Dozens of additional considerations must be addressed when picking city shelter locations, in contrast to making similar decisions out in the country. Hiding and camouflage are the most important elements of a country retreat. We could also wish that our country retreat is relatively near our stored supplies and trade goods, water, energy, and some adequate gardening soils. In the city these various components are seldom found together near the retreat.
Hiding is even more important in the city than in the country. So much so that other elements of survival may have to be compromised. In other words, city survivors may find it necessary to walk or ride bicycles a mile or two to secure water, tend their gardens or their livestock. Hiding is so important that frequently other elements of survival are not thought of until lack of food, water, and fuel becomes critical.
There are simply too many bad guys, both on our side and on their side, not to hide. It sounds romantic and macho now to claim that you can hold them at bay with superior firepower, but as a practical matter duking it out with any of these people is not practical, especially in the long run.
Family units are the best survival groups. Down through the centuries, family organizations have always survived best, especially in societies with records of strong family ties. At the same time, however, families make terrible combat units. Survivors cannot and will not send sons and daughters out on patrol, suspecting they will likely become casualties.
Another truth learned in the past several hundred years, and in this century in particular, involves the fact that city survivors can not allow themselves to become refugees. Refugees are always subject to the whim and caprice of soldiers, either ours or theirs, and of governments.
The only options for refugees, in either case, are to become dead or become slaves. People already psychologically dependent on government seem to be the ones who elect to become refugees. I cannot understand voluntary refugees in any other context.
City survivors absolutely must hide during the worst of the fighting, leaving the retreat only to move if burned or blasted out or to replenish food, water, and fuel supplies. Survivors may be forced out briefly to tend the garden or the livestock or to dispose of waste. Keep in mind that emergencies have a way of passing, but expect to spend lots of time hunkered down in the retreat.
Being relatively close to water, stored supplies, and tillable ground is helpful, but being far away from certain particularly dangerous places is far more helpful. I have mentioned that my dad lived across the street from a railway switching yard in World War I Germany. Had bombing been carried out to the extent it was in World War II, this could have been a deadly situation.
Good places to avoid today? Government buildings of any kind, armories, supply depots, motor pools, troop billets, refineries, freeway cloverleafs, petroleum storage areas, pipelines, waterworks, telephone exchanges, ammunition factories, power generation and distribution facilities, central freeway interconnection points, major bridges, port facilities, hospitals, apartments where government officials might meet or live, and even places where high government officials go to recreate. As a practical matter, military and survival veterans claim it is almost impossible to know ahead with any certainty which areas of one’s city will be targeted during the course of urban conflict. The best we can do is to pick places unlikely to be in the maelstrom. This may provide a perhaps 50–50 chance of being spared, which is certainly not much of a guarantee.
Understanding how aggressor forces might likely sweep into a city might be helpful. Cities overrun and then recaptured over and over again provide some examples, but not much hope. The Warsaw Ghetto comes to mind. Each side expanded its operations till the ghetto was completely trashed. At the end, German SS generals bragged that all buildings in the ghetto were completely pulverized and would now make good construction material.
Two philosophies are always true relative to modern urban warfare. First, attacking soldiers won’t move up broad, open thoroughfares into the open arms of defenders. They will move through built-up areas by punching through buildings, especially when these buildings are very large, as in industrial areas, or when they are virtually interlocking, as is true in most European cities and some U.S. cities characterized by row houses.
Second, nondescript, plain vanilla hides well. There are examples of unique retreats, extremely cleverly hidden, but in general, being the 287th house in a basically look-alike suburb provides safety. The same is true of the retreater who is in one of 43 identical apartments in a giant complex.
I was in one of these recently, just north of Washington, D.C. The corridors in these complexes were probably hundreds of yards long. Except for numbers on the doors, everything was shockingly the same. The dreary sameness would have driven me nuts. The fellow I talked with in the complex didn’t know the names of either of his next-apartment-over neighbors, but he did know the people across the hall by sight enough to say “hi” when he saw them.
While the drab sameness would have provided some protection, these older apartments seemed to be finished with quite a bit of wood. My first reaction was that fire danger might cancel out any other value hiding in that complex might offer.
City survivors may employ psychological devices that will tend to keep enemy elements at a distance and plant confusion and fear in their minds. Many are extremely effective: these devices give the impression of death and destruction, which should be avoided by intruders at all cost.
The simplest of these involves placing a sign on the door which might read, “custodial storage area,” or, “danger, high-voltage power boxes, no unauthorized entry.” Another, displaying the universal sign for radiation danger, is a proven winner. In our culture, signs warning of chemical danger or of fumigation danger are extremely effective. At present, signs warning of asbestos also produce great alarm.
In cities it is often easier than that. Rather than official-looking, nicely printed color signs, survivors can easily post hastily made signs warning of chemical danger and poison gas ahead, or that an area is known to contain antipersonnel and antivehicle mines and has not been properly cleared of such. I would even post a warning about snipers working in teams on the area ahead, and that military personnel should understand that the area has not been secured. Warnings of unexploded artillery or mortar rounds or bombs may also be effective.
Will it come to this in the United States? In some cases signs must be written in languages other than English! Warning symbols for chemical or biological weapons or mines, which are universally used without script in any language, may be effective. Will this stuff work? Reports indicate that it often does. I would follow expert recommendation and give these ploys a try.
People, especially in our culture, greatly fear the unknown. Americans are currently irrationally fearful of chemicals and radiation. Soldiers are trained to ignore their fears. But, who knows—you may be lucky and encounter lazy, fearful soldiers.