I live in Seattle suburbs. I have lived all around King and Sno. countys for 11 years. I left high crime Wash.-Baltimore area and sought out the best place to live in Wa. or Oregon. I would say anyone who is fed up with crime in the big citys of the east will like Wa. state. I was mugged twice in Maryland , and burgeled once. Seattle and Tacoma have street crime ,but much less than D.C. Small towns in eastern Wa. have little violent crime at all.If i had a choice,jobwise ,I would live in Spokane area. good luck to all. Scott
My wife and I visited the Port Angeles area late July and Early August and liked it very much, but wh wonder what the weather is like outside of May thru August. What do you think?
Port Angeles is in a beautiful area with easy access to Canada via ferry. I was a commercial salmon fisherman out of the city during the summers in the mid-80's. A really good place to own any kind of boat.
The weather is the typical NorthWest weather, it's incredibly nice in the summer when the sun shines, but incredibly wet, drab, and dreary during long cloudy and rainy periods. There are fantastic state parks and woods within easy reach of the city, lots of secluded places, thats for sure.
Port Angeles also receives the full force brunt of westerly storms coming out of the Pacific. The rains and winds at times can be terrifying and hurricane-like to the novice. Power goes out frequently when it snows or storms.
I dont recall much happening in the town itself. Seemed at the time a sort of sleepy and depressed place, relies heavily on the tourist ferry boats, it can get rough at night downtown, especially after the loggers get paid.
There are lots of low-grade crime in the city proper like burglary, auto-theft etc., check out the crime-stats with the locals before committing.
If you set up shop in this area, get away from the city proper and get a nice lot way, way back in the woods with a very long drive way.
By now, real estate in the area must be high as a kite.
Personally, I wouldnt prefer to live there. Consistently productive gardening can be tough, especially in the wetter and cloudier years but the fishing is usually great.
The generally westerly winds are good, but with all the military bases scattered all over the entire Western part of the State, the fallout and upheaval will likely be incredible and I wouldnt depend on mother nature to keep it out of your hair.
Political climate wise, I couldnt really comment, but I suspect it is rather liberal as so many people have moved into the area since the 80's.
If I had to choose somewhere in the Northwest, I would take eastern Oregon or southern central Oregon. It's far far less crowded and vastly cheaper in most respects and seems to be fairly rated by Joels book - Strategic Relocation.
PORT ANGELES
I am there right now, and have been for the past 8 years. Winters are not bad down near sea level or under 1000 feet. Rain is not heavy, but it is persistant between Nov and March.
You will appreciate PA's mild winter when you read it is 50 below in Chicago or Sioux Falls. Wind is mild, and i never saw anything over 60mph. It is still somewhat sheltered here inside the Straights of Juan de Fuca. Most of the high wind will channel up the straight and not hit PA directly.
Anyhow the prevailing wind is very persistent from the w-sw, such that the Olympic mountains block much of the rain which is around 35 inches a year.
As to nuclear war, PA would not be that good, because just 30-40 air miles away are major Military installations.
I suggest you carve out a place in the rainforest near Forks, about 35-40 miles further west. At least there, the prevailing winds would keep the air fresh, and the 6000-7000 ft Olympic mountains
would absorb any nuke-blast in the Submarine bases near Bremerten. You would be 70 air miles or more from the central blast epicenters.
My best opinion of PA is that it is an easy city to get along in. Just use it as a great base to stock up on goods. We have Walmart and Costco and plenty of discounted items to buy around here.
Forks is your best bet. You get lots more rain and wind, but that all keeps the radiation away then don't it. Provided Russia does not saturation bomb this area with MIRV's, to get any subs coming and going from port, this area might survive.
I'd hate to be in western washington after the winds pick up all that dust and radiation and sends it directly eastward. You might just fare alot healthier hugging the west coast near Forks or Ocean Shores and Aberdeen.
Anywhere east of the Pacific Ocean is going to have those strong prevailing winds and the problem of breathing heavily irradiated dust clouds after a massive blast.
If you want to pick a better west coast place, i would the Queen Charlotte Islands up in BC, or up one of them long fiords.
There aint no military targets up there, and the entire region is nothing but bare-••• wilderness.
Yet the climate is less severe than the Alaska Panhandle since you are further south.
These deep western BC Canada fiords are probably the most survivable areas in north america because they are upwind and deep in the mountains and almost zero value as a target for nukes.
The water is hyper abundant and upwind-fresh. The food in the sea and land is also hyper abundant. Some of the Queen Charlottes clam beaches have the highest density of protien on the planet.
PA could be an excellent place to live and own a large sailboat that could take you back and forth into your hiding places in BC. That to me, sounds like the only plan that will work best, unless you build a fallout shelter and stay withen 30 seconds of it at all times, which is the time it takes a Russian sub-launched MIRV'ed nuke to hit the mainland.
My guess is they will plaster this entire area withen a 100 mile radius of Bremerton with Mirvs.
There interest will be in killing as many submarines as possible.
For that reason, it could be much safer to locate yourself further down towards Oregon or up into northern vancouver island neasr Port Hardy.
In fact, Port Hardy or Cambell River would be great for a base to shuttle into the fiordlands of BC.