A Watery Grave?
With the undead walking the land, it may seem like a good idea to run for the open ocean. But, beware, the safety that the waters may appear to have may only be a cover for a watery grave.
For some water holds the ultimate safety from the infestation of the undead. Since zombies cannot swim, they see a boat, barge, or ship as the place to be. However, if you are not at home on the water, or even more to the point have no experience piloting a watercraft for anytime then perhaps it is not the best idea to take to the water.
The first thing to consider when approaching an escape by water is how well you know the waters that you are going to use. If you are not well versed then having someone who is or an up to date chart of the surrounding water ways as well as your destination is needed, especially if you are planning on sailing to a remote island, or landing on a distant shore. The reason for the chart is that if coral reefs or rock outcropping are near shore they may pose a greater threat than the zombies.
The second consideration is the type of craft. While, it is not impossible for one to sail across an ocean in a small row boat the odds are stacked against you from day one. Having a craft suitable to your operation is something that should be your biggest concern, next to being able to pilot and maintain the craft. A battleship would not be appropriate for inland waterways, while a pontoon boat would not work well out at sea.
The third consideration is supplies. This will also connect with the mission of your craft. If you are looking at your boat as haven to ride out the zombie storm then having one that is large enough to carry a plethora of every supply that you will conceivably need. However, if you plan on raiding the coast for supplies then you do not need miles of shelving units to hold canned goods and band aids.
Going to water however does not mean that you will be safe from zombies or danger. Setting anchor can give the undead a way onto your boat. Also the undead may be the least of your worries. With mankind brought to his most primitive of instincts you will also have to contend with pirates who will see you as a supply point to save them from having to return to land. The weather will also be an adversary and being caught in a large storm in a boat too small to handle it may also prove your down fall.
In the end, if the craft is available to you and you have the supplies and skills then perhaps taking to the water may prove a means of temporally escaping the horde. However, no amount of planning will take away from the fact that eventually you must return to dry land and the zombie menace.
Comments (61)
Sharpshooter on 13 Aug 2009 at 9:52 am #
well zombies swimming is purely philosophical… what kind of zombies? 28 days/weeks later are still alive, as are the ones from I Am Legend, but you know George Romero are actually DEAD brought back to life as are Resident Evil….
Adam on 13 Aug 2009 at 1:20 pm #
Actually, returning to dry land wouldn’t have to be neccesary.
With a large enough boat, assuming you had the manpower and know-how to use it, you could pretty much grow all the food you need, and you can get water by purifying the sea water around you. Not difficult, just evaporate/condense it. A ferry, normally quite a common sight for coastal towns, would be plenty large enough to weather almost any storm, allow living space for well over 100 survivors, and with a large deck, you could grow plants and animals, using excrement as fertiliser to keep the nutrients in the soil.
For the anchor, it would really depend on the zombies.
I personally am not sure they would be intelligent enough to realise there is food at the top of the anchor, and even if they did, would they be strong enough to climb up?
Regardless, you wouldn’t need to set anchor unless you need to constantly know where you are, and if you needn’t return to land, you needn’t know where you are all the time.
As such, it is my opinion that if the opportunity presents itself, a ferry or similar large vessel would be a perfect choice for surviving the apocalypse.
P.S- Sharpshooter, the monsters in I am Legend are vampires, not zombies. The only zombical element is that they are infected with a disease, but you wouldn’t say people with the flu are zombies.
Sharpshooter on 13 Aug 2009 at 4:41 pm #
no but i call people who work for corporations zombies. cause all they do is wake up. go to work. sit infront of a computer. return home. eat. go to bed.
seems pretty mindless. but yeah i reffer to them because they eat other people and are generaly pretty mindless… and yeah i know they are vampires. and if you wanna get technical about it neither were the rage victims from 28 days/weeks later because they werent undead, still had a heartbeat.
Etienne on 13 Aug 2009 at 5:37 pm #
If pirates are a worry why not use some sort of mechanical zombie simulators to keep them away, and if that fails, there are always the guns.
I think the idea of a garden on deck would be a great idea, if you could somehow maintain it hidden, or at least semi-hidden, from curious eyes.
Hiding is the best way out of a war, be it against nature, man, or zombies.
Angryvikingman on 13 Aug 2009 at 11:29 pm #
Excrement for fertilizer is a bad idea. It can lead to all kinds of bad diseases, infections, and all manner of bad things. (Cryptosporidism, botulism, ect.) If you want a fertilizer that is relatively safe, then use fish guts. You can get food and fertilizer all in one go if you can fish worth a damn. Hell, get a big net and fish that way if you want to.
Ronin666 on 14 Aug 2009 at 2:47 am #
Depends on the type of excrement. I’ve used chicken and cow poo for over 20yrs as fertiliser and never had a problem.
As for boats, fine if you live on the coast, for inland rivers it would be a good way to get around but not as a way of life.
another mike on 14 Aug 2009 at 3:58 am #
Chicken, rabbit, cow, horse; all have good high quality manure. Fish scales, feathers, egg shells, and coffee grounds make good soil additives too. Compost it all with your vegetable scraps to supercharge your soil. Don’t put in meat scraps or fat; fish guts are acceptable but other protein will rot the compost. And don’t use pig dung; the excess nitrogen will throw off the chemistry and burn the plants.
As to using a boat, I live out in the desert. Not much call for watercraft out here.
Adam on 14 Aug 2009 at 9:48 am #
well, generally i am pretty picky. I make all my friends refer to the 28 days/weeks later “zombies” as zombie-like humans :L but i take your point.
fishing is a great idea. I’m not sure why i didn’t think of that :L
But you’d have to be careful you don’t pull up more than fish. In the middle of the ocean, if zombies get on your boat there’s probably no escape.
The sort of animals I’d raise, given a choice, would be chickens, cows and pigs. Chicken and cows also produce eggs and milk, and I’d raise pigs for bacon. Just as a luxury.
Another advantage of taking to the sea is that you can probably get far enough away from civilisation that when the nuclear power plants go into meltdown, and they will go into meltdown unless the government shuts them off before they get overrun by zombies, you could minimise the effect of the radiation. To this end i would reccomend the southern areas of the atlantic, between Africa and South America.
Angryvikingman on 14 Aug 2009 at 10:36 am #
Well, I was assuming he meant human excrement, seeing as how large animals would be hard to keep on a boat.
As for pig dung, I know a guy who uses it on his corn and swears by it. I’ve seen his corn crops, he gets a big yield.
Kain - ZAC Weapon Consultant on 14 Aug 2009 at 5:01 pm #
Well, for general purposes I and as of last check, The ZAC Admin and a few others, go by the Max Brooks’ definition of zombies. See the reading list. That said I tend to the one of the proponents that we couldn’t have the zombie strain mutate and end up with an entirely different type of zombies.
Second note, I don’t think a person with a large ship and just a skeleton crew would be able to stay in the water indefinitely. I don’t think you would make more than five years if everything, and I do mean everything, went to plan. Too many variables in the plan, the right sized ship that would have to sea worthy(most ferrys at least the ones I’m thinking of, like a car or people ferry, are not sea worthy in my opinion) with a well trained crew, not having the ship damaged by unfriendly locals, or by storms, and being able to fix the hull if it were damaged or just doing standard hull maintenance. And I won’t even touch on the subject of how you plan on propelling the craft the size that you are talking about.
Also while I’m on the subject, Etienne, you can’t simply run away or hide from your problems. Since we usually think in the terms of a pandemic running away is going to do you very little good. Going underground will only cut you off from possible support and help. I am not advocating a full frontal attack, there are times when discretion is the better part of valor, but hiding the fact that you are at war with something that makes no distinction of who you are, where you’re from, or what you believe is, put bluntly, suicide. Your enemy is patience and has nothing but time on their hands, besides blood, of course. And if you don’t think fighting for your life and the lives of those you love is a worthy cause then you have nothing to live for anyway.
“They won’t get me they won’t get me thought they never cease to try
they won’t get me they won’t get me I would rather fight and die
they won’t get me they won’t get me well my friend will they get you?
when they get you when they get you tell me what are you gonna do?”
Dropkick Murphys – The Gauntlet.
Perkele-tor on 15 Aug 2009 at 2:10 am #
I’m surprised the Angryvikingman didn’t suggest the Viking route; live in an isolated inlet or fjord that is much easier to reach by sea than by land and go viking for supplies, and when on the water use a few easily manned craft rather than one large tub.
Maybe living on the water would be more practical as a daily retreat. In the northwest we have easy access to the ocean but we also have a lot of dams and reservoirs where a large boat could stay safely anchored over the deep parts, but also within an easy trip of land and a possible large garden. Also small turbines could be utilized for electricity if it didn’t attract attention. I’m sure the current from a dam would help take care of sinkers trying to walk on board too, but you’d have to watch out downstream.
Adam on 15 Aug 2009 at 6:29 am #
Okay, I was talking about the ferry idea with a fellow survivor, and she pointed out that the English channel actually has sea forts all over it, which are basically abandoned castles on top of huge concrete pillars, so i’m going to revise my plan to say that these sea fortresses are the ideal place to hide from zombies. You could use small speedboats to send out raiding parties, you could grow stuff in the courtyard, if you bought some soil and animals with you. Plus, no maintenance needed, and they’re storm proof.
But if you don’t have sea forts, I still think you could turn a ferry or a large ship into a floating base, which means you’d always have a safe place to run to or keep your families in. You wouldn’t need to propel it far, just get it offshore, lower the anchors and cut the engine. Storms might be a problem depending on where you live, but if you have trained seamen with you (which I would think would be absolutely necessary to even consider this) you could probably find ways around this. But you would probably have to raid small towns for repair supplies eventually.
As for being sea worthy, I’ve seen quite a lot of ferries, and I do think almost all of them were sea worthy. In fact, a lot of them did cross the sea regularly, going between England and France.
That might sound very circumstancial, but in a town with a major port, it would be pretty easy to find a seaman and take them with you, and as long as you have one person who knows what they’re doing, they could probably teach the others in your group enough to be able to run and maintain the ship. If all went well, you would only have to raid once every few years, and any non-combatants could stay in safety.
Adam on 15 Aug 2009 at 6:32 am #
Also, if i could make it to portsmouth safely, they have a navy base there, which always has some military ships so i could probably find an abandoned battleship or something.
dib5th on 15 Aug 2009 at 1:43 pm #
1st of all my definiton for a zombie is someone that is infected and is a flesh eating or brain eating monster. second of all i do think a ship with guns like ones on battleships would be a good ship.third a zombie can be intelligent enough to know how to climb a stuip chain and use most melee weapons exept chainsaws crowbars and any aother heavy melee weapon. 4th of all i think havin a garden on deck is a great idea. 5th pirates might be a problem but rare if you think about it (its only goin to be you your family and who every you pick up along the way and 2/3 of the world).
Sharpshooter on 15 Aug 2009 at 9:30 pm #
i’ll keep my feet on the ground… you keep on talking about all these ideas of the sea… yet i bet nobody here has tried even 1 of them… i mean there are so many factors when it comes into planting food it’s not even funny… it’s a pain in the ass growing food REGULARLY what do you think is gunna happen durring a world wide apocolypse?
Angryvikingman on 16 Aug 2009 at 8:45 am #
LOL, sharpshooter. I bet it is hard to grow food up north where you live, but down south where I live all you have to do is keep the garden weeded, and keep the bugs off it. A little sevin dust and a little daily weeding is all that is needed. I grew up with a 3 acre subsistance garden. I spent years in that garden with my grandparents and great grandparents who’d been farming that plot of soil for over 40 years. They grew and canned almost all of the food they needed for a year. Theres nothing better than food fresh from the garden. As for trying to survive on a ship, screw that. I like to keep my feet on the ground like sharpshooter. You can only run so far on a boat until you have nowhere left to go. growing food on deck would be next to impossible considering the needed soil depth for plants to be properly rooted. You going to shovel dirt until the entire deck of a ferry is covered with over 6-12 inches of dirt? If the average deck size of a ferry is 1-2 acres, you need ten tons of soil or more. Thats a little bit ridiculous. Setting up shoreside farming and livestock areas would be better, then coming in and farming for the day and sleeping on the boat at night. As for growing food in the courtyard of a castle, there wouldnt be sufficient sunlight to grow food unless the area got more than 6 hours of sunlight a day. High walls and towers limit the amount of sunlight that any one area gets in a day because they’ll cast shadows for most of the day. In a castle, assuming you had some sort of power, a hydroponic growing system would be best. And thats my two cents…
Yellandy on 16 Aug 2009 at 12:34 pm #
In world war z, they talked about deap sea diving to clear out zombies on oil rigs and such, but if zombies are slow, the currents should proly blow them off course and make it highly unlikely for them to swarm you on an island. Being in a hot enough place, it would be easy to grow food year-round (Idk if that is accurate, I’m not that smart), I think Islands would be ideal for survival, and I highly dought there will very many pirates out there, and don’t forget how big the ocean is. The only problem you have, is to find the right island, you need to also worry about storms, and the lack of firearms in case of pirates. Also, with no communication to the shore, you won’t know if the zombies have been cleared out, and it’s safe to go home, yet. But other than that, it would be an ideal way to escape from the main horde when things get hot.
Kain - ZAC Weapon Consultant on 16 Aug 2009 at 3:06 pm #
Yellandy, the same currents that may blow them off course may also blow them to you, double edged sword. Plus any island that had all of the right requirements that you need, plus a source of fresh water, good soil, ect. Is going to be on more than just your list. You will have to contend with other seeking refuge from hell on earth. And piracy has been going on for years, centuries, and in the past couple decades it’s gotten worse. Especially round the Indonesian and Asian waterways, even the Gulf of Mexico has had it’s run ins with piracy(also one of the explanations for the “Bermuda Triangle”). And if you don’t think piracy is going to be bad just take a little read of the old Articles and the comments Morals After The Fall and The Greatest Threat Might not be The Undead. Or take a look at the actions of those nice people down in New Orleans after Katrina. People are not nice when their worlds are turned upside down. And when the world crumbles, as much as it pains me to admit it, the thugs and gangbangers will likely survive, and even thrive under the lawlessness that will come. May an apartment of these scum of society have little more than an air mattress. How do you think they will look at a world where the authorities no longer hold power?
“They won’t get me they won’t get me thought they never cease to try
they won’t get me they won’t get me I would rather fight and die
they won’t get me they won’t get me well my friend will they get you?
when they get you when they get you tell me what are you gonna do?”
Dropkick Murphys – The Gauntlet.
Adam on 16 Aug 2009 at 6:33 pm #
Can I just say, this is why I love this site. Everyone chips in to improve plans and point out flaws. It’s great.
But yeah, growing pretty much anything is quite easy where i live, though i have no experience with anything much. Just a few vegetables and fruits. There’s quite a lot of light, the soil is quite fertile, and it rains often but not constantly.
In regard to growing things on deck, I didn’t mean to imply the whole deck would be covered in soil. I meant you could have patches, just like on dry land. I’m not sure how much food you would be able to grow, but if i had to estimate, I’d say you wouldn’t be able to sustain more than 3 or 4 people =/
I like the idea of a farm on the shore, but if zombies go for animals, it might be a bad idea- even if you had a fence or something to keep them out, they would still gather there which could be bad.
Which makes me wonder, would an electric fence be able to kill a zombie? Would electricity in any form work?
And while on the subject, would fire kill them?
Just a few thoughts there.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. With a large “base” ship anchored offshore, and plenty of smaller, faster boats, you could quite easily raid the coastline with little risk. If at any point it looks like you’re being over-run, just retreat to the sea.
I suppose that is pretty much pirating, but I’d like to think I would be the sort of person who helps out fellow survivors as much as possible, without compromising my own safety or that of those around me. But how can one know, until the time actually comes?
Also, on a slightly unrelated theme, assuming fire can kill zombies, would it be worth trying to burn major cities to the ground to clear them of zombies? I don’t mean one building at a time, though. I’m thinking a Great Fire of London type thing. I know cities are built pretty fireproof these days, but with favourable wind conditions, it could spread quite quickly.
Sort of off-topic, but anyone have any thoughts on this?
Angryvikingman on 16 Aug 2009 at 10:07 pm #
A fuel air bomb would do the trick, just look up MOAB. Its blast is equivalent to a small nuclear device, but with none of that pesky radiation.
As far as farming:
What if during rough seas, or a storm all of your soil was washed off the ship? Or perhaps just inundated with salt water? Too high salt content, and you can’t grow anything. Assuming you were at sea, and not an inland river, or lake. I’d stick with setting up multiple farms, and ranging between them for food so as to never be in one location all the time. Also, if one small farm is lost or overrun, all is not lost. You still have other farms. Yes, it’d be hard to do alone, but if you had several survivors, then you could randomly go between them at given intervals of time to check and maintain them.
Jay on 17 Aug 2009 at 12:41 am #
Adam not to sound nasty but what are you 12 ive never seen a ‘sea fort’ on the english channel so i dunno where you got that from and lets say you got your hands on a battle ship how the hell are you going to power it? Do you even know what it takes to move one of them? And do you know how to operate it by all means?
dib5th on 17 Aug 2009 at 5:08 am #
angryviking do u now what a greenhouse is
Adam on 17 Aug 2009 at 5:13 am #
No, Jay, I’m not 12. And if you haven’t seen them, you clearly haven’t been there. I happen to live in Southampton, a major port on the south coast, and i’m often on ferries going to either France or the Isle of Wight, and I assure you, there ARE sea forts there. They were built in the 1860′s to protect Portsmouth from bombardment from the sea. They are 200 ft in diameter, and fully armour plated. They had complements of 30 men, but are no longer in use. Spitbank fort is the only one still owned by the government, and it is used as a tourist attraction. Horse Sands, No Mans Land and St Helens Forts are privately owned. A simple google image search will give you plenty of pictures, if you don’t trust my word.
As for powering a battleship, you do realise that they have their own power source? You don’t have to plug them into the mains. And they are, surprisingly, designed to move, so i really don’t need to think about how I’d move it.
And I already said, twice now, that this would only work if at least one person in your group was an experienced seaman, so I wouldn’t need to know how to operate it, because there would be someone who does telling me what to do.
As for farming, that would be problematic…
And since it’s on deck, if it rained the water that lands on the soil has nowhere to run off to, so the plants would drown. I suppose coastal farms would be the way to go.
3ID on 17 Aug 2009 at 7:38 am #
If you did have a battle ship/Navy Destroyer the maby you could have a chance they are powered by Nuculer recators but you need a crew to no what you are doing or you would have Chernobyl at see that would not be good. also when i was at Disney world they had a very cool since/farming ride type thing it was all about growing plants in doors/under ground on a ship it was a Hydroponic graden and UV lights and they grew nice and big quite amazing so is you had that set up on a ship with nuculer power recators and crew that knew how to use it then you could be set for quite awhile.
3ID on 17 Aug 2009 at 7:39 am #
If you did have a battle ship/Navy Destroyer the maby you could have a chance they are powered by Nuculer recators but you need a crew to no what you are doing or you would have Chernobyl at see that would not be good. also when i was at Disney world they had a very cool since/farming ride type thing it was all about growing plants in doors/under ground on a ship it was a Hydroponic graden and UV lights and they grew nice and big quite amazing so is you had that set up on a ship with nuculer power recators and crew that knew how to use it then you could be set for quite awhile.
Angryvikingman on 17 Aug 2009 at 9:37 am #
Yeah, i suggested hydroponics in one of my earlier comments.
@dib5th
Yes, I know what a greenhouse is, and I’ve suggested them before in other skewed topics. I guess I wasnt thinking 4th dimensionally this time around. Although fabrication of a greenhouse that had to hold in its own dirt could be problematic. You’d have to weld plating to the deck(assuming the deck could be welded to, i.e. wood) so that the whole structure didnt slide off the boat during rough weather. You’d have to make sure the soil wouldnt eventually erode from water runoff through little holes either in the deck or under the edges of whatever you constructed the greenhouse out of. You also have to think about what damage a constantly wet environment would do to your decking(rusting, or rotting) and plan to circumvent that as well.
Like I said, its easier to farm inland and just make runs back and forth to your crops. You can always set up a backup hydroponic system on your boat if its big enough, and even that has its own problems and drawbacks.
Sharpshooter on 17 Aug 2009 at 11:22 am #
here the chances of growing something are somewhere between “infantismal” and “forget about it”. well for me anyways….. some people here can grow just about anything. hell i kill GRASS… growing plants just isnt my thing hahaha. i used to raise animals for 4-H though so i have that in my pocket :D
Jay on 17 Aug 2009 at 12:05 pm #
No one’s gonna get there hand’s on a ship of that size! Id rather stay on firm ground so lets say if you managed to get a kick ass boat and you where in the middle of no where then all of a sudden you got over run by zombie’s what you gonna do swim! Yeah but where when you in the middle of no where ”NOW FUCK THAT” id be happy enough staying on dry land.
Adam on 17 Aug 2009 at 2:05 pm #
How would the zombies get onto the boat in the first place, though? And yes, if I was in the channel, I probably could swim. I’m quite a strong swimmer, and it wouldn’t even be the full channel, because i’d probably be somewhere out in the middle. Especially if it was life or un-death.
And perhaps you didn’t read any of my earlier posts. A ferry is a large, common ship in most coastal cities, and there’s a navy base just a 20 minute drive from my house. So it would be quite easy to get a boat that big, the only immediate problem would be crewing it.
Hydroponic systems look like a pretty good choice from here. I think I could probably set one up quite easily, so I’m going to try that at the weekend.
Jay on 17 Aug 2009 at 5:51 pm #
Yes i do know what a ferry is ive been on enough of them to last a life time! Lets just say zombies can climb when you got your anchor
down lets just say they climb that and bord your boat that’s it your in ‘shit street’ then. all im saying is id rather be on dry land!! Then at sea
Sharpshooter on 17 Aug 2009 at 9:59 pm #
honestly i would feel safer in a bunker. yeah i know you could get trapped which is why you be smart about it. make sure there are alternate exits. and a look out point only accessable from the bunker… so it would look like just a large pillar sticking out of the ground with no way up it and maybe a moveable seat on it. would also make a good snipper spot.
3ID on 18 Aug 2009 at 7:59 am #
I like land could never reallt handly the water i get sea sick to easy lol i would stick to land i can move better also for me it would be safer i would set up safe house and look at rails roads for moving about becasue if you nee to all major millitary bases have railroad tracks still going in to them so do ports i would look at trains more my speed
Adam on 18 Aug 2009 at 9:56 am #
Well, one man with a wooden stick could pretty easily keep zombies from getting up the anchor with little effort. Every time one gets within reach, you poke it in the face til it falls off. A 2 man guard patrolling the deck, switching every 4 hours. 3 pairs of guards. You’d need more than that to crew the ship anyway, so there’s a very, very small chance of zombies getting aboard, and you can always escape in smaller boats, or if there’s land nearby, swimming.
Sea sickness has never really been a problem for me. When I was 8, I went to the great barrier reef and there was a small ferry there that was tossing and turning all over the place. Over half the passengers threw up, but i didn’t even feel slightly ill.
I don’t know if anyone else feels the same, but I think most people would tend to find higher ground in a zombie apocalypse. Given a choice between a house on a hilltop and a house in a valley, I would take the hilltop house every time. There’s something in my mentality that makes me think higher up is safer. So if your bunker was elevated, great, fine, sounds good, but an underground bunker would be a bit… Well, I don’t think I’d choose it, even if it is highly unlikely that zombies would get in.
Angryvikingman on 18 Aug 2009 at 10:43 am #
A bunker would be fine as long as it is properly fenced in. By properly fenced in I mean that it has a ten foot high and 3 block think, concrete block wall reinforced with thick rebar. All of that sitting on top of a four foot deep reinforced concrete footer thats twice as wide as the wall. A chainlink fence thats ten feet from the inner wall, and covered from ground to top with razor wire. Only allowing for a gate big enough for your largest vehicle to pass through. The gate for the block wall would be made exactly the same way as the wall, only set on large rollers to be wheeled back and forth for the gate to open and close like a sliding door. A locking mechanism would have to be devised to keep the door in place for emergencies. But that wall would keep out anything short of a tank or bulldozer.
Sharpshooter on 18 Aug 2009 at 2:05 pm #
ok so i was looking around at maybe buying a nuclear bunker and what not cause i mean damn how cool would that be?! your very own nuclear bunker would just be the coolest thing on earth. I mean I’d put a house on top of course to make it look “normal”. I’d do it like that movie “Blast From The Past”. get a fish tank, a green house and all that fun stuff.
Z-DaySurvivalist on 18 Aug 2009 at 2:58 pm #
see, i have issues with bunkers that are visible at ground level. When ONE zombie finds out you’re there, it will starting moaning. This moan will attract more zombies, until you have hundreds to thousands of zombies clawing at your walls. Now, I wouldn’t about the zombies clawing through. Angryvikingman suggest a very tough wall that takes tools to get through. But enough zombies, and they will pile up until they climb over. Undead Staircase, anyone?
A nuclear bunker thats 90% underground with no windows, a bank vault-level door, and a long escape tunnel would serve someone well. Personally, I would go to a small-medium size island, with a group of 10-15 survivors. Fortifications around the island would be needed, and the group needs to be able survive in a tropical island environment for 15-20 years until the zombies decay to much to survive.
Just as a side note, who here knows how to sail? I have rudimentary knowledge, and have sailed smaller boats with friends. Thoughts?
Adam on 18 Aug 2009 at 3:03 pm #
Sounds great, but I suspect nuclear bunkers are quite expensive =/
Though if you were going to buy one, during a recession is the time to do it :D
Sharpshooter on 18 Aug 2009 at 6:52 pm #
yeah deffinately!! give me some killer specifications i should look for. like you know instead of it being a tiny little tube for 2 people. hsould it have some pretty decent space to it? or should it be above ground (yes they have those) or bellow? iunno just throw out some ideas!!!
Kain - ZAC Weapon Consultant on 18 Aug 2009 at 8:35 pm #
Well I’ve seen fallout shelters for sale for as low as $6,000 US, I say US because the bunker was in England. That said, don’t expect them to be nearly that reasonable, but then again you get what you pay for, and the bunker, which was really more of a small shelter. As for specs, it might be cheaper and more efficient to build the bunker yourself to your own desires and specs. One it’s going to be where you want it and how you want it. Though if you gas as a means of heating or cooking don’t take up smoking. Guy my father grew up with had a fallout shelter in the backyard and since the end of the Cold War they had turned it in to a storage area. The guy lit a smoke and kaflooie long pig well done.
“They won’t get me they won’t get me thought they never cease to try
they won’t get me they won’t get me I would rather fight and die
they won’t get me they won’t get me well my friend will they get you?
when they get you when they get you tell me what are you gonna do?”
Dropkick Murphys – The Gauntlet.
Sharpshooter on 18 Aug 2009 at 10:20 pm #
hahaha yeah. i’d much rather prefer some other form of heating and lighting but gas does seem to be a good option…. i dont smoke anyways and have no aspirations to.
Angryvikingman on 18 Aug 2009 at 11:16 pm #
Personally, I’d want to build my own nuke shelter. I dont know how to filter irradiated water, but that would be a good thing to find out. An air filtration/exchange system would be another thing to put in.
The electrical system would have to be solar,hydroelectric, or wind powered. Gas is a bad option for cooking, ect. Wtf are you gonna do when it runs out? I dont think that any trucks are going to be coming to deliver it. You could always use a 4 burner camp or RV stove, and store your tanks in an adjacent room that was well ventilated. You’d just have to scavenge for a LOT of the smaller propane tanks. Personally, I’d stick with some sort of electrical cooking powered by solar panels. A small hot plate with two burners would do fine. I don’t know what kind of voltage it would take to run it, but I do know that small 45 watt solar panels are available at harbor freight. I think they have 75 watt too, so I know it’ll power some compact flourescent lights, and if you chain enough of them together, then you can surely run a hot plate. When shit hits the fan, remember that lots of roadway construction signs are solar powered, and you can use those solar panels to your advantage.
Kain - ZAC Weapon Consultant on 18 Aug 2009 at 11:28 pm #
Well hell bell, why didn’t I think of the solar powered phones they have on the interstates and highways. I wonder how many could vanish before someone would notice? Anyway, different mentality back then, the gas tanks were a cheap and easily obtained source of fuel and they didn’t expect to have to stay underground, literally and figuratively, for more than a month or two or three. After that the initial radiation was hoped to have dissipated to a degree that was tolerable and help would have arrived. Of course that was fifty years ago when they thought a piece of kindling over your head would save you from the bomb, so lets consider the fact that they were likely less enlightened.
Also if your prepping for nuclear fallout then look into lead lining, if it ends up being zombies you can always dig it up and cast bullets out of it.
“They won’t get me they won’t get me thought they never cease to try
they won’t get me they won’t get me I would rather fight and die
they won’t get me they won’t get me well my friend will they get you?
when they get you when they get you tell me what are you gonna do?”
Dropkick Murphys – The Gauntlet.
Adam on 19 Aug 2009 at 4:08 am #
I would say lead lining was a must have for a fallout shelter. Otherwise you’ll die from radiation anyway. Though to be effective, you need A LOT of lead. The world isn’t like films, where you can survive nuclear bombs by hiding in lead lined fridges.
I’m wondering how difficult it would be to make your own bunker. For starters, you need to get planning permission, and i don’t think “i’m making an underground bunker to survive the zombie outbreak in” is gonna hold much sway with the government types. I suppose it would be possible, but you’d need quite a lot of big equipment and machinery. For an underground one, you need to dig it out, line it with concrete, then line it with lead, then line it with even more concrete, then pile some of the dirt back on top.
You’d also have to run the wires for your solar panels down through the ground. Unless, of course, they went down the entrance/exit, but then you wouldn’t be able to keep it sealed.
If you were building a nice big roomy bunker underground, I’d reccomend you dig a narrow shaft, room for just one person at a time, line it with concrete and lead just like before, attach rungs to the wall, and put in at least 3 thick, steel+lead hatches. I’d also advise a small little bunker on top of the entrance, so you can get some fresh air from time to time without being in too much danger. Oh, and if money is no object, you could put a nice concrete pillbox on top of the bunker. Minus the weapons, of course. You could store them nearby though.
3ID on 19 Aug 2009 at 8:24 am #
water to bunkers interesting turn but hey what the hell right. you nee atleast 2 escape tunnals and a main entrance but fing a place to bulid such a massive undertalking will be hard un less you buy a mountin in colorado or some and make your own little Norad wtch i would think would be your best option because here in GA this soil would be hard to dig up and and tunnel all we have is crapy red clay so if your going to build a buncker out west might be your best bet
Angryvikingman on 19 Aug 2009 at 12:05 pm #
For a good bunker, you can just dig into a small hillside. If you were worried about any kind of atomic blast, just have your bunker entrance face away from the nearest major city. The hillside will funnel the blast wave over the structure with minimal or no damage. If you’re worried just about zombies and other survivors, then you could build it on top of the ground and fence it in. I drew up a little bunker design, and you can see it here:
http://www.crackhedz.com/zombies/bunker.gif
Enjoy!
Sharpshooter on 19 Aug 2009 at 12:10 pm #
yeah i thought about the solar pannels but didnt mention them BECAUSE: if a nuclear attack really happened those things would be blown to bits.
Angryvikingman on 19 Aug 2009 at 12:11 pm #
If you don’t look at the picture, then you’ll miss where I talk about radiation barriers, power, water, HVAC schematics, and ect. Its on the picture.
Sharpshooter on 19 Aug 2009 at 12:18 pm #
and another thing… how the fuck are you gunna get the money for all this?!?! i mean yeah it’s fun to talk about it but another to do it.
Kain - ZAC Weapon Consultant on 19 Aug 2009 at 12:54 pm #
Sharpshooter, I believe it was you who asked about recommendations in regards to building a bunker. If you lack sufficient resources then you might want to look into alternative forms of funding. Though if that brings you into trouble with the law leave me and ZAC out of your confession if you would be so kind.
I’ve personally often thought about constructing a bunker, though I would want something that I could also utilize as an everyday home with the ability to lock the place down in an emergency. A place that would cool, dry, and quiet, the perfect place to finish writing my Zombie Manifesto. And if you are trying to get a building permit, well, there are a couple ways you can go about this. First is claim you are building a home that is underground in an attempt to be ‘green’. Build a small house on top of the bunker and ten just retro fit the hatches and whatnot after the basic structure is complete. You could also build it under the guise of it having something to do with a business, though that would require you had a business and money to go with it. Or you could just buy a remote piece of land and build it without telling anyone. II would go with the later, probably near or in the side of a mansion.
“They won’t get me they won’t get me thought they never cease to try
they won’t get me they won’t get me I would rather fight and die
they won’t get me they won’t get me well my friend will they get you?
when they get you when they get you tell me what are you gonna do?”
Dropkick Murphys – The Gauntlet.
sharpshooter on 19 Aug 2009 at 2:33 pm #
no i didnt mean for me i meant Angeryviking’s bunker he wants to built. from the looks of it, it would be really pricey! although i suppose thats the point…..
Adam on 19 Aug 2009 at 5:25 pm #
Well, building it in a remote piece of land and not telling anyone wouldn’t really work if you were hiring people to build it for you, and whilst it could be possible to build it yourself, it would be very slow and very difficult. Especially when it comes to re-enforcing the walls and ceilings with concrete.
dib5th on 19 Aug 2009 at 8:52 pm #
angry viking the bunker you drew up looks very good if it is in a cliff or hill
Angryvikingman on 19 Aug 2009 at 11:09 pm #
@ dib5th:
Yeah, generally a bunker is built like that.
@ Sharpshooter:
That’s my “IF I won the lottery” bunker.
If I was still single, I would build one like that. One bag of cement, and one concrete block at a time. You can rent equipment for earth moving and breaking the rock. Just water proof the walls, back fill the area with loose dirt, form up the ceiling, then have a concrete truck come in and pour the roof as a “foundation slab” for a house. Trust me, you can do 90% of it by yourself if you’re not an idiot.
3ID on 20 Aug 2009 at 7:49 am #
@ Angryvikingman
Win the lottry good luck if you do give me a shout i will come help as long as i can stay in there to when the world ends. also you live in TN you live in the hilly area or flatter ground because if it the hill you can have a great buncker and nobody would evan know you have it but i think if you won the lottry it would be bigger that seems kind of small just me
Angryvikingman on 20 Aug 2009 at 5:20 pm #
Ah, see, the beauty of that design is that its not set at any one size. The same design can be used to make a small apartment style bunker, or a bunker big enough for 20 or 30 people. Just change the room dimensions but keep the same design. The design will scale to fit any size that is needed up about fifty people. Instead of an apartment, it could be warehouse sized with the exact same design.
It could contain one dining table, or it could be mess hall sized. See my meaning?
Pretty much all of tennessee is hilly and mountainous, like northern georgia. Plenty of great places to hide a bunker. And IF I ever win the lottery, I’ll build one, and I’ll do a zombie survival camp there. Teach hand to hand, knife, and sword fighting. Survival skills, and lots of other neat things that you can use to survive.
Adam on 21 Aug 2009 at 12:38 pm #
That would be so great. I’d even go to America just for that camp :L
Angryvikingman on 22 Aug 2009 at 12:32 am #
I was going to do one this summer, but didnt get enough interested parties.
another mike on 01 Sep 2009 at 1:43 am #
Angryvikingman, angle the murder holes so they can shoot at the surface of the door. Otherwise you leave a blind spot for zombies to pile up or someone to sit while they breach the door. Medieval castles had their galleries angled from the sides or above so there just wasn’t anywhere against the walls or doors that was safe to loiter.
Dave on 01 Sep 2009 at 6:19 pm #
Don’t expect to grow much on boats, the wind, rain and sea (salty) air would make it extremely difficult. Even on an island it will be difficult unless you have natural barriers. Depends where you are of course, but it’s always going to be substantially harder than on mainland.
TBH if I had a large amount of man- and fire-power I’d be seriously thinking of trying to reclaim somewhere like Jersey/Guernsey as it’s a big island with very good farming, and plausable to boat into France and UK for raids. With and island like that you could really have a safe community and a life.
Islands or boats should basically be invulnerable to Z’s but beware any humans – boats and islands near a coast naturally attract attention and any lights at night will travel very far across the water. You also need a mechanic to keep the motor working or you can get yourself in real trouble.
Semper Cogitant on 08 Oct 2009 at 5:28 pm #
Staying permanently at sea wouldn’t work unless you had a very large vessel and a group of people large enough to maintain and operate it. There are no waters in the ocean that are not affected by severe weather at some point and in any small craft you’d likely founder eventually.
A power boat is not a great long term idea because things break and fuel runs out and it might be a long swim back to land. A sailboat is a better idea but still not perfect.
I’ve though about a decent size sailboat and wintering in protected areas like some of the coves and inlets on the uninhabited or almost uninhabited islands off California. The problem is that many thousands of boats will be headed to those islands in the days after the outbreak and they will bring infected people with them who will become zombies shortly after they die. As likely as not there will be a lot of Zs staggering around those islands.
As for resources, in many coastal areas fishing will be easy, and as long as you can make heat a still will get you fresh water.
There will be millions of boats trying to make it all over the world, many will sink, many will start with infected people aboard and be manned by only zombies fairly soon. There will be a lot of piracy, a lot of desperate people willing to kill you or be killed by you, and while a boat is easy to defend from zombies, it’s not so easy to defend from determined groups of live attackers.
Reyes on 30 Dec 2009 at 12:27 pm #
When you died the gases i your body expand, which makes me believe that a zombie will float rather then walk the floor of the water.