Great Lakes vs Mississippi Usefullness

[Olefin]

Completely agree with you about the areas around the Lakes - there is no way on earth there will be drought in those area - there is just too much water in the Great Lakes and too much lake effect snow to have the "Howling Wilderness winter drought" occur at all in those areas - basically Northeastern Ohio, Northwestern PA and Western and Central NY from the Lakes to the mountains between NY and PA is going to be its usual buried in snow and well watered no matter what happens in the rest of the country - ditto a lot of Michigan as well.

And there was a lot of industry in Western NY even into the late 90's - my hometown had a very large machine shop for instance that supplied Ford with parts that just has "hey lets make mortars and mortar shells" written all over it

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Completely agree with you about the areas around the Lakes - there is no way on earth there will be drought in those area - there is just too much water in the Great Lakes and too much lake effect snow to have the "Howling Wilderness winter drought" occur at all in those areas - basically Northeastern Ohio, Northwestern PA and Western and Central NY from the Lakes to the mountains between NY and PA is going to be its usual buried in snow and well watered no matter what happens in the rest of the country - ditto a lot of Michigan as well.

And there was a lot of industry in Western NY even into the late 90's - my hometown had a very large machine shop for instance that supplied Ford with parts that just has "hey lets make mortars and mortar shells" written all over it

I too think that the Great Lakes and Canada East of the Chicago strikes would really suffer from an extended "nuclear winter" instead of a drought. Initially, the survivors of Cleveland, Erie, and Buffalo would face starvation as food shipments stopped (due to a lack of trucking). After the power goes out and no natural gas is flowing to those places, the next issue becomes freezing to death in the extreme cold of the nuclear winter. I think the urban centers will "depopulate" fairly quickly.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

I too think that the Great Lakes and Canada East of the Chicago strikes would really suffer from an extended "nuclear winter" instead of a drought. Initially, the survivors of Cleveland, Erie, and Buffalo would face starvation as food shipments stopped (due to a lack of trucking). After the power goes out and no natural gas is flowing to those places, the next issue becomes freezing to death in the extreme cold of the nuclear winter. I think the urban centers will "depopulate" fairly quickly.

Very plausible, even probable. Local supplies of gas, etc will only last so long. Once they're exhausted....