Page 4 RAIN October 1981 APOCALYPSE HEN? The Survivalists in,Southern Oregon © By Mark Roseland In the southwest corner of Utah a 240-unit underground condominium development is nearing completion. It is equipped with all kinds of provisions for surviving nuclear fallout contamination, including a year's supply of food in each unit. The units sell for up to $80,000. Outside of Portland, Oregon an architect is designing homes which feature expensive, integrated energy systems, multi-fuel appliances, fallout shelters, food and fuel storage tanks, vandal-resistant roll-down shutters, and doors that lock automatically. The homes sell for about $250,000-and business is booming. What's a Survivalist? I grew up in New England, where winter can sometimes be severe. I can remember·blizzards that not only decommissioned roads, but literally snowed in our one-story house, forcing the family to remain inside for days at a time. For years my parents have kept an extra supply of canned and frozen foods, grains, and other essentials in the basement. They think nothing of it-it's just part of living in New England, and thousands of people do it. You're not apt to read abou·t people like my parents as survivalists-there are far more colorful fol~s to read about. But it's worth noting that while Survivalists with a capital "S" may be relatively few, their small "s" counterparts are many. Grants Pass, Oregon is apparently a hotbed of Survivalist activity. Several articles and television reports indic;ate the area is full of crazies hoarding food and guns, hiding up in the hills in armed bunkers ready to shoot at the first question. Grants Pass is only a couple tanks of gas from Portland, so of course I had to go look for myself. Except for an imaginary broken line, southern Oregon might as well be part of California. The green Cascade foothills are dotted with ponderosa pine, scrub oak and madrone. In Josephine County summer is dry, the roads dusty, and land not irrigated by river water or wellsprings is positively parched. ' Interstate 5, running North-South, is the only major road going up and down the numerous mountain passes. Nestled within these peaceful hills is Grants Pass, population 17,000, the major town in the valley. Sixth Street, the one-way main strip, has some fast food joints and used car lots, but for the most part is wall-to-wall.real estate companies. The Rogue River cuts through town, providing tremendous beauty and significant revenue. Tourism, especially in the form of white-river rafting, is big money here. So is marijuana. Arched over Sixth Street in white neon is the proclamation: "It's the Climate!" Indeed, the climate accounts for both the tourism and the pot, and contributes to the creation of a Survivalist mecca. So does the fact (see map) that this area would be one of the safest places in the U.S. in the event of a nuclear attack. It's also more than a tankful of gas from either Portland or San Francisco, the nearest major population centers. For these reasons the late Mel Tappan, author of Survival Guns (considered by some to be the Bible of the Survivalist movement), chose tC? live in this valley. Without exception ·the Survivalists I talked to want one thing: to mind their own business and for you to mind yours. Survivalist paranoia, at least around Grants Pass, is readily understandable. For quite some time the area has been under siege by headline-happy reporters who have sensationalized the county almost beyond recognition. CBS, The New York Times, Assoc.iated Press and dozens of other national and local media have all been here, ostensibly to give you a survivalist profile. For the most part they have portrayed a "hard-core" Survivalist, a doomsaying warmongering hoarder who is a fisql hypochondriac and probably a gun nut, someone who sacrifices vacations-to buy antiquated 1962 cans of dehydrated civil defense biscuits, converts paper money into silver, and moves to the country long before it is time to retire. There are Survivalists here who fit this description, but most of them have at least as good a common-sense to lunacy ratio as the .rest of the population. The "hard-cores," according to one of the "soft-cores" I interviewed, are "just a handful of guys who like to keep track of everything going on in town, who's moving in and out. They're sort of the Ku Klux Klan of Grants Pass." Portrait of a Survivalist Survivalists are a private sort. Most don't like to be identified as Survivalists, as they don't want people to know about their stockpiles of food and supplies. In particular, you don't hear much about the "soft-cores," mostly because they aren't headline material.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz