The Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap/Kentucky

Part of the Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap Project.

Kentucky has done surprisingly well for itself, what with the nuclear bombs and all that. Perhaps most amusingly, Kentucky itself was only hit a glancing blow; the only weapons that struck Kentucky directly were non-nuclear weapons used as rangefinders for bigger, nuclear, warheads. The bigger warheads, luckily, got delayed because their controlling government was dead and gone before they could be shot off, so Kentucky emerged with only a few bruises.

Alas, one of those bruises is still bleeding.

Ashland Oil, the massive petroleum complex, was the target of a direct hit by a bomb that set off its oil reserves and, by extension, the oil and natural gas in most of the rest of the state. Now located in the center of an area called the Ring of Fire, after the old Johnny Cash song, Ashland Oil's burning remains continue to blaze, setting off forests and other deposits of natural resources as they go. Considering that substantial portions of Kentucky are made up of coal veins, oil reserves, and natural gas deposits, this is an alarming trend.

On the other hand, the ashes that rain down intermittently on the rest of the state from the inferno in its heart have increased Kentucky's already prodigious fertility, and the fact that the only radiation in the area is background radiation from other places means that life, food, water, and the like are going on much as they ever were before the bombs hit. Survivors from other areas hear of glorious Kentucky, where the water is clean and the food healthy, and they attack in vast swarms.

Thus, survivors in Kentucky are controlled and organized by two groups: Firefighters and Policemen. Policemen patrol the towns and cities that survived the apocalypse and fend off rowdy neighbors, functioning as both the cops and the military. They are based in Lexington and Louisville, but are often called out as a rapid response team to areas deep in mountain hollows and far away from normal civilization. To meet this need for speed, they use horses, the vast farms that grew up around the Kentucky Derby now supplying the fastest and healthiest horses to be the mounts of the Policemen.

They don't use cars; all the gas left in the state belongs to the Firefighters.

The Firefighters battle the ever-raging infernos that threaten to creep closer and closer to civilization if left unchecked, and try to regain control of vital areas. The Firefighters are the only organization that are above the Policemen in rank and stature; even the lowest ranking Firefighter can command the Commissioner of Kentucky to do his bidding. Firefighters have strict admission standards and scrupulous principles; they are the honorable paladins, giving their lives to fight the horror in the state's center. The Firefighters are based out of old Fort Knox, from whose weapon stockpiles they often supply the Policemen, and use modified M1A1 Abrams Tanks to battle the flames.

All told, the men and women of both groups live short, violent lives, but they are full of glory, and it cannot be said that such a life is not preferable to what they lived before.