John Hancock Building, Chicago

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City: Chicago, IL
Neighborhood: The Loop
Building or Defensible Location: John Hancock Tower

Attributes:Though this would seem like an unlikely location, this 100-story, glass and steel skyscraper on Michigan Avenue in the heart of Chicago has many attributes that make it an excellent defensible location. The tower is the second tallest in the nation and roughly divided up into retail on the first few floors, then large number of floors devoted to offices and business, another large number of floors for private residences near the top and then an observation deck and restaurant near the very top.
My plan would be to seal off the first second of floors near the ground level so the zombies couldn't get in and reside only in the upper third of the building. Access to the upper floors can only be done in two ways: the elevators and the stairwells, and their aren't that many of them. Additionally, the elevators and stairwells already have lock-out features built into them that allow you only to go down and exit the building but not to go up. Controlling the elevators and blocking access would weld steel plates over the windows on the first few floors, just as added protection.


Pros:
- The building contains many sources of food as there are many restaurants and even grocery stores inside the building.
- The building is equipped with generators, has an extensive maintenance facility, i.e. lots of tools for creating barricades, etc.
- Other sundry goods are available through the multitude of convenience stores.
- There is subway access to the rest of the city through the basement floors... while this poses a problem in as far as this is another area that must be secured, it could be a valuable escape route if all goes to hell
- There's an 80-mile visibility radius from the sky-deck so you can see whatever is coming at you.
- The sheer size of the building means it can hold a lot of survivors and will have a lot of space for dealing with the build up of trash.
- The residential part of the building is near the top and fairly luxurious... if you have to live as a refugee, you might as well do it in a luxury apartment.
- There's a cheesecake factory in the building, and high-stress times call for lots of cheesecake.
- The very top of the building has changeable colored lights visible from many many miles away...good for sending signals to other survivors.
- The building is so tall that even if you lost control of lower floors you could add levels of protection by sealing up every few floors.
- There's huge antenna's on top of the building... those must be good for something...sending and receiving transmissions from other survivors?
- There's great shopping in that part of the city so when the emergency's all over you can go out and celebrate by shopping on the magnificent mile.
- Really the building's entirely too tall for anyone or any thing to scale it either on the outside or up through an elevator shaft.
- There are a few clothing stores and spas in the building. Just because the country is being invaded by zombies doesn't mean you can't look good feel good.
- With such nice amenities I don't think you'd have to worry too much about things degenerating into a "Lord of the Flies" type situation. I think it could remain pretty civilized.
- There are many security camera's throughout the building so people assigned to security detail could use them as long as we had power.


Cons:
- You'd really have to make sure you had control of the elevators or just disable them entirely...although it would be really annoying to only have the stairwells to get in between floors. I believe there might be "local elevators" that only travel up and down through the residential part near the top.
- Again you'd have to be sure that subway entrance in the bottom was sealed up nice and tight.
- If you lost electricity and then eventually the generators, I think the temperature inside would be pretty hard to regulate seeing that Chicago has temperatures well below freezing in the winter and well above 100 in the summer.
- Water could pose a problem. Even though Lake Michigan is only blocks away it would be risky to send a group there to get water. We'd probably have to start collecting water though the taps while we had access to it.


In the case of an outbreak, will you be allowing other survivors to join you here?
Sure, plenty of room. I'd have to approve who gets to come up but basically friends and family and whoever could get there. We could probably get a little community going. I'm the leader though... just so everyone recognizes that.





whtwlf
whtwlf
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whtwlf Suggestions 0 Apr 13 2008, 2:35 PM EDT by whtwlf
whtwlf
Thread started: Apr 13 2008, 2:35 PM EDT  Watch
1. You seem to have a plan for the immediate future, if not for the months following the outbreak. Something you should look at however, is long term. What happens when the grocery store is empty and you run out of supplies to make cheese cakes? Also not that the perishables in the grocery store should be eaten first.
2. Have you though about any escape plans? As you pointed out, you might end up with a water shortage problem. If you keep the lower floors secure, the subway entrance might be useful. A party could check to see the level of infestation underground and if its less then the amount of zombies surrounding the building the subways can be used to transport food and water.
3. How will you screen the people coming into the building? Will you have them strip and searched for bites, you need to have an area set aside for it and personnel willing to screen them properly. The last thing you need is someone slipping through the screening process. Another alternative, if they are Solanum zombies, is to have dogs in cages at the entrance. They can smell the infection and will start barking wildly.
4. What will you do if someone being screened for entry has been bitten and is infected? My suggestion would be taking them to a predetermined location and giving them the option to leave or be shot.
5. I recommend finding two or more psychologists for your group. The last thing you need is people snapping, or worse, your psychologist snapping from treating people.
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Anonymous Problems 1 Jun 19 2007, 2:27 PM EDT by Anonymous
Thread started: Jun 14 2007, 8:06 AM EDT  Watch
There are a number of problems with your scenario.

1) As you pointed out, lots of people already live in the Hancock building, and I doubt any of them would take you as leader. Try telling Oprah that you're calling the shots now, and she'll just have her minions throw you to the zombies.

2) Going along with #1, the building would probably be compromised, security-wise, from the get go. There would be zombies all over the place.

3) Power plants would go down in a number of days without anyone manning them in a Zombie Crisis. There would be no electricity for the luxeries.

4) Hancock is a very prominant building- it would attract LOTS of zombies.

If I were you, I'd learn how to sail a sailboat. Your best bet in Chicago would be to try to sail north- probably to an Island near (but not too near) to the Michigan Upper Peninsula.
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