The Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap/Maryland

Part of the Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap Project.

Assumed to be in major fallout due to Washington DC and Annapolis Naval Acadamy

Montgomery County

I live in Montgomery County MD, 20 miles north of D.C., so I would figure the two big bad factions would be fighting over something that close to the former nation's capital. Baltimore would, most likely, be a smoldering wasteland by this point in time. I would think the Eastern parts of the state would be fine, unless someone dropped some high powered shit on Andrews Air Force Base and Dover AFB (Dover, Delaware). If anything of my town survived it would be in civil war because everyone would want control, for whatever symbolic reason, of what's left of Washington.

Frederick County

Post-Nuclear strikes, now a major refugee zone for those fleeing the conflicts which I would presume convulse D.C. and Baltimore. Since the leaders of the world are not COMPLETELY stupid, no one nuked Fort Detrick, as it is the center of disease research for the U.S. Military, (essentially the military counterpart to CDC in Atlanta) and no one wanted anything in there to get out (amongst other things, one of the last surviving strains of Smallpox), and it remains a fairly stable zone, all things considered. Declaring itself an independently governed state, until a stable U.S. government tells them otherwise. Current borders stretch West to East: Hagerstown and Harper´s Ferry along the eastern border, and Route 97 as the western border. The Mason-Dixon line defines the northern border, while a line drawn from Harper´s Ferry to Mt. Airy defines the secure area of the southern border, with everything between that line and Clarksburg designated as the initial refugee area. Frederick itself is obviously still in a pretty big fallout zone, but the background levels of radiation 3 years later are tolerable: The wind was blowing south when D.C. was hit. Relatively securing, although not a place to go unarmed, the urban areas of the Independent County of Frederick are well patrolled by the Frederick Guard, formed of former police and National Guard members. Less well populated areas, however, are acknowledged as areas where the local citizens take the law into their own hands, within some limits, and of course there is still a danger from various gang factions warring for control of the areas west of Route 97, which is now a DMZ. The Fort Detrick Garrison (obviously formed of military units based in Fort Detrick) maintains order in the city of Frederick, and Harper´s Ferry, Hagerstown, Westminster, and Thurmont serve as garrisoned areas for the Frederick Guard and military units, while a full size base has been constructed at the crossing of I-70 and Rt. 97, known as Firebase Preston. Small checkpoints, manned variously by Guardsmen or local militia, are common, and major roads,as well as roads into and out of larger towns, can be barricaded fairly easily within 30 minutes of an alert being given. Still, Frederick has it's trouble zones. Like a 1st world city, the dangerous areas can exist ridiculously closely to the safe zones. There are numerous militant groups in the area (primarily neo-nazi's and remnants of the KKK) and only 2 years ago there was an all out assault by no less than 3 of the former gang militia's who are locked in an everlasting war in Baltimore.

For crunch purposes, there's something for everyone. Wanna start out with nothing in the middle of the wilderness and have an actual goal? Start in one of the national parks. Wanna be part of a pseudo-military faction or use proper military vehicles? Start in Firebase Preston or one of the fortress cities. Want to have a Dark Heresy lookin' RP? Start in Frederick proper, it's a mess.

• the author is well aware that there is a very low chance that Frederick County would be livable in a nuclear strike scenario, but whatever. It's a little more plausible than it seems. Remember this scenario assumes that WMD's were launched mostly at major military targets and capitals, AND the various anti-missile systems like SM-2 or ABM-3 missiles actually worked, AAAAAAND that *inhales* the world leaders got their shit together and realized using ALL the nukes would be bad. Not realistic, but whatever.*