Would you stay home or go to the designated shelter?

[sandrock74]

Just something I was wondering. We all know how the "staying in your private residence" thing was made illegal, and how everyone was to report to their nearest designated shelter. We all also know how spectacular that worked. Me, personally, I would have fortified my place and stayed put at first. I would have been readying to leave and getting any and all info that I could. I wouldn't wait too long thou before hitting the road and heading to open areas I know of. I would NEVER go to a shelter, I don't care what the authorities said! Even excluding the danger posed from infected people getting inside and/or zombie hordes from the outside, I don't see any good coming from cramming loads of people into a shelter. They did that in New Orleans and we all know what a mess that ended up being! How about you? Would you even go temporarily to a shelter? Maybe to get info or food? Would you just hole up at home? Would you hit the road? What would you do?

[Uncle Rege]

Stay at home-for sure! Especially that our house is made of brick-and most windows are 6ft. off of the ground-doors are solid steel, and we do have an attic to retreat to as a last resort (with an escape from the roof fan ducts if necessary) No way would we ever go to an area where large crowds are gathering-fighting-rioting-looting-outbreaks!

[SRP76]

Why not go to the shelter? Everyone on here seems to think you need other people to survive. You aren't going to find them in your closet. If you're well-outfitted, go to the shelter. The other refugees there are a ready-made army for you.

[MaximusIncredulous]

The other refugees there are a ready-made army for you. Or a smorgasbord. Well, at least they'll keep the dead busy as I high-tail it outta there.

[sammylou]

Part of it depends on what the designated shelter is. If I know for a fact the place they're telling people to go is a building that is undefendable and dangerous, then I wouldn't go. Actually, now that I think about, I wouldn't go. Although you need other people to survive, going to a place with a bunch of other people is just like making it easier for the hordes of flesh eaters, as all of their meal would be in one place. So I'd go out to rural areas on foot or hold out at my place.

[Mr.G]

I think anyone who has seen the movies knows what will happen at shelters. I'd rather fend for myself in my own home or drive to a remote area. I assume the shelters are located in urban areas...which statistically means more zombies. Count me out!

[Thorn]

For me it would have to be situational, and you know it is just speculation. Who really knows what we would do? The crap hits the fan, you are told to be someplace cops and national guardsman are enforcing martial law. You can not just say you would thumb your nose at the law and drive off in your survival mobile into the woods loaded for bear. Honestly I have a survival plan and it does not really involve staying home or going to a shelter. That is just my plan in the end I might decide to go to a shelter because if that is the law, it is the law and you might not have all the facts at that point. I think that is part of it, all of this stuff is going down and in your mind you are likely thinking of "after". Like "once things return to normal I don't want to be a criminal". Now if i am home and I have seen zombies eating people, I have lived through some bad situations and I know that other injured people pose a threat. I would be less inclined to go to the shelter. If I was not 100% positive with up to date information that the shelter was secure I would never consider it. I would rather make a go of it with family and friends somewhere.

[darth los]

Just something I was wondering. We all know how the "staying in your private residence" thing was made illegal, and how everyone was to report to their nearest designated shelter. We all also know how spectacular that worked. Me, personally, I would have fortified my place and stayed put at first. I would have been readying to leave and getting any and all info that I could. I wouldn't wait too long thou before hitting the road and heading to open areas I know of. I would NEVER go to a shelter, I don't care what the authorities said! Even excluding the danger posed from infected people getting inside and/or zombie hordes from the outside, I don't see any good coming from cramming loads of people into a shelter. They did that in New Orleans and we all know what a mess that ended up being! How about you? Would you even go temporarily to a shelter? Maybe to get info or food? Would you just hole up at home? Would you hit the road? What would you do? Yeah but, in the words of the immortal doc Frankenstein: Where will you go? We already know that in our own homes the food/water/ammo supply is limited maybe even non-existent. How long do you think they would last even if you had some? Logic dictates that you would have to leave your home at some point either to resupply or tend to any injured family. So staying home is a temporary solution at best. The shelters pose their own problems as well It's a shame that GAR never gave us any insight into exactly WHY the shelters failed. If I had to guess it was because of the same reasons that the farm house failed in night, the mall failed indawn and the underground bunker failed in day: HUMAN CONFLICT !! Think about the chaos that probably went on in those shelters, not to mention looters. They would have had the same trouble that we saw in all of the films. It's innevitable whenever you add human behavior into the equation.

[Philly_SWAT]

I dont see how I could be convinced to go to a "shelter". Forgetting the fact that this could be just another example of GAR not thinking too deeply into things, I say that it was just a poor decision by those in charge. There is a certain amount of logic to it....if you have reason to think that the dead are coming back to life and need to be properly destroyed, AND you have reason to think that the populace may not want to do what needs to be done in that situation (i.e. they dont believe it, religious reasons, etc.), AND you feel this will have disasterous effects with more and more of the undead infecting other people, then I can see the logic with saying no one is allowed to occupy private residences. The problem though is largely one of logistics. Many problems. For one, there would not be enough cops, army, etc to enforce this edict. They have their hands full fighting the undead, they certainly dont have enough manpower to go door to door. Also the problem of supplies. No way any shelter has enough supplies for the thousands, tens of thousands, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS who by definition would be descending upon them. In such a mass crisis, distribution of goods would break down quickly, so even if there were adequate supplies (which there wouldnt be) there would be no re-suppy effort Chaos would reign at the "shelters". You hear in Dawn, only 3 weeks in, that the most current list they have, "half of these are inoperative as of now". The shelters are breaking down already, yet SWAT raids continue. Where are these people to go? What are they to do if they can not occupy a private residence? A good real world example...look how well the SuperDome acted as a shelter during hurricane Katrina. No food, NO WATER, no security, people being raped, people being killed, dead bodies lying everywhere. Shelters such as this would add to the zombie problem, not help with them. It was mentioned in this thread something like "everyone says you need people to survive the crisis, why not go to where there is a lot of people?" It would need to be the right people to help you, not those with no plan whatsover, that the only thing that had to do was go to the "shelter" as ordered.

[darth los]

As has been said before: The biggest problem in a catastrophe such as this one would be other humans. You'd probably have to be more vigilant against them than the ghouls. Moral of the story: Stay away from other people.

[MikePizzoff]

I'd try to convince as many surrounding neighbors as I can to stay in our apartments. We could knock down the walls to create one huge living space. It'd probably be a little safer than any sort of shelter the local government was providing. Not in the sense that I'm saying the gov't would surely do a bad job, but I just would not be comfortable crammed into one building with hundreds/thousands of people. One zombie somehow gets in the building and I'm sure the place would erupt into complete chaos and people would be trampled to death while everyone fought to get out the measly double doors. Plus sickness would probably be running rampant. Suppose someone was bit and hid it from everyone then turned in the middle of the night and bit a few people?!

[sandrock74]

My biggest fear about the shelters are that, if I went to one, I would be unable to get out/escape. If the shelter were surrounded by zombies outside, everyone inside is screwed! Even if you could make it out of the building, your probably not going to make it thru the mass of hungry zombies immediately outside. Screwed...

[Thorn]

I think with shelters my biggest fear is complacency. Like you go in and count on others to protect you, and you get lazy. Someone else mentioned Katrina and how that went down. It turned my stomach there were more than one case well documented where people died and no one did anything about it, the bodies sat there with the living decaying, eventually someone threw a blanket on them. People sat and waited for the government to bail them out. The government was coming, it was their job. Damn that. Your survival is your job, and if it looks like the government isn't doing their job for whatever reason, or can't then it falls on you and those around you to do the right thing. And again complacency, I mean if you are counting on the swat team to protect you and they split chances are the guns are going with them so then you are at a serious disadvantage.

[darth los]

I'd try to convince as many surrounding neighbors as I can to stay in our apartments. We could knock down the walls to create one huge living space. It'd probably be a little safer than any sort of shelter the local government was providing. Not in the sense that I'm saying the gov't would surely do a bad job, but I just would not be comfortable crammed into one building with hundreds/thousands of people. One zombie somehow gets in the building and I'm sure the place would erupt into complete chaos and people would be trampled to death while everyone fought to get out the measly double doors. Plus sickness would probably be running rampant. Suppose someone was bit and hid it from everyone then turned in the middle of the night and bit a few people?! Not to mention if someone amongst the group dies at night while everyone is sleeping, which is entirely possible. My biggest fear about the shelters are that, if I went to one, I would be unable to get out/escape. If the shelter were surrounded by zombies outside, everyone inside is screwed! Even if you could make it out of the building, your probably not going to make it thru the mass of hungry zombies immediately outside. Screwed... And you wouldn't have that problem at your house? It would be the same dilema except you'd have way less people to help you fight them off. Each scenario has it's pros and cons but ima have to go with being self reliant on this one and only use others should the need arise.

[sandrock74]

And you wouldn't have that problem at your house? It would be the same dilema except you'd have way less people to help you fight them off. Actually, I don't think it would be the same. One of the shelters would attract the undead for miles around. I always imagined them looking like the parking lot from Yawn 04. No way you can fight your way out of that. As long as a person (or people) holed up in their home stay reasonably quiet, there won't be a mob scene anywhere equal to that. Besides, I wouldn't stay at home too long. Just long enough to pack stuff and make some plans. I'm of the belief that staying mobile is the safest way to go!