Thoughts on Urban Survival

[Mistwalker]

I know I am resurrecting an old thread at this point but even though it has been a while since I posted here there are still several things I am studying. Currently it's these two guys and a few others living in the swampy woods behind a local grocery store....unless this is them relocating because of the hard rains we've had, that area is in the flood zone of the river bottoms.



These two pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago when I first noticed them in the area.

Today their packs are much less weighted down than before so there is likely a main camp still set up somewhere, but this one seems to be thinking he may camp elsewhere...they came out of the woods together but seperated so I'll have to keep my eyes open watching the ridge.

I've only gotten a good look at one of their faces, and this guy has some identifiable markings so he should be easy to keep track of even if he shaves and gets a hair cut like the other one has.

 

[DH1]

Looks like they've got their stuff together for the time being, although it's smart to take notice of them.

I assume striking up a convo is out of the question? They don't look like the talkative type..

 

[Mistwalker]

Looks like they've got their stuff together for the time being, although it's smart to take notice of them.

I assume striking up a convo is out of the question? They don't look like the talkative type..

Well, so far "hey, how's it goin' " has been met with nods and grunts. They do make their presence known, never seen them acting "stealthy" or anything. They're out in the open a lot "spare changing" and what have you at the entrances to the Wal-Mart down the road. I mainly question their logic in location. I have roamed all of the woods within ten miles of this area as a kid and as a teenager. Behind all the businesses and residences. I don't get why camp in a low lying swamp full of mosquitoes and snakes when there are two undeveloped ridges much better suited to camping maybe a hundred meters north of their position with access off of the same railroad tracks they use to access the area they are camping in.

Speaking of "stuff together" there is more and more of this happening in more areas. These guys seem to be well stocked and were reconing the underside of the bridge I was crossing as a possible temp shelter.

 

[sicily02]

Cool pics. I hope you can get some pics of there camps some time. It does make you wonder why they would choose the swamp over the other places that you mentioned.

Bryan

 

[Mistwalker]

Cool pics. I hope you can get some pics of there camps some time. It does make you wonder why they would choose the swamp over the other places that you mentioned.

Bryan

I may come up from the back side of the swamp this weekend and see if I can catch pics from a higher position...not sure if I'll have time or not.

 

[dawsonbob]

Just be careful, mist. Some of those guys just aren't quite right, and may take all that you have if you're not careful.

 

[Mistwalker]

Just be careful, mist. Some of those guys just aren't quite right, and may take all that you have if you're not careful.

Oh...I'll be careful, but I know the lay of the land pretty well. I used to hunt in that area as a kid before the school expanded in from one side and the subdivision on the other. Even after it got to be so developed and I still walked around in there for years sketching the wild life before I decided I liked a camera more. There is a lot of wildlife in that small little area around a beaver pond and then the stream flows about another 1/2 mile to the river. With all the rabbits, ducks, deer, fish, and turtles I saw it as a great place to gather food, but a lousy place to camp.

 

[Horn Dog]

Urban survival is a much more likely scenario that survival in some remote wilderness. Holding down Fort Home may be the thing. Organizing your neighbors to share security responsilities, using communications that work when cell phones are out, armaments, drills, and training make sense. Securing water supplies and food supplies as well as foraging patrols could be organized. My neighbors and I have recently been discussing these things. Ever since Hurricane Katrina, such scenarios seem more likely and real to us.

 

[zhangmaster12]

quite the stalker you are mist? Sure ur not CIA?
Just Kiddin.

Edit: stupid part deleted

You should start a neighborhood watch or something.

 

[Mistwalker]

quite the stalker you are mist? Sure ur not CIA?
Just Kiddin.

Edit: stupid part deleted

You should start a neighborhood watch or something.

Hahahaha no...., just an amature wildlife photographer.

I know all the mom & pop shop owners around here and a lot of the neighborhood so we do unofficially have a neighborhood watch going on.

 

[Joben]

Mistwalker, I love your posts.

I hadn't seen this thread yet.
It's inspired me to get to know my town better.

 

[Mistwalker]

Mistwalker, I love your posts.

I hadn't seen this thread yet.
It's inspired me to get to know my town better.

Thanks.

Yeah...the more attention I've paid to mine, the more I've wanted to know.

 

[Mistwalker]

This is something else I have been keeping an eye on here...this is a menace that didn't used to be here but now one that is really growing.
The new gang that works out of the park every night…the white shirt gang. If you watch them for a little while you’ll see things changing hands…a lot.

This picture is the cropped version of the above picture.

There were no gangs here when I was a kid, now we have 6 of them.

And this is a pretty common site here on the weekend nights.

We had another shooting down at the park this past weekend...the third the last 5 years I think. Five people have been detained in connection to the shooting of four adults and three minors. From what I've read all seven were shot in the buttocks or rear thighs. They didn't give any details on the minors of course but of the three adults two were shot in the buttocks and one was shot in the thigh. The police were attempting to disperse a crowd when the shooting started according to the local news. When I read about that Sunday I wished I hadn't changed my mind about going down there for coffee Saturday evening.




.

 

[PayetteRucker]

In houston the only patch of green I could find was a swampy area that was a hurricane drainage/overflow ditch behind a big appartment complex. Every morning I saw otters, hundreds of turtles and herons everywhere. One morning I saw a snapper at least 2 feet wide (sufficient meal to last a week!) down there. I don't know how hungry I'd have to be to eat a turtle out of a culvert in Houston, but... I think the most difficult and applicable part of urban survival is finding a spot to take a piss without getting a Urinating in Public ticket. Bouncing grocery stores and walmarts at night to stay warm is always a good strategy too. To be perfectly honest I'm not going to spend longer than a day or two in an urban area if crap goes down anyway, because that is where everyone else is going to be-trying to steal or scavange food, stay warm... in that kind of environment it's the man with the biggest gun wins... I'd rather take my chances with giardia in a mountain stream than the filth caused by humans living in close industrial conditions. The only time I'll spend in an urban environment is to gather necessary materials for backcountry living-and then I'm hightailing it out.

 

[Mistwalker]

In houston the only patch of green I could find was a swampy area that was a hurricane drainage/overflow ditch behind a big appartment complex. Every morning I saw otters, hundreds of turtles and herons everywhere. One morning I saw a snapper at least 2 feet wide (sufficient meal to last a week!) down there. I don't know how hungry I'd have to be to eat a turtle out of a culvert in Houston, but... I think the most difficult and applicable part of urban survival is finding a spot to take a piss without getting a Urinating in Public ticket. Bouncing grocery stores and walmarts at night to stay warm is always a good strategy too. To be perfectly honest I'm not going to spend longer than a day or two in an urban area if crap goes down anyway, because that is where everyone else is going to be-trying to steal or scavange food, stay warm... in that kind of environment it's the man with the biggest gun wins... I'd rather take my chances with giardia in a mountain stream than the filth caused by humans living in close industrial conditions. The only time I'll spend in an urban environment is to gather necessary materials for backcountry living-and then I'm hightailing it out.

Houston must be a lot different than Dallas..or at least than Dallas was twenty years ago...I do wonder what it looks like now.

 

[PayetteRucker]

it's alot different than everywhere, 90% of the population are either completely rich or completely poor, and they all get intermingled in the drug wars. Rich people in the big city have nothing better to do than spend their money on drugs because they're living in the middle of a 120 mile wide cesspool of industrial disgustingness (Houston is a huge chemical industry hub-oil, chemical processing etc) I spent about 5 months there and it drove me absolutely nuts. Then I moved to Idaho... what a difference.

 

[Mistwalker]

it's alot different than everywhere, 90% of the population are either completely rich or completely poor, and they all get intermingled in the drug wars. Rich people in the big city have nothing better to do than spend their money on drugs because they're living in the middle of a 120 mile wide cesspool of industrial disgustingness (Houston is a huge chemical industry hub-oil, chemical processing etc) I spent about 5 months there and it drove me absolutely nuts. Then I moved to Idaho... what a difference.

I hear ya...I was glad to be back here in Tennessee after a couple of years in Dallas....even with the nuclear plants here...Idaho has some beautiful territory!

 

[PayetteRucker]

I think "urbancraft" is just an excuse for you to run around with a camera and stalk homeless guys my aunt wanted picture proof that there were hot girls living in Boise Idaho that shaved their armpits, and I almost took her up on it, but couldn't morally justify running around downtown Boise taking pictures of random hot girls and sending them to someone halfway across the country.

 

[Steve_Holt]

Very interesting thread, especially since I also live in Chattanooga. There are a lot of interesting things to think about.

I've always lived in this area, and usually can come up with an alternate route home prettily easily. And I occasionally NEED to use them to avoid flooding and traffic snarls. But the idea of leaving town to get to an alternate location brings a lot of questions to mind.

What if a bridge was out? I have a 4 wheel drive vehicle which could get me around a lot of obstacles, but not over a river. I'm thinking a canoe or even inflatable raft or inner-tubes may be something to consider when preparing for a worst case scenario. If you got to the point where the vehicle had to be abandoned, a canoe could be used to carry equipment while being carried by 2-4 people, depending on the weight, etc.

I was thinking about this a couple of hours ago as I drove from my suburban home to downtown. As I drove the 14 miles from East Brainerd, I counted 34 bridges that I either passed over or under, and I never even crossed the river! Kind of eye-opening for me. Most of these were over-passes along the freeway that passed over surface streets, and many of these are barely noticeable, but during a disaster (perhaps an earthquake?) where one or several were destroyed, regular street travel would be basically stopped.

I may be straying off-topic now, but thanks for the thought-provoking thread. This great subforum continues to teach me a lot, and make me think even more.

 

[Mistwalker]

Very interesting thread, especially since I also live in Chattanooga. There are a lot of interesting things to think about.

I've always lived in this area, and usually can come up with an alternate route home prettily easily. And I occasionally NEED to use them to avoid flooding and traffic snarls. But the idea of leaving town to get to an alternate location brings a lot of questions to mind.

What if a bridge was out? I have a 4 wheel drive vehicle which could get me around a lot of obstacles, but not over a river. I'm thinking a canoe or even inflatable raft or inner-tubes may be something to consider when preparing for a worst case scenario. If you got to the point where the vehicle had to be abandoned, a canoe could be used to carry equipment while being carried by 2-4 people, depending on the weight, etc.

I was thinking about this a couple of hours ago as I drove from my suburban home to downtown. As I drove the 14 miles from East Brainerd, I counted 34 bridges that I either passed over or under, and I never even crossed the river! Kind of eye-opening for me. Most of these were over-passes along the freeway that passed over surface streets, and many of these are barely noticeable, but during a disaster (perhaps an earthquake?) where one or several were destroyed, regular street travel would be basically stopped.

I may be straying off-topic now, but thanks for the thought-provoking thread. This great subforum continues to teach me a lot, and make me think even more.

Cool to know there's another Chattanoogan here, then you already knew about most, if not all, of the stuff I've talked about here.

I've helped build a lot of this town, and put a lot of cabinets in houses out there in E.B., so I can usually find another rout when I need to but you're right and I think about that every day when my family is separated by the Tennessee River. I'm looking for a canoe that I like...that I can also afford.

Something to think about considering the fault line running under us. I don't think you strayed off topic at all. And yeah, there is definitely a great wealth of information in this subforum, I know really enjoy it.