The Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap/Oregon

Part of the Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap Project.

Overview

Post-Apocalyptic Oregon will remain mostly untouched. Two bombs will land, one in Portland and the other in Salem, destroying the only two largely populated areas. The fallout won't reach of the eastern deserts and the miles of untouched forests will be safe for the survival-prepared to restart lives anew.

Portland

The Portland strike occurs northeast of downtown Portland, detonating over the Portland International Airport. Aside from its function as a major regional air transit hub (as well as the headquarters of the 142nd Squadron of the Oregon Air National Guard), the Portland International Airport is situated almost equidistant between the only two interstate crossings over the Columbia River in western Oregon. The blast completely destroys both the I-5 and I-205 bridges over the Columbia river, effectively severing the only major crossings linking Washington to Oregon and California, as well as effectively erasing the small city of Astoria from existance. Although other bridges across the Columbia exist in the region, including the I-82 crossing in Umatilla, Oregon (approx. 175 miles east of Portland), they are located in isolated, rural areas and are unsuited for substantial freight traffic such as disaster relief supplies, military equipment, and the mass migration of survivors.

The Portland strike also destroys a substantial portion of the Linnton Terminal energy storage hub and the surrounding tank fields and pipelines. The hub, located in the northwest of the city along the western bank of the Willamette River, contains approximately 90% of the gasoline and diesel fuel supply for the entire state of Oregon at any given time, as well as substantial amounts of natural gas and anhydrous ammonia. The destruction of the facility causes immediate and severe fuel shortages across the entire state as 90% of the gasoline and diesel supply goes up in flames. The burning tank fields, fed by severed natural gas pipelines, results in an uncontrollable and long-lived conflagration on top of the thermal pulse-induced firestorm from the strike. The conflagration ignites the adjoining forested areas immediately west of the tank farms. The flames also quickly spread southward, incinerating northwest Portland and several city landmarks (including the Pittock Mansion and the Japanese Gardens) before converging downtown and reducing the city core and its inhabitants to ash. The west side conflagration rages for days, fed at first by broken natural gas lines and then by the dense urban forests, before finally being snuffed out by rainfall.

The majority of survivors from the Portland strike are situated in the southern and western suburbs. The inhabitants on the eastern bank of the Willamette aren't so lucky, as the relatively flat terrain allows the blast wave to readily propagate southward, flattening the well-populated northeast, east, and southeast sections of the city. Buildings constructed in the 1950s and 1960s, many built from unreinforced masonry, collapse wholesale, and numerous long-lived fires erupt from severed gas mains. Those in the western suburbs of Beaverton and Hillsboro are shielded from the worst of the blast wave and thermal pulse by the Tualatin Mountains which divide downtown and northwest Portland from the western suburbs. However their respite is short lived, as the west side conflagration quickly makes its way from northwest Portland over the heavily forested mountains and into the western suburbs, killing those who are unable or unwilling to flee.

The survivors of the Portland strike generally flee their shattered city according to their geographic location. Those in the western suburbs flee west towards the coast and Astoria, while those in the southern suburbs - able by nightfall to see the glow from the burning ruins of Salem to the south - move eastward into rural Clackamas county and towards the relatively unscathed slopes of Mt. Hood. Those brave and hardy enough to make the perilous journey are able to move further east through the mountain passes of the Cascades and into the untouched high deserts of eastern Oregon.

With More Zombies

Many small towns will be drowned in waves of radioactive, mutant zombies, humans who's brains have partially died and who's bodies are covered in sores and tumors (they migrated from other surrounding states, but mostly Portland). Other towns fortify like crazy and set up farms, and life goes on like normal. Expatriates from Portland bring engineers and scientists to Newport, Roseberg, Florence, Bend, and Cannon Beach, creating ramshackle havens for the wanderers of the desert wasteland.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that Mad Max 5 plays out all over Oregon's eastern desert? Except with cows this time.