Zombie defense/survival

[Gentlemens Handbook]

This thread is branching from the "What's wrong with you- forum freakshow" thread. I would like to get a lot of discussion on this without taking over the freakshow thread.


Here it goes.

Does it qualify as "completely mad by normal standards" that my wife and I have a detailed, multiyear plan as to how to survive a zombie infestation?  Complete with several branching options as to zombie type/ behavior and number of other survivors? 

I don't just mean a "we'll board up the windows" simple plan...we've put a lot of thought into it and review the details pretty often, about once a month.  We've planned what fences on the farm to fortify and how to close off our roads to provide 3 fences between us and "them" in all directions.  If the situation allows the chance of other survivors I have thought out what outbuildings would be most liveable, defendable and give the best strategic gain in the way of attack warning.  We have alternate weapons for when the ammo runs out and an old forge to make more, farming implements ranging from tractor down to horse drawn and hand implements and some seedstock as well.  We have a priority list on what relatives and neighbors to let in, etc....the more I think about it the more I guess it does qualify.

My friends and I started writing a Zombie survival handbook. We sat down and watched every single movie referencing zombies that we could find online. Sadly, about 3 months into our work the "Zombie survival guide" was on the shelves at locals book stores. Damn them. We picked up a copy in sadness that someone beat us to it. It's super flawed. Unfortunately it killed the drive behind finishing ours and it lay dormant  inside my PC's hard drive.

As for our local town, we found the best place to go would be the Wallmart on the far outskirts of town. There is a dry sandy river bed that backs it. Sand is very very hard to run or even walk for that matter, so loosing tailing zombies would be easy on a quad or dirtbike.

The Wallmart is a full grocery store too. We estimated that 15 people could live for 3 years off the the non perishable foods. We're in Arizona, the most gun friendly state in the USA, SO Walmart is PACKED with ammo and guns. We counted 15 shotguns, 9 pistols, and 14 rifles of various calibers. There were two glass cases of ammunition, an entire wall shelving unit with 200 round boxes of 12 gauge ammo, and the clerk said there was a large storage unit in the back of the store with even more.

The doors all have a layer of shatter resistant glass, followed by a steel drop down security gate, followed by another drop down gate, followed by another section of shatter resistant glass.

Due to the monsoons we have here each year it runs off generators if needs be, and has a full auto care center with metal lockdown gates for large vehicles.

The garden center has everything we would need to grow fresh produce while being fully protected from zombies on the outside by the 12 ft steel security walls with roof enclosure.

Now for those of you who are not familiar with Wallmart... They are huge. They are usually standing alone in a enormous parking lot. They're thick concrete walls and small sealable entrances are perfect. There is enough supplies and food inside to last a few years and enough entertainment to keep you from going mad.


Lets here your plans or criticism of mine.

[Sgt Alistair King]

I am embarressed to admit I too think of this subject, I found this group interesting..http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2210852390. I hope I entered that correctly. I have no real plans at this point, other than being armed, and I also hope to use the Walmart located a few miles from me.

[clockdug]

The first issue that comes to my mind regarding the Walmart redoubt involves how quickly Zack comes to party.  If the zombies take over REALLY quickly it works, but if there is enough time for other people to have the idea you could be over-run by the rest of the town coming up with the same plan. 

Then you have the issue to consider of how long an incubation time you have before the infected show symptoms.  If you're dealing with a contagion that isn't instantaneous those other towns people will bring it inside; even if it is fast acting if enough others crash your wal-mart you've got issues.

[Atterton]

One problem would be the idea that you can kill zombies by shooting them in the head. Even with living humans, killing someone by a shoot in the brain is a bit of a gamble. More likely you´ll just have them loose the power of speech or so. Seeing as a zombie uses his brain even less, it´s just not a good idea. I´d go for the brain stem instead, that will mean no more nerve signals will go from the brain to the limbs.

[Gentlemens Handbook]

One problem would be the idea that you can kill zombies by shooting them in the head. Even with living humans, killing someone by a shoot in the brain is a bit of a gamble. More likely you´ll just have them loose the power of speech or so. Seeing as a zombie uses his brain even less, it´s just not a good idea. I´d go for the brain stem instead, that will mean no more nerve signals will go from the brain to the limbs.

The only safe zombie is a headless zombie

Insert Quote
The first issue that comes to my mind regarding the Walmart redoubt involves how quickly Zack comes to party.  If the zombies take over REALLY quickly it works, but if there is enough time for other people to have the idea you could be over-run by the rest of the town coming up with the same plan. 

Then you have the issue to consider of how long an incubation time you have before the infected show symptoms.  If you're dealing with a contagion that isn't instantaneous those other towns people will bring it inside; even if it is fast acting if enough others crash your wal-mart you've got issues.

Luckily there are 5 Wallmart locations in my town. 3 of which are in heavily populated areas. In every movie, Zombies swarm towards the food. So the populated areas would get deadlocked very very quickly. By using the sandy dry riverbed as out primary means of transportation we will greatly reduce our travel time and likelyhood of a full scale zombie encounter.

We think dirt bikes and quads would be the best form of transportation in a zombie infestation. Roads will pretty much be useless due to the deadlock traffic of fleeing people. Best to stay off the roads and on terrain that is unfriendly to people on foot.

[akumabito]

Oh, sweet! More zombie nuts!

*high fives*

An option most neglected in zombie movies because it makes for a rather dull movie, is to 'dig in'. To find a location easily fortified and have supplies at the ready to sit out the zombie invasion.

The Walmart Scenario, as is mentioned so frequently in zobbie discussions around the internet, would make for one hell of a poor candidate in my not so humble opinion. First off; don't even think you're going to be the only person that has this idea. You won't. Just look at the number of people suggesting this on the internet for example. Worse yet; look at how many people are actually inside a Walmart store at any given time. Think you can survive there for a few months with a dozen or so friends and relatives? Try doing so with upwards of a thousand complete strangers, afraid, paranoid and.. armed. Yup, sounds just like the kind of place I'd want to hang out.

Also, I guess it's time to watch some more zombie flicks. Most of you guys (and other people discussing the Zombie hordes on the Internet) seem to forget about a reoccurring theme in nearly all zombie movies; ammunition will run out, more oft than not at the most inopportune of moments. This reason alone should temper anyone's willingness to rely purely on firearms for defense. Rather, think more creatively; If you got a reliable generator, electrify doorhandles, gates and fences. Build traps. Get some molotov cocktails. But most of all; keep things simple.

The easiest solution is simply to not be found at all. Again, find an easily fortified position. Rely on stocks you've acquired beforehand. Don't end up with a bunch of strangers as such situations rarely end well. Do not open the doors for any reason; especially for what might or might not be a zombie survivor. Screw 'm! In case of zombie hordes, it's every man for himself.

Anyways.. back to weapons (everybody loves to discuss weapons). Firearms are great, so don't get me wrong. Ideally, they should be used only when there is no other option though. You never know when you'll get properly cornered and there's no other way out. Or, more importantly in a scenraio where you dig in; you might have to go outside one day to hunt for new supplies!

But anyhow.. most zombie types can effectively be fought with melee weapons. I've heard some people suggesting swords.. most notably the fabled Japanese katana. Pure nonsense if you ask me. Swords take proper skill to be truly effective. Worse still, most swords get blunt rather quickly after some serious chopping, and in reality, they tend to be quite fragile, getting bend or broken surprisingly easily, rendering them absolutely useless.

Axes and pickaxes on the other hand suffer no such problems. However, they have another drawback; they tend to get stuck in the flesh of the slayed zombie. Even if only for the briefest of moments, it'll leave you vulnerable to attack from other zombies for just that long.

Therefore, it is probably better to use a sledgehammer instead. Or even a baseball bat. Or, my personal favorite; the medieval flanged mace; the perfect weapon smack dab in between the sledgehammer and basebll bat in terms of weight and size, yet with a formiddable crushing power.

Oh well.. I could just go on and ramble on forever.. but I suppose nobody really cares anyhow

[Darksmith]

Luckily I life at the edge of a very large park in my city. So my plan is to take to the hills. There is a major road running down from the hill the leads to a Canadian Tire, Walmart, a small mall, and a bunch of other stores like that.

    I plan not to box myself in some where, I don't want to have to figure a way to fight my way out. So I will set up camp far into the park, of a high spot of land, so I can get a good few of what's coming. Some of the stuff I would bring are a large assortment of blunt objects, tent, camp stove(and fuel) clothes and my mountainboard.

   Thanks to my close position to the park I wouldn't need to pack everything out at once, I could just get out, and make trips to my house to stock up on things that are there. The mountainboard would be used to make quick trips down the hill into the residential area that contains my house, and further down the hill to were all the stores are located for a more serious re-stocking trip. My hope is that I will be able to make it down the hill swiftly enough that I would either avoid detection, or else be too fast that I wouldn't hold the zombies interest. Getting back up the hill would be the challenge though, I will probably just help myself to what ever car is around, that way I also wouldn't have to carry all that I acquire back up the hill. With the cars that I collect from these raiding trips, I plan make barricades to help prevent the zombies making it up into the park.

   The other thing that is on my side is living in a northern climate. It's cold in the winter, I can't see that zombies would survive too well when they are being frozen, and hopefully they would become more brittle from the cold, and would be easier to destroy.


  Failing all that, and if I do get infected, being a romantic at heart, I asked my girlfriend that if I do get bite and infected if I could bite/infect her too so we could stay together, and go on a zombie rampage together. She said yes.

[clockdug]

My wife and I had seriously discussed the Wal-Mart idea in our are.  the store is built onto a hillside with 2 sides made into 40 foot high cliffs and a third side vertical ascent above the store.  That sounds nice until you think of the other people and the most important thing of all:

You may have 3 years of food if you keep others out, but you'll get real thirsty.

I've always favored the hole up and be real quiet method.  BTW, the 4-wheeler idea is good, but for relatively short term only.  Gasoline turns bad, so you'll need other options if things go long term.  There are several farms near ours with horses, and they are on our short list of things to be acquired if possible.

[Gentlemens Handbook]

I can see the flaws in the wallmart scenario. The only way it would work is if we were the first to arrive. A Costco (to those that are familiar) would be even better. They are closed at 7 every day so if it occurred during off hours our chances of being alone would be better.

The advantages would be more food, with the disadvantage of less weapons.

Our backup if our primary wallmart is already a no go would be to flee to the desert. The rough terrain and lack of "food" would make us safe from large zombie mobs. We reach 111-115 degrees during the summer. My friends and I are avid campers and surviving in such conditions would be no problem for a few months. After a month or two we would use the riverbeds to venture into town at mid day and assess the situation. A body decomposes pretty quickly out here so a large chunk of the first wave of zombies would be immobile due to rot. Also, being weaker from lack of food should keep them at bay a little aswell.

[Atterton]

Wouldn´t today´s obsession with bottled water solve those thirst problems?

[Gentlemens Handbook]

You may have 3 years of food if you keep others out, but you'll get real thirsty.

This may sound really really gross but...

If you take a good amount of soil from the garden center up to the roof and use it for your main "urination" area, you can retrieve a good amount of water back by placing a clear plastic sheet over it for the evaporation to run down into containers. Wallmart has clear shower curtains and rolls of clear rubber sold by the yard.

[TristanRenn]

I'm going to my dad's old work. It's a fire/police station about 1/4 a mile from the Ohio river. I don't think the rule to avoid such places applies because NOBODY knows about the place. It's used for training and an occassional warehouse fire.
It's pretty well out of the way as well which helps with the single best tactic for not being eaten by zombies - don't be noticed by zombies.
There's a main building, with lots of food and purified water stored up, and a fewww weapons. Connected to the main building (no going outside where zombies are) is the garage, which houses 2 fire trucks, 2 ATV's, a small hovercraft and fire gear, which I'm certain zombies can't bite through. The garage has a door leading to the training area.....a massive square of gravel, fenced in with a chainlink fence topped with barbed and concertina wire (if I live long enough to have some time I will electrify this). Inside that is a trailer, some chopped up cars, and a 6 story concrete training tower. I figure I take a radio and some generators from the main building to the top of that and use it as my main holding point. I would rig a system whereby I could blow the stairs from the top floor if necessary (for heavy work, all stories have a hay loft rig). Most any of the stuff in the garage could be modified to make an effective zombie-apocalypse pillaging vehicle for gun runs and eventually gasoline (there's some stored up), and of course I'd need a very secure vehicle to take me to the river if everything goes south.

[Gentlemens Handbook]

man, I'm excited about how fast this started to spread... no pun intended. I must be off to work but I'm expecting at least 3 pages by the time i'm off.

[KhaiJBach]

hmm I have a question for our survival plans here... I have a well, I have a Walmart next door (literally next door actually) with a Canadian Tire next to the Walmart.

The plan I've come up with is to create barricades with cars etc using the 2 forklifts (1 at Walmart, 1 at CT) to block out Zack and enclose the living area + an area to grow food.

the one problem I come back to tho is Fuel. While I can use Solar and Wind power (Thank you CT!!! they have a stack of the required materials for that...) I do need fuel to run generators, power farming equipment and trucks for Foraging.

so the question is.. can you use Zack to make BioDiesel? it's not like there's gonna be a shortage of volunteers to stagger into a trap....

[Shinyhead]

Somehow I think it would be a zombie extermination business opportunity.  All zombie movies have the zombies being attracted to movement, light, sound and the smell of brains, so its an easy enough thing to lure them into someplace where you could cost effectively dispatch them.

Heck, a big truck with sawblades about neck high all around that has lights and sirens would be pretty effective. Fuel it up to run for 10 or 20 hours, go park it in a parking lot and set it off.  Come by in an armored bulldozer once an hour or so to clear the way for the next lot of the living dead.

Eventually you clear the area and have the adulation of the survivors.

[KhaiJBach]

Heck, a big truck with sawblades about neck high all around ...

erm define Neck High. remember Zack can be anything from a baby upwards to adults of every height.. (yes. there could be zombie babies crawling around.) plus the heads would still be active and capable of biting/infecting...

[Shinyhead]

OK, ankle high sawblades and add a steam roller to the mix.

[akumabito]

I'm wondering about zombie metabolisms though. I'm assuming that it wouldn't be too far off from normal human metabolism, only adjusted for slower movement, and not needing energy to retain body temperature. I guess a zombie would be able to survive without food perhaps twice as long as a normal human being. Say, 6 to 8 weeks tops. Mind you, the last few weeks they'll be pretty lethargic, if not comatose anyway.

But anyhow, I digress. The zombie infection should spread exponentially. Taking an incubation time of 24 hours, a town with a population of 100,000 people would be completely zombiefied in about 18 days. Round that off to 3 weeks to be on the safe side.

So take those 3 weeks, add the 8 from above, and round it off nicely to three months. <-- that's for how long you'll need supplies to survive a zombie apocalypse in a small/medium sized town. That's not all that bad. Not that bad at all. In fact, it is entirely doable to have supplies for that long in your home continuously as disaster preparation of the natural variety.. (floods, blizzards, earthquakes, storms, etc., etc.)

[clockdug]

Yep, taking off the legs just makes for a short zombie that hides in the grass better.  I like the idea, but I might go for a holding pen to lure them into and then some careful killing with good quality control.

[Prof. Brockworth]

Everybody's going to wal-mart.  Wal-mart has fifteen entrances and you only know nine of them.  Nope, I'm not going there.

You chaps do know about www.zombiehunters.com, don't you?  "If you're prepared for the zombie apocalypse, you're prepared for anything"

[Atterton]

Crossbows might be good for a weapon. After all the ammonition can be reused.

[clockdug]

I'm wondering about zombie metabolisms though. .........So take those 3 weeks, add the 8 from above, and round it off nicely to three months. <-- that's for how long you'll need supplies to survive a zombie apocalypse in a small/medium sized town. That's not all that bad. Not that bad at all. In fact, it is entirely doable to have supplies for that long in your home continuously as disaster preparation of the natural variety.. (floods, blizzards, earthquakes, storms, etc., etc.)

I don't think there can be any assumptions of what the zombies will be like...slow shambling morons or intelligent fast things; anything could be possible.  Heck, Charlton Heston faced black-power vampires in his version of "I Am Legend" (The Omega Man, if you haven't seen it).  Your plans should be flexible enough to handle whatever happens.

[anomalie]

I think anyone who enjoys a good zombie flick has thought of this. I know I had way before the Zombie Survival Guide came out. A couple of friends and I would always break into the "what would be the best plan in a zombie attack" conversation if we got bored at any given place (we've decided that Costco is the best place to go. Not only is it super-stocked for just about everything, but the few doors are huge and lock down, and all the windows are high, plus the one in my city isn't in a hugely populated area). Another option was my dad's shop - his company was a little out of the city and involved a lot of machinery and deadly tools and fire, heh heh. Devising traps and warning systems and soforth for scenarios at whoever's house we were at was also a topic of conversation on lazy late nights filled otherwise with movies or video games.

I agree with Prof. Brockworth; Wal-Mart is a bad idea, not only for all the entrances, but also that all those entrances are made of glass. Or worse, those flimsy separators for when the mall entrance is closed. Also, there isn't usually anywhere high to retreat to (at least not in the one in my mall).

And I loved that book just because it was so fun, and such a great idea to actually publish.

[akumabito]

...did you guys also check if your house was "velociraptor proof" after watching Jurassic Park for the first time? I know I did!

Kinda like this:

[Atterton]

Don´t forget they learned how to open doors and can jump pretty well.