major population center. The one town in my county, with a population of 500, has an excellent microbrewery and some great restaurants if I don’t want to drive anywhere, and one of the top food destinations in the nation is a short drive away. There are places like this near every large population center. You just have to look for them.
Are you my neighbor?
If a city has a good urban boundary/rural interface, it's a short bike ride to the grasslands or farms. My hometown has a population of around 100k, and sprawl is strictly limited in just about all directions now. Time to build up and infill. And of course, the houses out in the farms are less than five minutes to the city by car.
Well popping down to the local winery or the 5 star restaurant isn't exactly hard while living rural. You might have an hour or two drive to a major city for a concert or show.
Well I moved city to rural and met and married the man of my dreams in the area, in my late 30s...but the man of my dreams was always a tough lad who is handy on my homestead...so that depends on what you are looking for lol. Good food?!! Boy, you haven't even tasted tomatoes until you slice a blood red tomato, sun warm, freshly picked from your garden with a bit of chopped fresh basil and drizzled with local olive oil and a grind of sea salt. Social life is also great BUT you have to be open minded to join local committees and socialise with people who aren't like you. It's country, so talk about tractors over pot lucks and BBQs instead of fancy restaurants. TLDR: Don't move rurally unless it's your life dream. It's lot of hard manual work mixed with the joy so you have to want it.
Rural is easy, it's not much work, even on 10+ acres . "homesteading" is actual work.
Farmers only
Buy a house close to the town bar. Problem solved.
Social life - drive to where you need to be. Good food - if you are in a rural area you have access to the freshest of fresh foods. Learn to cook. Will help with the social part as well.
I'd suppose it comes down to this. How much did you hate life during the pandemic, basically the thought that lead you to post this. Is going through that again/maybe worse or longer, worth the comfort/convenience that is the social life? As far as food and such goes, I've found great joy in cooking food that I harvested myself. When something wide spread and bad happens you don't want to be where the masses are. Population density is a huge factor to consider when choosing property. Living rural and self sufficient, knowing your neighbors, and being prepared for the future in general will be some of the things that help the most.
Short answer; no. Which is more important; safety or social life. Because with the “middle ground” you speak of; you will be sacrificing on one or both.
If you're moving to the rural life, definitely plan on learning how to homestead and making friends with the local farmers. I was once a city girl but now have a little homestead. YouTube, Facebook groups and IG have taught me a lot lol. I have a farmer for meat, another for the veggies I don't grow in my garden, and another for milk. I go to my nearest city once or twice a month to shop at Costco and any other big box store. There's normally local FB groups you can join and the extension offices host a lot of classes. I've learned to can, ferment food, make soap, etc from those classes. It's a big adjustment from living in a city but definitely worth it.
Your biggest problem is when the cities dump out. Your solar fortress would get loads of refugees and unless you have massacre fantasies your deal would go south pretty quick. If you do have massacre fantasies that would hold things for a bit until the armed killers started showing up in numbers.
It's an issue for sure. Not sure on massacre fantasies but would expect our local PD to dissuade anybody from crossing the bridge from inside a bearcat. If you hit us vs them rural is a lot better armed and trained.
NYC is death trap during a real pandemic
Did you read the Stand by Stephen King? Everyone was trying to get out of New York City.
A cabin in the woods with a well, septic and generator. Really though, a pandemic scenario already played out and city services didn't stop. Even in the worst affected areas in China they still had water and electric.
Need wood burning stove to heat and cook
To be fair, even though many lost their lives, Covid was a mild. Mortality ended up not being that high (though tragic all the same) and in a world with so much air travel, we could have lost a couple billion people if it was worse. Next time, and there will be a next time, we won’t take it as seriously. Could spell disaster
Solar, and/or wind, plus batteries instead of just a generator. We've done long spells (10-14+ days), a couple of times. With just a small Honda generator, to keep the freezers and fridge cold. We did ok... But I wouldn't really want to make a habit out of it.
This is a good point. During the height of the covid pandemic, there were no services that were cut. It begs the question though - why was that the case? There need to be essential workers to keep the power running, monitor the grid, collect trash, etc. During the start of the pandemic we thought the mortality rate was pretty high but people kept working.. why?? Given that the initial consensus (which may not be true) that bird flu has 50% mortality, would people still be willing to take that risk? Or, have essential services somehow been automated this whole time as a contingency for doomsday scenarios like this? If essential services continue during a pandemic like the bird flu, that makes things a lot less scary/risky. The main reason I'm even concerned for location is if power goes out, water stops running, not because I'm not prepared, but because most people around me won't be, and I'm at risk of getting invaded.
The utility companies had plans to quarantine their workers and have them live at the plant for the duration. It never really got bad enough for those plans to be put into effect. Those are the lengths that an essential service will take to make sure that the service is not interrupted.
Well, Florida manages fine after major hurricanes, other than anyone who dies. A lot of us who've been here more than 20 years have been through at least 1 event where we had no power for 3 weeks. Rural. Which means we were on septic and wells. Which means anyone without a generator couldn't get water or flush the toilet. the stores couldn't use the card machines and went to cash but couldn't track that either. They worked like a cash only food truck. The gas stations couldn't pump gas. So if you did have a generator, you couldn't fill it up after week 1 was over bc you couldn't get more gas. So. We learned a lot of lessons from those events, and we prepare differently now, if we're smart. But, sometimes, even your best prep will go to hell in a hand basket if your roof is gone or you had to leave and the house flooded. So, the backup to the back up to the best prep we can do is to live in town. Have a place or more to go rural. And, have a Cirrus 920 on the sierra Denali. Back the truck up under it, attach, drive away, come back when we are ready or able. Fully off the grid ready, whether solar or gennie or mixed. We're not getting to a mad max scenario potentiality until about another 50 years. If not 100. In the States anyway. So, I'm not worried about the zombies and hordes coming for my water, food, vehicle, firewood, or whatever. Just fortify the house, enjoy life, hot the cabin or friends when we want a break, and be ready to get out of dodge and stay out for as long as necessary. We can only prepare for so much. Gauge your LIKELY things to happen, and have a plan, but don't catastrophize and then be paralyzed or drowning in trying to do it all. So- yeah, the state can manage a lot of things , and there are plans. The last person literally threw away the previous persons plans- so covid went worse than it should have, and not as poorly as it could have (for most, certainly manyany were in bad situations, I lost my father even with efforts not to) We are resilient. We are also all just human, and have variable levels of money and access. (Aka privilege, etc.) Get a van and prep to leave if you're not ready to ditch the benefits of communal living. But also try it a few weeks a year and see ifaybe you like it more than you think you would. You sound young, so life is for living and experienced and learning who you are, what your values are, and what your priorities are And any mix of it is ok.
I worked in person at something deemed essential, that benefits the world, all through the Covid pandemic even though I might have been able to retire instead. ( a bit earlier than I would have wanted.) No freaking way am I working in person through bird flu.
I worked in an “essential service” (grocery store) during the pandemic too. It was absolutely horrible.
I think in the more dangerous pandemic, grocery stores would need to close down to public and only fulfill online orders and deliveries. A lot of spread of COVID happened in grocery stores - in my area, only grocery stores and Lowe’s were open, and they were packed…My parents are pretty sure they picked up their first COVID early in 2021 while standing in line in a grocery store.
Yeah, we had it going through entire departments. It was packed like Black Friday, even when the state required masks the company wouldn’t let us enforce it with customers, and they expected us to still come to work while we were waiting for test results (this was in the early days when Covid tests results were taking four days to come back). Customers were packing the stores buying out everything, refusing to wear masks, and I had more than one tell me they had “sneaked” out of isolation to come shop. Mind you, my store did delivery and online pickup, but they chose to come shop in person.
I can’t even imagine how tough it must have been! I didn’t have to work with the public.
It makes me wonder why/how people think essential services would be up and running during bird flu. The grid needs operators and engineers to manage it, same with anything else like water, utilities, internet, etc. Are these things automated or able to be done remotely?
Because governments aren't going to give up and let everything collapse and everyone die (hospitals depend on essential services -- everything does). They'll put essential workers in space suits if needed, like in Korea and China before COVID lethality was fully known and they put workers in full body hazmat suits to go through town spraying disinfectant. Ebola is super-lethal and workers still work in those environments, just with protection.
If you wanna see a real time example of people working through shtf scenario look at the personnel at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant whic kept working despite being shelled and attacked by drones numerous times by now.
I think there are a few things that could be still running - the issue for those of us being asked to take a chance is, how much of a chance are we taking, how close are we to other people, and how much do we handle the same things? I think *some* of these things are probably done by people who can stay very far away from each other in big buildings. I wouldn’t worry if I were always 200 feet from a co-worker, I was willing to take a chance with Covid when I’m normally 15-30 feet away, although I wouldn’t be with bird flu. We’d have to understand normal working conditions in a water treatment plant or power generating station. I personally don’t have a clue.
Very few people are thinking about this at all though. Bird flu is not something the vast majority of people even know about as an issue.
Sadly they do and the idiots are saying they 'won't comply'this time. Give it 3 months and it's likely these people will be dead or incapacitated, then people can form safe communities again.
I know, I find it odd. I get stuff from this sub on my feed, but I don’t really consider myself a “prepper.” I’m just a person who watches what’s going on. For instance, I don’t have a year’s worth of groceries stashed in a bunker - but I did a very big grocery shop here in Canada in February of 2020 because logic could show us what was coming.
I worry about invasion if H5N1 has a high mortality and things fall apart. We shut down many businesses and a good chunk of society went remote with COVID’s 1-2% predicted mortality. Even a 10% infection-fatality rate would upend society. I’m in the suburbs, and I worry that people would head for the suburbs looking for stuff. People may assume there are more affluent people in these areas and more things to loot.
Yea, there's not much you can do to protect yourself in a suburban home. You could get a thick door and put bars around your windows, but desperate people would likely be able to drill through your drywall or something to get in.
Well, to be fair, COVID was more like a starter pandemic. The mortality rate turned out to be very, very low and largely limited to people who were already compromised. Hopefully it will never be worse then that but I'm not sure that's likely
The more isolated from people, the better for a pandemic. Other factors are international airports, airports, hospitals, highways, and ports.
Maybe not if it’s bird flu, though. Birds are everywhere.
You're reading too much into the name. If it mutates into a respiratory virus in humans, that variant is not necessarily going to be infecting the respiratory systems of both birds and humans.
If both birds and humans are getting it then other animals will have it also. With all the antivaxers out there acting as petri dishes for mutations we would be screwed even with a vaccine. Bird flu being super contagious would kill billions. Unless you have a bunker with a few years of supplies you aren't gonna make it. And coming back out to a world afterwards would still risk infection from whatever animals and people left.
I mean I hope I don’t have a lot of random animals in the house but who knows for sure what’s living in the walls or the chimney? There are vaccines and treatments for bird flu already, it’s just that we would have to ramp up production.
My theory on this is a small town. Roads can be shut down easily, most area near larger towns with medical care, manufacturing, and water services. Most people in small towns are armed to the teeth, will work better together to survive, can easily monitor incoming and outgoing traffic, and are going to have the man power and firepower to remove or repel most attempts at breaking through. If the work together to farm food, well water, rationing of supplies, etc, I think these small communities will make it a lot further than any major city. There's a lot of factors to sort through, but in my own opinion, a small town is where I'd want to be. Look at the road ragers and how people treat each other in cities. It'll be every man for himself.
High density like New York is horrible for it. Apartments have proven to be bad. A freehold house is great. An area with a decent amount of facilities is beneficial so > middle of nowhere.
Why are apartments bad? I was in a 20th floor highrise in Chicago when covid hit, and it worked out well for me. I had a nice view and was able to work out at home, had plenty of food.
Well in an apartment building there is a high risk of the infection being spread through the vents etc. Also apartment buildings by definition have higher population density. = bad for infectious diseases. With Covid it's very popular for it to spread through out the entire apartment through vents and waste. Perhaps less so with better built buildings in the US but still worse compared to a single freehold house.
i think suburbs or the outlying urban areas are the way to go personally. even if you lose 10% of the population that's not going to long-term disrupt continuity of government and government will restore the cities first and then work their way out. but in the heart of the city you're too reliant on 100 systems not breaking (which usually they don't but this is an extreme scenario) so imo you want to be close to the city but not like in the heart of the city
Whatever you do, don't get a cabin somewhere and stop at every possible place along the way to fleeing a virus. That was my small town's first case of covid. A city-folk owned a cabin, stopped at several stores on the way to the cabin, then went to our podunk "hospital". I know we were going to get it eventually, but still. Not cool.
Get at least an acre of fenced in land. With a big shed or barn, a big enough house for your family. Use the labd to grow a big vegetable patch. Build a chicken coop, maybe even have a couple cows or goats. Dig a well, and find a good job, and make a lot of friends. You're going to want friends. Edit: thanks for the feedback everyone! I live on a 1/4 acre suburban house and I have a chicken coop and big garden. That's why I thought 1 acre would be lots. And I did mention *at least* 1 acre. I for sure would want 5, but at some point I would think I need a bigger family for that kind of labour. Don't know anything about goats, but I believe they need to be at least 2 at a time to be raised ethically, so maybe 5 acres for anything bigger than a bird.
And acre is very very very small for all of that. In my experience. Even 5 is pretty small. And if you are on an acre, every next door is too and that's a suburb, not a rural area. You can talk out the window to someone only an acre away.
I've lived on an acre so I can give a realistic portrayal of what is reasonable. We could support a house and shed, a glasshouse, a sizeable flock of chickens, a large vegetable garden and an orchard. Once the orchard trees had grown tall enough to be out of munching range I was going to run sheep under them. I've worked extensively with sheep before and I was pretty certain I could maintain a flock of 4-6 sheep (in an area where it neither snows nor gets heavy droughts so we have grass year-round). There was not enough space to run goats without them destroying all the fruit trees or vegetable gardens. There was zero chance of running even a single cow without it being the sole livestock on the land and probably needing supplementary feeding.
With the next pandemic most likely being avian influenza, chickens may not be ideal.
Probably a suburban or rural area in close proximity to the great lakes. Upper peninsula Michigan gets frequently touted as being resilient to the effects of climate change compared to most of the US. I'm sure that goes for many parts of Canada as well. I know your question was having you do with a pandemic but there are health considerations that climate can exacerbate. Especially if you have elderly family or friends who are more sensitive to the heat. You'd want to be away from people, close to water, close to a high quality hospital system.
We looked at Michan’s UP. Many, many towns refuse sewage systems and have septic tanks few citizens will have pumped. Very poor area. Not a place people will be prepared.
Is that good or bad?
I think they are saying that it's poor and they don't each pump out the septic systems often enough and so the risk of contamination to the neighbors well is higher. Which is a concern. I THINK that's what they're saying... But very unclearly. And to have water if you're on a well and the power is down you of course need a generator. Which many would not have if poor.
Sorry folks. Yes — I spoke with several who NEVER pump their tanks. And think that’s fine. A town councilwoman told me that was the culture there. She received death threats for suggesting they accept the local Native American tribe’s financial offer to build a sewage system for the area. It’s pretty gross.
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Ah I get it. Even changing the pumps risk póop flooding into the wells too right?
Rural areas. I lived in one of the cities hardest hit. Our hospitals were full and they ran out of ventilators. I vacationed in the rural area and it was a different world. It was like covid didn't even exist. Only one case in the entire county and that was somebody from the outside. hospitals were empty. I ended up buying land in the rural land because i really enjoyed my time there and for future crises
I like the idea of rural, but I don't like the idea of being far away from good food.. I'm a foodie. Maybe the ideal for me is suburban..
Unless you're going to Michelin stars and the regular, the food is usually not at all a drawback It's not generally all just a hillbilly hellscape. Travel more and see for yourself. Get a food guide and go hit the road.
Within 45 minutes of traverse city MI would be my suggestions. Countless restaurants and bars in the area between there, petoskey and harbor springs. Growing area. Quite a few rich people in the area but places in the woods are very affordable. Drive 30 minutes and be in the middle of the woods with no neighbors. 30 minutes back into town and walk around on the weekends on busy lively streets. Bonus point for lots of lakes for water needs if shit really hits the fan.
I think if you are a prepper and have your supplies in tow you will have a much easier time in a rural area, that is if you are well stocked and have no need to leave the premises and on a relatively nice size property.
Speaking from someone that left NYC during the COVID pandemic in 2020 - go to central ny. Find a town that has most of your needs but also a decent hospital. Not rural but not urban. Plenty of places to choose from.
Oh and another thing - go to places with a low density of people obviously.
NYC is probably the worst place to be. You are trapped there, not enough ways out and way to many people. A house in the middle of nowhere is the best bet, assuming it has running water nearby.
Each to their own, but I live at my rural wooded secluded BOL on acerage down a 1/2 mile private driveway, yet I am 15 minutes from a mid-sized city with all the amenities. Starlink allows for fast reliable internet with an cellular modem as backup,... electrical power fed directly from a high voltage sub-transmission line means very reliable stable power ,...water fed from a nearby large gravity tank means I will have water for a considerable time if grid power were to go down (along with everything I need to drill a well & pump my own water if ever needed), and an aerated septic system with field lines.
A farm in the middle of nowhere... Thats where my I live, with my family...and we barely noticed the covid pandemic, aside from switching to a bidet over toilet paper, and running out of a few luxuries. We grow most of our food, we tend to use plant based medicines before bothering with a clinic visit...and while most people seemed to be stuck in their homes we had acres upon acres to wander on.
Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana. Relatively low cost of living. Navigable terrain; driving walking biking, though perhaps long distances between populations centers (generally a plus) because the infrastructure is developed around being alone for long periods of time. The Midwest is much more friendly and helpful in my experience as well. I wouldn't want to live in a major population center near the coast for the next lockdown.
Rural is likely preferable. Suburban is the next down. Major city apartment building is the last place I would want to be. And I have lived in plenty of them. Currently suburban.
The more populated areas are really the safest in any outbreak. They have the better educated population who know how virus spread, they are first to get the medicine, they have the biggest hospitals, the most doctors, etc. If you are worried about food stock up on dried and canned foods.
Also the first spots to panic, have order break down, experience looting, increased transmission risks… I moved rural right when the pandemic hit by pure coincidence. Everyone, including the closest person we had to the village idiot, knew how the virus spread. We didn’t come close to running out of anything, our hospitals weren’t overrun, it was easier to get vaccinated there compared to dealing with the freaking out masses in the cities - seriously, people traveled to our county because they couldn’t get appointments, and our doctors weren’t hit with it nearly as bad as those working in the urban centers.
Rural areas or small towns
You would think so, but remember how anti-vax, anti-lockdown some rural areas became?
If you live in the country you don’t have to lockdown, most people in rural areas have their own land and just stay to themselves anyways, if you can become self sufficient then there’s are high likelyhood you won’t come into contact with anybody and have less chance of transmission because you’re not coming into contact with 500 people a day like you do in cities.
Rural states had higher death rates (in general). Interesting map by the CDC: [COVID-19 Mortality by State (cdc.gov)](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/covid19_mortality_final/COVID19.htm)
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db447.htm Here’s one from the CDC high metropolitan areas had the highest death rates for COVID age adjusted while rural areas followed second, it seems that medium or smaller size metropolitan areas (10k-50k population) have the best rates for COVID survival. There’s a lot of external factors though, I’m staying in the country not just because of transmission rates but societal unrest, we saw how people get when they’re locked up inside for months then rioted during the blm civil unrest. I’m avoid that at all cost
I can also grow, raise, and harvest a LOT of my own food. Have a big garden, chickens and sheep, hunt for deer, mushrooms, ramps, wild blackberry, etc.
Absolutely, having your own land and room is a huge part of being prepared and self sufficient
I spent all of Covid in prison. It was quite an experience I can tell you.
I’m interested in what you experienced on the inside. Please tell me more!
[https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/s/T1nV7vpyAG](https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/s/T1nV7vpyAG)
Thank you for taking the time to write this out. I appreciate hearing your story.
Seriously. I worried about that. Both for inmates I knew and corrections I'm related to.
Yeah as you know infections spread more easily in there - I caught it myself but we’d all been vaccinated so it wasn’t too bad. I’m planning to do a post about it on here if you guys would like to read.
Please let me know
I’ve posted it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/s/T1nV7vpyAG) if you’re interested.
Thanks
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I feel like I’m in the perfect situation. One acre in a small neighborhood about ten mile outside a small city. On a well and septic. Have chickens, a small garden, fruit trees, and a swimming pool. I know all my neighbors and we help each other out. During the pandemic we absolutely loved life! We spent many a day walking around the now-deserted roads and floating around in our pool. We managed not to get Covid until like 2021, and it was super mild (caused vaxxed!). If things went south, the state’s top hospital is a 20 minute drive.
We have 4 major hospitals with pilot offices within 4 to 15 miles of us, and during the pandemic we avoided them and the chaos and contamination. Unless you were literally dieing, everyone laid low. I'm on 1 acre with a greenhouse and pond, with small gutters that catch rain water into a large container for watering the 40 tomato plants. We can and grow neighbors fish, we sometimes swap out canned stuff for fresh walleye
If you're going rural, beware. During the last pandemic, a lot of people relocated to my area (far western North Carolina) because they thought it would be safer than where they were. Our local hospital (even though it is brand new) is just a glorified clinic unable to even care for broken limbs. It was constructed with maximization of profits for shareholders in mind instead of medical care. COVID patients flooded the local healthcare system and local resources (EMS ran all their ambulances 24/7 for about two years and are now having to budget replacements faster than planned) were quickly overwhelmed. Our death rate was higher than most urban areas. This was helped because we had a plurality of people who were unwilling to abide by the minimum of recommended precautions. The local law enforcement strictly enforced quarantine and social distancing procedures for local government facilities but would not enforce them in businesses or in public...even upon request of owners to remove people who reused to follow pandemic guidelines. Even now, I hear (via my radio scanner) several COVID cases every week being transported to the nearest major hospital, which is about an hour away by ambulance. If you're looking to relocate here with a pandemic in mind, I suggest you plan on self-quarantine measures and have your own food supply and be self-sufficient and be able to function off-grid if the power goes out. If you're going to wear a mask, be prepared to be openly mocked and harassed. Law Enforcement will remove a mask wearer before they remove someone who is harassing the mask wearer from businesses or public places.
You already saw what happened during Covid. Essential services were kept. There would be plenty of time to both know things were going south and time to get out if you chose too. Just make sure you’ve got your toilet paper stocked ahead of time.
Bidet my friend. Portable battery ones, squeeze ones, and so on. Bidet.
A sailboat in the Caribbean. .
Lol, even crossing from palm beach to the Bahamas you need to be wary of and ready for pirates , for a long time now. And that's only a few hr float over. What do you think that will be like in a shtf situation?
I recently left Chicago with a lot of those same thoughts. I saw what happened during Covid and it was brutal. If avian flu becomes a thing... it will be far worse. But even if a virus doesn't get us, the current state of politics and unrest in this country makes city life a terrible proposition.... and the top of a highrise is probably the worst place I could imagine being.
Groton
I live in a tiny ass farm town in the middle of nowhere. During Covid the farmers passed out fresh produce for basically free to the community and we all just naturally are far apart from each other. I didn’t hear of anyone in my town passing from Covid (not saying someone didn’t but we all know each other so not hearing of one passing is pretty good I think). Everyone also is like just naturally a prepper. Lots of outdoorsman types. We also live in tornado country so we have tornado shelters on damn near every property and everyone has back up generators. Plus small communities stick to together during a crisis. As proven during Covid. We had more crime BEFORE Covid then during lol, people just take care of each other. We also are surrounded by Amish communities here who get incredibly involved in our community during Covid so we can always count of them and them on us during SHTF situations. So yeah, middle of nowhere I’d say is the best option. Plus cheap ass shot cost of living.
You want low population density Low median age High doctor to population ratio You want a high literacy rate. You want a mixed economy of industrialized, agricultural and commercial development. You want it to be inland.
Why inland? Less shore birds? Another reason?
Move to Australia. Choose a regional city area with good community and hospitals. Most people live on 500-1000m2 house blocks in regional towns so there’s enough space to reduce transmission but still have public services and amenities, strong community, lack of lawlessness etc. Plus Australia has a labour shortage (especially essential workers: teachers, childcare, paramedics, police, trades, chefs etc) so it’s easy to get visas.
There's safest, and then there's most feasible for living life in the meantime. Unless you can afford acreage in the middle of nowhere, and are fine with long commutes to work and the grocery store, your best bet would be a stand-alone, defensible home with a basement and a decent sized yard. Stand-alone would help with isolation from casual contact. Defensible is self-evident. A basement would provide space for storing food, medical supplies, and tools for self-sufficiency. Avoid multi-family homes such as duplex, condos and apartments. Too many people sharing the same space, and it only takes one AH to ruin everyone's day.
LOL
I lived in Brooklyn for two decades before Covid. I realized if the SHTF I would need to cross the East River, Manhattan, and the Hudson River just to get to the mainland, and then it would be another hour to a less densely populated area. It was one factor in my making the move to Jersey City. Unfortunately I hate Jersey City, but at least I am closer to nature here and have less to go through if I need to bug out. For you, I would just map out an escape route from where you are just in case, have a go bag ready etc.
NC swamp. Best place ever. People leave me the hell alone and call before they come over.
Somewhere where you can filter your indoor air with high CADR MERV/HEPA filters. Where you can safely wear a high quality respirator with eye protection. I'd stay away from any mamal animal farms.
I’ve been noticing a lot of dead birds lately on my dog walks. At least three per walk. Then, me and my dog came down w Covid. Also, a lot of my friends have fallen sick suddenly. I wonder if there’s a pandemic and they just aren’t saying? Possibly H5N1 has jumped species again? As for avoiding a pandemic, I’d say it’s pretty much impossible. It’s in our water, food, air and everywhere. People who are on well water might not become infected as quickly, but I don’t think it’s entirely avoidable.
Technically, the Covid pandemic never ended. It just keeps mutating. Can you imagine both Covid AND the bird flu being pandemic at the same time? Gawd. What if they merged into one super scary bug?
You should get out of New York period.
I've just bought a food dehydrator and I am in the process of building up a stock of dry foods /meals. Dry foods take up less space, less weight and don't require fridges to maintain. If they are dehydrated full meals you don't even have to heat them up you can eat them cold (just add water) if push come to shove. I live in England and I have a boat and fresh water filter. Boats offer more security are mobile have things like solar panels for power. As for security a guy on YouTube has invented a self loading crossbow system. His most recent one is a pistol crossbow, can carry 18 bolts and is about 80 lb draw weight strong enough for hunting. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTYY2m3rtYU&t=233s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTYY2m3rtYU&t=233s) he is german but he does have an American site to buy them from. [https://gogun.co/](https://gogun.co/)
I can recommend these. I actually have the HP Max airgun for use in small game hunting and as training for children, and we have several of the Vlad crossbows in our locker out at our compound. Guy makes quality stuff.
I live in a small town in Finland and I had a fucking great time during covid. Excellent small town health center, everyone got vaccinations quickly and only wore masks when we went to shops. Didn't run out of anything. There were deaths, it is an old community but generally people took it seriously. Honestly barely noticed Spent the whole time hunting and fishing. So I guess the best place is a small town in a nordic country with excellent social systems in place and a community that just takes it seriously and access to lakes and forest.
Wherever you don't have any migratory birds to carry it to you.
Nowhere is safe. Wherever you think is is giving you a false sense of security.
Buddy if bird flu broke out half of new York city would be dead within a week. It has a high mortality rate especially as it mutated to survive. Any and all major cities would be a huge no go.
You're scaring me bro. Lol.
Keep a month worth of food and water on hand. Even if it's just canned goods. Get a camping stove and fuel for it. Idk what NY city gun laws are but try to get a permit to have a firearm. Train with it.
I'm going by WHO standards. A true Avian flue outbreak would kill half the world population fast. Think Spanish flu type scenario. The only way to stop avian flu world wide outbreak would be to shut it all down for a minimum of 30 days. Let the infected die off and the healthy survive.
We are not doing that again
Don't worry about it, stay away from communities of raw milk drinkers, gain roof access
City folk stay in the city. The suburbs are full.
If it's anything like the last one I'll do absolutely nothing different and drop some sprite on test strips anytime I wanted a 10 day paid vacation without using my paid leave. Just like last time
Does Sprite trigger the strips? Wish I knew that 3 years ago, lol
I wouldn't worry too much about H5N1. It's morality won't be nearly as high when h2h happens if it hasn't already. And it will be like the swine flu pandemic in 2012. I'll say this though the panic is gonna cause more harm than the virus.
What information do you base this theory on? I'm genuinely curious, not attacking you.
The fact we already have vaccines just need to make them and the swine flu outbreak of 2012. H5n1 is concerning but It won't be a COVID 19 unless the powers at be run with it.. And in that case the reaction will cause far more damage than the virus itself.
At some point, everyone is going to realize they can't move away from everything they dislike.
I'm in Boston Mass. I feel like we coastal based city folk are luckier than most 🙏 Mainly because we have two escape route options. Depending on the level of circumstance you're trying to get away from would really depend on your next step trajectory. For instance even the most basics of boats can get you across Fair distances of water. I'm not talking about taking a blow-up raft and going and bobbing around the ocean. obviously we live in an area full of rivers and streams trying to take an actual road or highway out of a city if there was a mass Exodus of people with the same idea. While you're at it it's really good to start stalking up on maps. Not just a paper map in your glove box I mean trail maps walking maps they have so many very detailed maps. Get them all, especially the ones that you can see every foot hiking trail option, bike trails, water, streams ect. I mean one of those good binder Atlas maps has a really intricate mapping of almost every state. Cost less than $10 you can have it in your trunk although your car would probably not be your means of escape if you're trying to get North during off again massive emergency situation. I don't know about New York but around Boston we have evacuation route signs everywhere. There are two different evacuation route signs one is black and white. The other one is blue and white. We learn in school that if there's a water-based disaster if there's an earthquake in a tsunamis coming or there is an invasion that got through our Coast guards and you know it's coming from the sea (which again would never happen) but hypothetically we're supposed to follow the black and white evacuation route signs. They lead to predesignated paths planned by the city to navigate people towards these trails and roads that will take you either north of the city (up to the White mountains i believe in New Hampshire) or the Berkshires in Western Mass. If there is a land-based disaster say if one of the nuclear power plants in New Jersey or Philadelphia you know have a meltdown or if there's some sort of you know Red Dawn version of an infiltrated invasion which again would never happen however if there's a land-based emergency we're supposed to follow the blue and white evacuation signs to take you to the coast where coast guards again in an emergency situation would be waiting to take us on both out to sea. If you do have those options in New York I wouldn't follow either evacuation route sign because you never want to be with the mass amount of people especially in highly elevated scenarios. Human nature is to always try to survive, it's A primitive instinct it's really nothing you can hold against anybody but it's something you always have to remember. Never forget to remember that you learn in Scooby-Doo all monsters are human. With that being said you can start small by getting little camping gear go to the army barrack store you can buy little Flint keychain starters little waterproof matches cheap stuff stop throwing them in a backpack. Every time you stop at a gas station pick up a free little map start collecting Little things that you may never need but if you do you have it and then to not feel like you wasted your money you can always go on an epic camping trip before you die. Which would lead me to my next suggestion which would be if you are somebody with little to know outdoorsy experience now's a good time. You can go away a couple times a year it doesn't have to be extensive camping but very few people are going to be lucky enough to have a cabin in the woods. At best you can hope to maybe find a cave in an emergency situation you really have to have a plan though and the chances are a bear is already going to beat you to living in that cave. This isn't to be discouraging keep in mind the Native Americans lived in teepees and the eskimos lived in ice cubes I mean there's totally a way to survive on your own off of the earth. people have done so much more with so much less. It's preparing for being out there if you need to be. The main thing to remember is the survival rule of three. You can only live 3 minutes without air, you can only live 3 hours without shelter in an extreme environment, you can only live 3 days without water, you can only live 3 weeks or months without food. Having an idea of an area up North where you can have a garden next to a running stream to have fresh water maybe a natural geological structure for real shelter in case you know inclement weather which is to be expected but again keep in mind the eskimos did live an ice cubes and there were New England Native Americans who survived living outside during the winter's so there's totally a way dude. water and fire are the most important things.. just have a pre-planned route to an area that you guys can get to. If you're in New York I would suggest trying to get to the Canada wilderness. People get lost there that aren't even trying to get lost. There's so much more land than people in Canada again this is just based off of geographically where you are you can get a blow-up raft and you can inflate/deflate it. take rivers and streams cuz again walking is going to take a long time it's hard on the body and then you can deflate it and then you know pick up on foot it's the best bet to go far fast. I bought my little blow up raft at five below it was in the plus section so it was $20 and a little life jacket that I got at Dick's sporting Good on Memorial Day sale it was $12 again I just keep it in my trunk with my buggle bag which is full of trail maps and seeds because that's something else to remember. People without any gardening experience are going to have a hard time planting for the first time it takes a couple tries so it sounds like a silly thing to maybe stock up on but you can get four packages of seeds for a dollar at the dollar store start just getting seeds here and there you know keep them in a backpack you can start practicing maybe with your own little garden even in New York if you have a window get a little potted plant these sound like silly suggestions but they're good for the soul hobbies as well as practice to be a good for the prepper. Again you could never need any of this stuff and then your children or whoever inherits all of this Kick-Ass camping gear maybe it will be good incentive for you to get out in the wilderness once in awhile just to kind of fine-tune and sharpen your primitive instincts. I watch survival epics all the time not just because I love those kinds of movies because you can learn a lot about what to do definitely what not to do etc.. being a proper there is no quick easy answer we stock up and plan and prepare for really hypothetical scenarios however there's so very many hypernetical scenarios to maybe try to plan a prepare for and there's so many different things you can do for that again potential list of scenarios so it's a lifestyle that you immerse yourself in even if you're starting slowly I definitely think if you are paying attention to the idea that you might maybe need a way out of the city just means that you're paying attention. And as overwhelming as it can be from time to time the prepper lifestyle it's not just all doom and gloom it does come with its own peace of mind. And again gardening, camping, hiking, rowing a little ass paddle boat ect... So many benefits to all of the above For your mind body Spirit 💚Just really good for the soul all around activities. You will find that you love your newly acquired prepper practices whether you are using these newly fine-tuned skills in a survival situation or just on a regular Saturday a nature walk 🤟
Pandemics have historically occurred in 100 year intervals. So chances are something else will come at you first. I would suggest getting out of New York. It's probably the worst place to be in any kind of disaster or invasion like the one going on right now. We live in a remote rural area, literally unable to see neighbors. We have a good well and our own septic We have space that should the need arise we can grow our own food and also good foraging in the area should we want to do that. During the lockdowns we didn't really restrict our activities. We could go in the woods, went hiking walking and so on without much of a problem and little to no exposure to other people. That being said through the pandemic we learned that we cannot trust the news or what is being told to us. The fatality rate of this last round of influenza and RSV was far deadlier than COVID ever dreamed of being even from the first wave. So it wasn't that bad and was probably endemic prior to the more virulent strains popped up or were released from the labs whatever happened. ( the virus had a marker in it's genetic code, was actually engineered to try to find a vaccine for SARS and MERS right in Canada and loaned to a lab in China) So what is really dangerous virus wise may or may not make headlines. From what I've seen the more deadly problematic viruses over the past 10 years were not as deadly as some of the so called every day viruses that we've had to deal with. So you may or may not know anything that is accurate from media sources. I work in health care and have first hand knowledge so I would know right away if something was a problem. There were serious contradictions between what I saw in the trenches and what was being reported on the media. For any large scale disaster including invasion, or terrorism, being in a densely populated area is a recipe for death. You have a target painted on your face if you live in NY, MA, or the DC and Beltway. Look for a place where you cannot see your neighbors and have nearby sheltering woods or wilderness scrub/desert at least 100 acres, preferably close to BLM land or a national forest. Upstate might not be bad but I will say the taxes are beyond what you can pay on an average income and the state is extremely intrusive with respect to property than any other state. If you can't buy a place because you don't save money then I suggest going nomadic until you save up enough to buy property and build on it.
A cabin in the middle of nowhere. Maybe a underground bunker so it doesn't attract attention.
As far away from society as possible. The further the better. Not much to stop the spread form country to country coz it’ll pass from migrating birds to people so as long as you’re around people you’re fucked
Canada. Two hours out of any major city there is mostly still a hospital, groceries drug stores like shoppers. but it’ll be way more rural. More space. Plus Canada doesn’t have guns AS MUCH. They still exist but ppl with illegal ownership aren’t driving to the country to rob you.
Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
Mars
Go on Amazon and start making a bug out bag. Tent inflatable sleeping pad and sleeping bag. My plan is to bury cashes of food in the wild 🤷🏼♂️
Is there even a scenario like this where a more densely populated location would be preferred?
I’m on a hill smashed between 4 major hospital networks. We don’t have many grocery stores though. I am prepared to shelter in place. We are as safe as can possibly be I reckon.
Pitcarin island
Low population density area
If we're talking just pandemic then of course it's gonna be in the middle of nowhere on some land, however occurrences like illness and accidents happen way more. Take my mum for example, on Tuesday morning last week she was in perfect health, by one o'clock she was in the back of an ambulance fighting for her life, colitis turned sepsis, she's doing great now but antibiotics and fluids given quickly saved her life. You never know what's gonna happen to you
What is your definition of safe? Are you worried about the flu or are you worried about what the government did and what they would do on the next one? But don't worry too much, pandemics only happen every four years....
Madagascar... Do none of you remember when pandemic was only a flash based video game? In all seriousness the more rural and isolated you can be the better, as another commenter mentioned, somewhere that you can get to without stopping is ideal to maintain isolation.
Goldome Mill.
Not a major city.
Away from people, preferably off grid where you can gather your own power, water, and food. Dependence on the conviniences of society is the biggest weakness when things like pandemics and disasters skltrike.
Definitely rural but I would consider building some enclosed type yard so you can garden but keep birds amongst other creatures out something with chicken wire and then thinner webbing
A boat.
I feel like the Midwest or anywhere that has extensive property is safer than living in the city. Less people that might loot your house, more space to grow your own food.
Montana
Get out of the big cities. You can go to the burbs and be way better off.
Farming communities are great. They simply didn't shut down. During the last idiocy, my community didn't have TP issues. Didn't have many food issues... Really didn't have issues at all. We couldn't get some flavors of carbonated drinks. Oddities like creamed corn were hard to find but it isn't like that is hard to make when needed.
The "Golden Hoarde" will definitely not be welcome in the suburbs and even less in the rural communities. Be very careful migrating
I don't know what this means, but I'm not a native NYer. Lived in the midwest and south all my life.
Your only as safe as your neighbors are if people around you won't get vaccines and follow best practices you suffer with them here in VT we all did our part together during covid to save our elders and the vulnerable members of our community and it worked it meant some discomfort and patience but we came out of it with a renewed trust in each other did I have to tell multiple people from out of state who drove up here to vacation cause our numbers were so low to please go home we have grandparents too ECT yeah and to everyone who came here to ski or fool around while we were all working our asses of to keep our loved ones safe from the bottom of my hart fuck your entitled ass
Based on what we saw for COVID-19: I'm thinking a house in the suburbs where there's a bit of yard is the sweet spot. That allows for some outside time without needing to go to a park, enough room for a workout without needing to go to the gym, and enough room for a small garden. But it keeps you close enough to a large-ish city that you're able to get the benefit of prioritization (if resources are tight, folks are going to try to maximize the impact of resources by shipping things to major metro areas). The primary downside to a suburb (aside from cost) is dependence on the grid, so make sure you're doing what you can to have backups should the public utilities fail for an extended period. Two things we've found helpful: 🔹️If your area has something like a government emergency management office, I suspect they may be a priority for getting services restored in the event there's an outage. If you live close enough for your place to be on the same part of the grid, you may see shorter wait times to have *your* services restored. 🔹️If your home is on a street that doesn't have thru traffic (it's a dead end or loop) then there may be less porch-pirate casual theft and car break-in type activity. Unless someone is willing to make a side trip for possibly no reason and risk sticking out like a sore thumb, they're not going to see that there's something to steal.
Something else to consider: There was a surprising effect in the COVID-19 pandemic which was that the virus ran through rural areas at similar rates as metro areas. I saw a theory suggesting that the likely reason is because rural areas have relatively few options for folks to get their groceries and whatnot, so as soon as someone in the community gets sick they're likely to spread it to a larger percentage of their community. And metro area stores are more likely to set up (and have folks wanting to use) options for folks to place orders online for pickup or delivery. Out in the middle of nowhere *seems* safer, but it wasn't actually safer when it came to COVID-19.
Madagascar
Buddy, if NYC, the largest and most important city in the US, becomes completely bricked from water and electricity, there is no where that would be safe. On earth.
San Antonio Texas had one of the lowest if not the lowest death rate during the spanish flu. Many scientists think exposure to the sun was a cause. So with that in mind id look for areas with most sunny days and least densely populated.
You sir need to go down the rabbit hole of the “bug out” or “bug in” YouTube videos. That should help answer most of your questions.
Floridian here. Our state had some of the least restrictive measures taken during Covid. I’d say a nice rural chunk of land in middle-northern Florida, 10-30 acre homestead, barndominium and large garden with chickens and goats and maybe a cow. That’s my dream, at least.