Does a mayor, sherriff, etc actually have any real power to organise anything? I know we see it in US movies all the time, but the rest of the world operates on a different model.
As Mo touched on, defending towns and villages are definately going to be split if not fractured into groups. Some of these groups will be dead set against assisting refugees to the point of violence (these are likely to be the ones who survive the next few years), others will be the opposite and give everything they have, and of course there's many shades in between.
Setting up a defence force/militia is going to be difficult because of these divisions and what about the local law and government? It's illegal in most parts of the world to create "private armies" and so those few law enforcement and military unit left on disaster relief, peace keeping and civil order missions behind the lines would be cracking down hard - who's to say if those "private armies" aren't a cover for a 5th collumn to attack allied forced from the rear or sabotage production?
Naturally, not all efforts for rural inhabitants to organise a defence are bound for failure, just any located near military units, cites (where sheer numbers of refugees will overwhelm), and in politically fragmented areas.
NOTE! Only tactical nuclear weapons where used in the west before October 1997 and these were limited initially to within 50km of the Soviet border.
It wasn't until NATO began strategic nuclear attacks "against communication hubs in Czechoslovakia and Byelorussia" that the Pact responded to the escalation.
To many, the Soviet border might as well have been China, especially those in the more western parts of Europe. Panic would definately have been a factor, however I feel the strategic strikes against "German industrial targets and major port cities" would still come as a huge (and rather unwelcome) suprise to most.
From July 1997, transportation would become increasingly difficult, even compared to the fuel rationing and movement restricted previous 12 months (like fuel wouldn't be rationed, etc when there's a global war on...). This would be for several reasons not the least of which would be roads choked with refugees, military and police units would set up roadblocks in an attempt to retain some control, and of course we can't forget the devastating effects of EMP on civilian vehicles, power generation and distribution, public transportation, and just about anything else you can think of with an electrical curcuit in it somewhere.
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