Vidhelm wrote:Id rather take the boat with the rest of the crew, would it be alright if i wrote his escape from Seattle as a retrospective like you said?
Assuming you're accepted (need one of the OPs to give the OK still) I can't see why that would be a problem.
Kyraina wrote:Ularn wrote:The area around the islands is a natural harbour; I expect conditions on the water will be fairly calm and predictable, although Corrian is welcome to correct me on this, being a local and all. Also, I said rowboats but there's probably some sailboats around as well that would be more reliable and learning to sail's not difficult. Anyway, delaying a launch for a few days of bad weather will still be faster than spending a week traipsing hundreds of miles to Seattle via land, and boat travel is going to be pretty much the only way to get to further afield places like Tacoma, given the hike to Seattle will be dangerous enough as it is.
With all that in mind, I don't really see what benefit the bridge offers; it's the one thing keeping the island from becoming a nigh impregnable zombie fortress. Certainly I can't see it offering enough of an advantage to counteract the massive threat of zombies getting onto the island. In basic terms; destroying the bridge (maybe) causes an inconvenience that can already be surmounted through other means; leaving it intact presents a possibility for suffering total, catastrophic defeat. With those options, I can't think why any responsible commander
wouldn't order it blown up.
Although it nothing else works, maybe we could say as a compromise that the army engineers had one of those bridging vehicles on hand - like an M60 AVLB or whatever they use. They could blow out a chunk of the bridge deck and then use the tank's bridge as a drawbridge when necessary. Alternatively, the engineers themselves could rig up a replacement that would be serviceable for foot traffic, at least. I still don't particularly like the idea because, with people coming and going across the bridge fairly regularly, zombies are going to be drawn to it and eventually you're likely to find a huge crowd of them bottled up on the far side waiting for whatever comes across. They won't get onto the island, but it still makes the bridge effectively unusable.
I spent time there as well. I did my survival training At Lewis-Mccord JB, which is in Seattle, and at Fairchild AFB in Eastern Washington which is pretty much high desert.
Even though it's pretty much a natural Harbor, its still open to being hit hard by east to west moving storms. The Mountains in and around the area make for funky weather. Also the only way to keep fuel for generators and vehicles is to bring the fuel over land by tanker trucks. You. Also don't just have to go to Seattle. Also with out that bridge there is no way out and basically trapped. There will not be enough sail or row boats to get every one off the island, so a commander has to take that into consideration as well. It will only take a platoon to defend for 24/7, the road to it will take a company 24/7.
While you think it illogical, someone with military training will find it logical to keep the bridge up for awhile, before demolishing it.
Edit: the bridge is to important a asset to just destroy right away. Any large amounts of supplies will have to come by ground vehicles till Lewis-Mccord can be secured and then it can start coming in by plane, till jet fuel runs out.
Also it is a sound so it makes landing spots few, and then then it's gonna be a pain to get to.
Okay, so in a storm we have to delay any boat launches until it's passed. No biggy; we've maybe added two or three days to any scavenging run; still far less than walking the whole way would take.
Obviously there are other places to scavenge but Seattle is gonna have the highest concentration of supermarkets, pharmacies, hospitals, hardware stores, etc. and for narrative purposes it's probably the most interesting location as well, so I imagine we'll be spending most of our time there.
Fuel for generators and vehicles is nice, but it's going to run out soon - either in a few days when stockpiles on the island run out, or a few weeks or months when it all goes stale. Given that we're going to have to make do without fuel sooner or later I feel (and this would be my opinion only) that we might as well start figuring out how to cope now and concentrate on scavenging food and medicine rather than more fuel. If nothing else, it would be an opportunity to practice muscle-powered scavenging before it starts getting really cold.
As for evacuation, here's my problem: chiefly, there's nowhere to evacuate to. Sure, if the zombies breach Whidbey Island then some people might scatter and escape but there's no other suitable stronghold around to head for and regroup. If the situation gets bad enough that we have to evacuate, nearly everyone is going to die anyway. Perhaps the bridge offers some chance of overland escape for a few (very lucky) people but it's also probably going to be the route via which the zombies are coming to the island. We're effectively talking about making your line of retreat go right
through an enemy advance and into hostile territory, making any large scale evacuation via that route impossible. We cannot realistically plan for a successful evacuation under any circumstances, so the best plan is to minimise the chances of an evacuation becoming necessary.
Furthermore, the army has so far lost every major engagement with the zombies; they must have done, else we wouldn't be in this mess and we've already seen both ports fall first-hand. Perhaps this is unrealistic but it's the scenario we're playing now, and I believe it would be unreasonable for the army to assume they could hold the bridge in these circumstances.
To reiterate: Keeping the bridge open makes the possibility of Whidbey's invasion thousands of times more likely than if it is destroyed, versus the slight possibility of maybe evacuating a few dozen extra people if it's kept open. Basically, you're exponentially increasing the chances of a failure state in return for a minuscule reduction in the damage caused by that failure state.