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A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

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Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#81

Post by haroldp »

ars wrote: post #72
haroldp wrote: post #28

W00h! I grew up in Whittier, AK. Ask me Anything! Haha, seriously, I moved to Whittier at the age of 2 in 1974 and lived there until 1986. The big change there since I left has been the tunnel. When I was there you had to drive your car up onto a railroad flatcar (and pay a steep ticket price) to get out. Anchorage is only 55 miles away, but really it's two mountains away. The railroad sold passenger service only as…

How does property ownership work? Do people rent or own? Do they pay condo fees?

Yes. Some rent, some own their condo, and all pay condo fees one way or another.

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#82

Post by haroldp »

yitchelle wrote: post #76
grecy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and stay inside Huh? Why would you stay inside when you live in such a beautiful place? I live in the Yukon - it's -37C today and it's absolutely beautiful outside. I rode to work today, and just did a 1 hour round trip walk to the library to drop off some books. I'll go for a ~2 hour snow shoe tonight in the dark with my headlamp. I saw the Northern Lights last night, so I'll take my camera tonight. Winter is actu…

Just for my curiosity, how often are the winter weather good enough for you to venture outside?

All the time (if you like horizontal rain).

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#83

Post by gnarbarian »

haroldp wrote: post #71
grecy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and stay inside Huh? Why would you stay inside when you live in such a beautiful place? I live in the Yukon - it's -37C today and it's absolutely beautiful outside. I rode to work today, and just did a 1 hour round trip walk to the library to drop off some books. I'll go for a ~2 hour snow shoe tonight in the dark with my headlamp. I saw the Northern Lights last night, so I'll take my camera tonight. Winter is actu…

Today is a beautiful day in Whittier: http://whittierak.yukontel.com/ But most of the time it is snowing or raining. And it usually doesn't rain down. With the wind, it rains straight in your face.

That's why we have the saying "it's Shittier in Whittier"

It's almost always raining there.

We keep our boat there in the summer and go fishing in Prince William Sound most weekends during the summer.

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#84

Post by pcthrowaway »

haroldp wrote: post #67
kendallpark wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's it like having an entire town in one building? Crime? Illness? Religious events? Births? Deaths?

It seemed to have about the same crime as anywhere. I could easily imagine a drug epidemic really getting out of hand there, though I never saw that happen. When I was there, some Alaskan religious group would rotate some "nondenominational" preacher through for a year or three and serve up basic Sunday School type Christianity out of an ugly room in the big building pictured. There seemed to be a high-ish suicide ra…

Were there people moving in to replace the deceased? Is the building shown in the article at maximum capacity? And finally, I'm extremely curious about the criminal justice system. The brief article mentions a Sheriff and I assume there may or may not be a deputy also. It also mentions a pot bust. What happens to people arrested? Are they detained until they can be transported to a nearby town with a court system, or do the police just hold them for what they deem to be an appropriate amount of time or until the cell is needed to house the next arrest? I imagine since everyone knows everyone, the police would know anyone they arrest (and their family) quite well.

Sorry for the barrage of questions, but I found these points very interesting.

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#85

Post by pcthrowaway »

kayge wrote: post #41

I live in Alaska and have visited Whittier multiple times. Every time we go, my wife and I comment about how great of a setting it would be for a zombie apocalypse movie. "Oh it's only accessible by water or the main tunnel, it's easy to secure" "oops we forgot about securing the old train tunnel" "oh no they're in the apartment building, let's go hide out in the creepy old abandoned building down the street" ... cle…

It would be a great place to hold out with a large group if you had a way to obtain and import supplies and you cleared the building first. You'd probably be able to spot anyone coming or going (living or undead), and it would be likely that very few zombies would be in the surrounding land.

Also, of course zombie fiction requires a major suspension of disbelief in this regard, but the damp/cold weather would cause the zombie bodies to freeze (at below zero) or decay faster (at above zero, though I suspect it is rarely if ever above zero)

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#86

Post by jnellis »

haroldp wrote: post #28

W00h! I grew up in Whittier, AK. Ask me Anything! Haha, seriously, I moved to Whittier at the age of 2 in 1974 and lived there until 1986. The big change there since I left has been the tunnel. When I was there you had to drive your car up onto a railroad flatcar (and pay a steep ticket price) to get out. Anchorage is only 55 miles away, but really it's two mountains away. The railroad sold passenger service only as…

I was in Whittier in 1991, two years after the oil spill. I'll say that even then there was other housing and not everyone lived in the one building. You can easily see housing dotted around the area and the building sits back a bit from the water. The pictures in this article shows a remodeled building but when I was there it was in some disrepair. And as fishermen from around the prince william sound used to say, "There's no place shittier than Whittier.'

I was told the main reason Whittier exists is because it's the only port deep enough to dock warships. I was fishing out of Cordova which you can only get to by plane or boat but if you wanted to go to anchorage, you could take a small car ferry to Whittier.

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#87

Post by haroldp »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #84
haroldp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seemed to have about the same crime as anywhere. I could easily imagine a drug epidemic really getting out of hand there, though I never saw that happen. When I was there, some Alaskan religious group would rotate some "nondenominational" preacher through for a year or three and serve up basic Sunday School type Christianity out of an ugly room in the big building pictured. There seemed to be a high-ish suicide ra…

Were there people moving in to replace the deceased? Is the building shown in the article at maximum capacity? And finally, I'm extremely curious about the criminal justice system. The brief article mentions a Sheriff and I assume there may or may not be a deputy also. It also mentions a pot bust. What happens to people arrested? Are they detained until they can be transported to a nearby town with a court system, or…

> Were there people moving in to replace the deceased?

The population has varied considerably over the years. It looks like it's somewhat lower than when I lived there. In a lot of ways, Whittier is not a nice place to live, so people where always moving away, but it had certain appeals that always drew new people in as well.

> The brief article mentions a Sheriff and I assume there may or may not be a deputy also. It also mentions a pot bust. What happens to people arreste?

This is a bit of a change from when I lived there. Back then, there was a separate building that housed the police department (not sheriffs), the fire department and a court room. A judge would come through once a month or so. That building is gone from Google Maps now though, so it must have burned down or collapsed under a heavy snow load or something (that happens). Any serious crimes would be sent off to Anchorage. I would imagine that is how it still works.

> I imagine since everyone knows everyone, the police would know anyone they arrest (and their family) quite well.

Probably? We all pretty much knew who was an alcoholic, or who beat their wife. There seemed to be plenty of petty theft and vandalism to go around. I still wanna know who stole my Big Wheel!

Re: A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building

#90

Post by danans »

pluma wrote: post #62
NinjaTime wrote: post #32

Hell most jails in the U.S dwarf this complex. Dear lord I hope an EMP never hits any of those towns. Sure hope the gov hasn't taken away the ability to protect yourself.

I think Alaskans would be able to defend themselves just fine. As far as I know they ride bears to work and eat raw fish. My sources may not be perfectly accurate all the time, though.

They'd be even more formidable if they rode fish to work and ate raw bears.
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