Tell Us About Your Zombie Apocalypse Fortress

[cubby]

With The Walking Dead coming back in February, it got me thinking about "real" survival if the dead rose up against humanity, and how myself or others could or might survive. And so, I am curious about people's ideas for a zombie apocalypse fortress. Tell us how you would design your survival shelter, and why you made the choices you did.

General Guidelines:

Assume a total collapse of society. No set government exists.
10 sq acres of land to use (43,560 square feet per acre x 10 acres = 435,600 square feet).

How many people would you have with you, and whom would it be.
Limited funds. Be reasonable and crafty. But I won't set a certain amount. Assume $1MM is too high.
List what supplies you would have initially.
List ideas for surviving longer than a year.
Water, medical supplies, fuel, power, security - what are your solutions to these long-term challenges.

Clarification: you choose where the 10 acres are located. The $1MM "budget" is pre-apocalypse money. You are planning this before it happens, not after.

Write out your ideas and post pics if you want. Have fun!

[Blueobelisk]

I can't do much with that little money. I mean if you give me time to prepare before shit goes down we'd be legiter than legit for multiple years. If I have to build shit by myself or with a few people on 10 random acres I find after the Apocalypse, to be honest I'd ignore the land and just be on the move.

[cubby]

I can't do much with that little money. I mean if you give me time to prepare before shit goes down we'd be legiter than legit for multiple years. If I have to build shit by myself or with a few people on 10 random acres I find after the Apocalypse, to be honest I'd ignore the land and just be on the move.

Fair enough. Just to clarify, $1MM is $1,000,000 - my awesome wife pointed out that not a lot of people know what the "MM" means. My bad there.

Go with what you want to do and how you'd do it.

[Tierbook]

Invite everyone to my place, build a pen, farm humans for sustenance.

[Dendrek]

A farmer, a botanist (for the production of medicines, and as a backup if something happens to the farmer), 2 doctors (redundancy in case one gets hurt, and one specializing in gynecology), an engineer (for the maintenance of complex mechanical devices such as power generators), a carpenter, 2 or 3 soldiers, a storyteller or singer (to keep moral from getting low, though this could backfire), a teacher, and up to 4 kids or teens. Ideally there would be an even mix of males and females in the group, and ideally no more than 2 or 3 of the adults are over 45 years old (all are less than 60 years old).

It would need to be fertile land, near a stream (even better if one is running through it), with plenty of trees for the construction of fences and buildings. With the money I have, I'd buy solar panels, a few dozen guns, thousands of rounds of ammo, a year's supply of canned goods and bottled water (not to be used unless we get desperate, we'd rely primarily on farming and the stream for food and water), a few thousand dollars worth of shoes, jackets and clothing of several sizes, several tarps, farming tools, 2 power generators, several cows, chickens and pigs, motion sensors that run on batteries, several dozen rechargeable batteries, flash lights, several thousand dollars of basic medical supplies...

And a dozen arsenic pills because this will inevitably fail anyways.

[Drusin]

There is a show about this on Netflix, it's called Doomsday Preppers, some people take this stuff serious as hell.

[Uhaneole]

wall off 1-2 acres as the "fort". and i mean wall off as in high walls, barb wire, towers for sentry duty, unnecessary spikes, the whole nine. live with family close friends (enough people to make sure daily upkeep is taken care of). Use left over land for farming, "fun", etc. give everyone the brief on how to egress back into camp should a herd come in; and if you dont get in on time idc if youre blood to me, i will shoot you rather than have an "infected" in my house. i would only hope they did the same for me if the time came.

i dont think $1M is gonna be worth much post collapse of society so the funds would entirely spent on setting up the camp and walls not much else.

Also being in Hawaii, I would hope to choose where those "10 acres" are, because I know some pretty outta the way spots that would take a helo or boat to get to, unless those zombies learn to fly, i think id be safe for the long haul lol.

[Blueobelisk]

Yeah I didn't know what MM was.

I'm gonna pretend I have $10 mil or even $25 mil because to be honest you can't even buy a functioning house for less than $500,000 where I live.

Fort design:
Moat laced with corrosive acid if you stay in it too long outside of my 10 acres.
Huge walls reinforced with concrete and shit. (I'll do the engineering design myself.) Cannons and turrets on top of the walls.
Inside the walls there are four outer zones and one middle zone that's also walled off (not as big or good of a wall). The inside middle zone is to live in. The outside zones are strictly to get sunlight and shit for cows, chickens, and plants.
Inside we have a research laboratory, and storage and guns and medical facilities.
As for the living quarters, it's designed like a five star hotel where everyone has their own room and bathroom and there are hallways.

I think the construction and furnishing of all that is like $5 or $10 mil. Maybe $15 lol.

Give me $1 mil in medicine, $4 mil in research materials/chemicals, $2 mil in farming material including livestock (that can be maintained/renewed), $10 million in technology like renewable energy sources and radio parts and shit like that. And uhhh. That's it?

As for who is with me, 16 designated soldiers, 8 farmers, 8 scientists, 8 engineers, 8 doctors, and like 20 well behaved kids who act as assistants/apprentices.

[Kivimetsan]

Keep on the move. You don't wanna stay in the same place too long, you'll get too comfortable and complacent, then nek minute you're all being eaten.

[Terahertz]

My idea of the perfect zombie apocalypse fortress would be an island where I can grow my own vegetables, fruits and livestock as well as a boat. I'd reckon staying on the main land would be most dangerous and even less known places would be risky to stay for long periods of time. Just look at Hershel's farm. There'd be numerous cases of that happening in a life time during the apocalypse.

So yeah, I'd want to buy a fisher's boat for like 200-300k. One that's perfectly suitable. Lucky me as my father used to be a fishermen so we'd be able to fish for food at the very least. Then I'd want to look for an island like I mentioned before and hope to settle on one.

As for the people I'd want with me; obviously my father due to his tradeskills. He's capable of working on a fishing boat as well as build houses so that'd be absolutely perfect. Furthermore I'd want my sister as she's working to become a nurse, which would be a perfect trade as well to have. Besides that I don't really know many people with proper trades. Naturally I'd want more people with trades such as fishing, survivalists that are knowledgeable of nature and farmers as well as builders.

Although in all honesty, the less people the better. If I'd be capable of surviving on my own or with at least someone else I'd much rather prefer that.

[Hishiro]

My zombie apocalypse plan is actually quite simple. Assuming we are dealing with zombies of the walking dead variety - slow and stupid. I would stock up on food and medicine, of course, and then surround my house with treadmills.

[Danner]

> Assume a total collapse of society. No set government exists.
That means no internet. I hate this premise. Can't we get a nicer apocalypse?

> 10 sq acres of land to use (43,560 square feet per acre x 10 acres = 435,600 square feet).
I'll settle in a Norwegian mountain water power plant. Very expensive to buy one, of course, but it's not like anyone will miss them after the zombies murder everyone that owned it.
These power plants are generally underground mountain complexes, built like bunkers. Easy to defend, and easy to seal off against mindless zombies. and the best part is of course the infinite power supply.

> How many people would you have with you, and whom would it be.
Other people are potential vectors of zombie disease. And they'll eat my food. Not a good idea!

> Limited funds. Be reasonable and crafty. But I won't set a certain amount. Assume $1MM is too high.
> List what supplies you would have initially.
> List ideas for surviving longer than a year.
> Water, medical supplies, fuel, power, security - what are your solutions to these long-term challenges.

Not really much needed beyond some starting supplies and some emergency food stores.
Water is covered by a very natural source, this will be the least of my problems.
Fuel isn't really needed since I'm not going anywhere.
Power is going to be extremely abundant. It can power almost everything I need, from cooking to defensive tesla coils. Because why not.
As for food, I'll just say "Fishing rod": Salmon might get old eventually, but I'll take it.

Of course, in the long run I am going to need some indoor farming. Winters won't be a problem, I can afford to heat a farming closet all year long.
Eating salmon without potatoes is just going to be droll, so that's going to be needed. I'd also like to support a some chickens in the long run. Because eggs and such.

Oh yeah. And a satellite phone for internet access. Charging it will be simple.

[Frozenbeef]

i would be the first to get eaten, i'm not good in a crisis, i scare easily and am terrified of zombies :s

[Dendrek]

I'd be the guy smearing blood on my clothes and lumbering around going "Errrugg" in a hopeless attempt to not be noticed by the zombies. And to further ingratiate myself with them, I'd join in on the feeding frenzies when ever we found a living human.

[Donald Hellscream]

I live near the sea and near one of the biggest fishing harbours in Denmark, so provided all fishermen got eaten before getting the bright idea to take their boat to the sea I would hijack a boat and have a diet consisting of fish for the remainder of my life.

[Frozenbeef]

I live near the sea and near one of the biggest fishing harbours in Denmark, so provided all fishermen got eaten before getting the bright idea to take their boat to the sea I would hijack a boat and have a diet consisting of fish for the remainder of my life.

Where do you get the petrol for the boat? :S

[Raldazzar]

Weapons weapons and more weapons. and then soldier/guard types. in an extinction level event.. firepower is king. sure, you can prep and make food stores.. but at the end of the day, if some bio hippy has a farm down the road.. Ill simply march in there and take what I want.

I always liked the idea of getting shipping containers and converting them into some kind of fort type structure. they are solid and tough enough etc. great for storage. very.. modular in the sense of open both ends or closed etc to suit.

a 40 ft shipping container costs around $2000... just think what you could build with that.

similar to this - http://i.livescience.com/images/i/00...png?1328560461

clear all the land around it. and build a large outer ring of containers. farmland can be inside, but nothing over 4 ft tall. then a central compound. allowing 360 coverage.

mass water storage/purification. but most importantly.. guns. and ammo. lots and lots of ammo.

[Donald Hellscream]

Where do you get the petrol for the boat? :S

Well unless someone have completely siphoned them all there are plenty of pumps around so I guess it would just be a matter of not getting eaten while filling the fuel tank :S If all else fails I can try to make my way to the lighthouse and barricade myself on the top which shouldn't be too hard considering how heavy and sturdy the door is. And once I run out of food I can just leap to my death.

[Ciddy]

This....
<snip>

There's a building very similar to that* less than a 5-minute drive from my house. Even better: it's not currently being used for anything. Some manufacturing business built it a few years back. The business went under, and the place has just been locked up and abandoned since. I think the bank is desperately trying to sell the place but hasn't had any luck. It's a nice, solid, concrete building with a gate around it. It'd make a hell of a fortress if I could manage to get in somehow.

But yeah, I'd build something similar to that (although smaller, because the one I'm talking about is massive, and I doubt $1M would cover it). Preferably close to a body of water far away from any cities.

*I'm not talking about the treadmill one.

[Anium]

A big fuck off sail boat, moored to a island with some fort castle thing, while i sit on the roof of my newly aquired castle/fort with a shotgun and a sniper rifle.
OR
A mountain hut, in the Alps, we all know the zeeeembies don't like the cold.
OR
A treehouse in an unnamed forest.