History Main / ApocalypticLogistics

Sometimes, the work will even ignore the rusted out part, and pre-apocalypse goods will look no worse for wear than they were before [[WorldWar3 the bombs fell]] and [[ZombieApocalypse the dead rose from their graves]]. Simply [[BreakOutTheMuseumPiece digging them out]] might even [[ArchaeologicalArmsRace be the key to victory]]. This can be even more jarring if the work is set ''generations'' after the fall, and the world is still at rock-bottom, yet finding [[RagnarokProofing functional pre-apocalypse goods]] isn't too much of a hassle, and/or making post-apocalypse equivalents still isn't that difficult, nor are they that worse off compared to the former.

In many cases, this trope is an AcceptableBreakFromReality, as the inclusion of segments purely dedicated to resource gathering and by-hand production of parts and materials would considerably slow the pacing of the story, unless the main focus of the work is to look at the hardships people in the aftermath face in getting and making modern necessities. Can be {{Handwaved}} by having it happen off-screen, or allowing the characters access to an untouched remnant of civilization (e.g. a huge underground bunker filled with equipment, spare parts and gear). Can be justified in the early years of ThePlague stories, in which enough of the population is still left to keep the infrastructure intact, along with any supplies left in the cities to scavenge. Of course, production of ''new'' resources would be another matter.

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* Subverted massively in ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead''. Whilst it has only been a relatively short time since the collapse of society, meaning that most resources are still good to scavenge, the importance of securing supplies is constantly on the minds of the protagonists. Later, the fact that the protagonists have someone on their side intelligent enough to figure out how to restart production of things like bullets and bread is treated as the massive advantage it actually would be, and they dedicate a lot of manpower to getting these production lines running.
** [[spoiler:By the DistantFinale two decades after the end of the regular series, the survivor enclaves across the former United States have managed to re-establish contact with each other from coast to coast and a loosely united government again. They're also on the verge of re-establishing a transcontinental railroad again - using ''steam'' power. Civilization wasn't quite "knocked back to the stone age", but after twenty years they've only just managed to get back up to 19th century levels of technology and infrastructure.]]
* The second book of ''ComicBook/{{Axa}}'' scripted by Creator/DonneAvenell and drawn by Creator/EnriqueRomero has some cities under domes doing unusually well. However, the outside world is largely a DeathWorld full of shambling mutants and KillerRabbit[=s=]. What's left of Las Vegas fits this trope, in that while it has lost its neon glare, the gaming continues unabated. In fact, gladiator games were added so that desperate losers could score a sizable jackpot, provided they survive all the other losers.
* In ''DC Comics Presents'' #57, Franchise/{{Superman}} cites this as a reason to be suspicious of the post-apocalyptic world of the Atomic Knights, which he has seemingly been transported to. The original Atomic Knights stories zigzagged this, with some stories being more plausible about infrastructure collapse than others.

[[folder: Film ]]

** ''Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior'' and ''Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome'': The whole premise behind the films is the collapse of civilization brought on by PostPeakOil, yet one character flies a plane, and some other characters are seen driving cars (that are not powered by methane). However, more care is taken to avoid this trope than many later imitations:

* In ''Film/LandOfTheDead'', luxury commodities desired by the tower's upper classes are still available, and even still marketable, despite the complete breakdown of all means of production. High-end alcohol and jewelry still fetch a higher price than canned food, even though they're scrounged in exactly the same way and the former aren't necessary for survival.
* ''Film/{{Zombieland}}''

* Deconstructed for laughs in ''Film/{{Delicatessen}}'', a BlackComedy in which inhabitants of a bizarre multi-floor house have almost everything they need except food, so they become cannibals hiring and eating their janitors.
* Part of the premise of ''Film/TheLastChase'' is that the world's oil supply has been dried up for years, but the main character is somehow able to find enough fuel to drive a homemade ''race car'' across the continental US. The highways are also in really good condition considering nobody's had the resources or the need to patch up any damage done by time or the elements since the oil wells dried up either.

[[folder: Literature ]]

* Averting this trope is the raison d'être of the ''Literature/DiesTheFire'' series, which starts with the premise that a tiny change to the laws of physics (combustion happens slightly more slowly, enough that gunpowder, internal combustion engines, and electronics don't work) causes civilization to collapse. Without industrialized farming or an efficient way to transport food from farms to population centers, a lot of people get ''very'' hungry ''very'' quickly.
* Averted in ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', when one interviewee begins by lecturing the interviewer on what it takes to make a ''can of root beer'', when even local all-natural resources like grass-fed cattle are too inefficient to maintain in the face of the ZombieApocalypse. [[spoiler:At the very end of the book, [[BookEnds that same man is holding a barbecue, serving grass-fed steaks and root beer]], to demonstrate that a decade after the end of the zombie war civilization is slowly recovering to pre-war levels.]]

[[folder: Live-Action TV ]]

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead''. While supply runs are a major facet of the show, well-maintained cars (pretty enough to serve as ProductPlacement) are driven around without any mention of fuel, or any show of characters getting it. While there are ample abandoned vehicles scattered about that probably have fuel, the show is now over a year into the apocalypse in an area with plenty of other people, making it questionable that gas would be that easy to get a hold of. Ammo is mentioned to be scarce, but firefights in the show don't seem to depict this, and conservation of gunfire is mostly motivated by [[SoMuchForStealth not wanting to alert the walkers.]] The main characters avoid major cities on the pretense that they are infested with the dead, however this is a HandWave to keep them scavenging for supplies.
** Later seasons feature time skips to catch up with the passage of real time for the actors, so that by the final season over a decade has passed since the initial outbreak. These later post-skip seasons actually start directly addressing these kinds of logistics problems: all canned food went bad years ago so they have to farm their own, gasoline has gone bad rendering cars useless (so they switch to horses), and gun ammunition is in short supply so they have to work out how to use reloading tools to make their own bullets.

* ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}''. Crops up a few times. In an early episode, the characters briefly talk about how 'farming' is starting up again 'down south'. Not mechanized and industrial farming surely. Nor would such farms be of any use to Jeremiah or his friends as there is no transportation system, or systems of any kind period to transport food in any event. In the second season, Jeremiah meets a man whose life ambition is to be a 'baker'. Needless to say, any bakeries he came across equipment would all be electrically powered (no grid,) rusted, and seized, and it's never discussed where the wheat (flour,) yeast, clean water, sugar, salt, etc. would come from to supply his would-be bakery. Even worse, there is no formal 'economy' of any kind, besides barter and salvage, in the town he lives in--no money and everyone is still more or less permanently hungry. If he did manage to overcome the (many) logistical hurdles, his fellow townspeople would likely simply rob him of all his food and not feel bad about it later. The second season did mention the revival of regional trade routes, as well as law and order on the community level.
* As in Literature above, this is addressed in the 1980s ''Series/{{The Day of the Triffids|1981}}'' TV series. Jack Coker, having quarreled with the people running the Tinsham group and left, decides to return there and try again.
-->'''Coker:''' We must be part of a community to have any hope for the future at all. For the moment we've got all we need--food, supplies, everything. But the food will go bad, the metal will rust, the petrol to drive the machines will run out! Before that happens, we have to learn to plow...and learn to make plows, and ''learn'' to smelt the iron to make the plowshares. We must learn to make good ''all'' that we wear out--if not...we say goodbye to civilisation and we slide right back into savagery. All the knowledge is there, in books, if only we take the time to learn it. Time, you see, Time. We must be part of a community that's large enough for some people to be free from productive work to have time: to study, and experiment, and teach the kids, to prepare for the day when what we have is gone.
* ''Series/{{Survivors}}'', which was influenced by the source material for the above, made averting this a major running theme.
* The title of ''Film/{{Threads}}'' is a reference to this -- in the aftermath of the nuclear attack, [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} British]] society goes to hell because the "threads" that hold society together have been cut. All industry collapses, farming becomes impossible, medicine is reduced to crude and horrific levels, diseases spread due to a lack of sanitation and proper burial of the dead and even language starts to break down.

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''VideoGame/JustCause2'': Hantu Island is a forsaken military base manned by (supposedly) 100-year old Japanese soldiers who still think [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII WWII]] is going on. They have access to modern vehicles and weapons and seem to have all the fuel, food, and electricity they need despite being isolated for decades on an island with little natural resources.
* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWarsDaysOfRuin'' states that most of the human population was killed off in the Apocalypse, and the earth itself is mostly just a barren wasteland full of destruction and desolation. However, there's still plenty of machine tool factories and workers who know how to build tanks and artillery, and train infantry for battle. Granted, the story takes place in two former military superpowers who had just spent decades at war with each other, and it has been directly stated that the factories are partly automated.
* ''VideoGame/Metro2033'' and ''VideoGame/MetroLastLight''. While pre-war ammo is now a currency, and weapons are largely cobbled together from spare parts, in both games there are enough resources to cobble together fully functional train cars that are ''self-propelled''. Though most trains are also shown to be handcars, while the few self-propelled ones belong to one of the three major factions in the Metro. In one level the Rangers ride on a train that is explicitly shown to be fueled by wood. While the fuel could be justified in being methane from pigs, or vodka from mushrooms no remarks are given as to how it would be refined and put to use in vehicles. Weapon mods are also readily available and used quite a bit by {{mooks}} in ''Last Light'', although since the game takes places in and around military installations after the Third World War, could be justified as coming from military stock.

* ''VideoGame/MadMax'': Sadly, the trope is played straight. At first, you're scrounging up scrap and shotgun ammo in the single-digits, while food and water (health stations and health potions) are mere scraps. But if you manage to save and upgrade the few gang bases that still exist, they'll repay you with an unlimited supply of resources (which kinds depends on your upgrade progress). In any case, gasoline isn't even close to a problem because Scabrous Scrotus and his merry horde control the gasoline sector and major refinery of Immortan Joe's empire (their capital city ''is'' Gas Town).

Also keep in mind that gasoline does not sit long. If it were ideally stored with periodic stirring and temperature control; it could last several years. Otherwise gasoline is unusable after 6-12 months. Postapocalyptic conditions are not ideal.

In many cases, this trope is an AcceptableBreakFromReality, as the inclusion of segments purely dedicated to resource gathering and by-hand production of parts and materials would considerably slow the pacing of the story, unless the main focus of the work is to look at the hardships people in the aftermath face in getting modern necessities. Can be {{Handwaved}} by having it happen off-screen, or allowing the characters access to an untouched remnant of civilization (e.g. an underground bunker filled with equipment, spare parts and gear). Can be justified in the early years of ThePlague stories, in which enough of the population is still left to keep the infrastructure intact, along with any supplies left in the cities to scavenge. Of course, production of ''new'' resources would be another matter.

However, AfterTheEnd, the loss of the infrastructure that allows for all of this seems to be only an inconvenience for the characters, rather than the huge game changer it would be. While vehicles, weapons, and other goods tend to be [[UsedFuture rusted out]] and made [[ScavengerWorld from all sorts of scrap]], they are only marginally less effective than their pre-apocalypse counter-parts, and finding the resources to maintain them is only a mild inconvenience at worst, or not even a thought at best. Some post-apocalyptic works depict people driving around and using guns with little or no references to challenges getting gasoline, parts, and ammo.

In many cases, this trope is an AcceptableBreakFromReality, as the inclusion of segments purely dedicated to resource gathering and production would considerably slow the pacing of the story, unless the main focus of the work is to look at the hardships people in the aftermath face in getting modern necessities. Can be {{Handwaved}} by having it happen off-screen, or allowing the characters access to an untouched remnant of civilization. Can be justified in the early years of ThePlague stories, in which enough of the population is still left to keep the infrastructure intact, along with any supplies therein. Of course, production of new resources would be another matter.

In RealLife, a lot is needed to produce, distribute, and maintain much of what we take for granted. Cars need someone to mine and process the materials for the parts, someone to pump the oil, and so on. Guns need someone to produce the weapon materials, ammo, and someone to put it together. Refined foods need a large base in order to be accessible to a large number of people. Without traffic or maintenance, rail lines get overgrown by vegetation or washed out. Even an object simple as a wooden ''pencil'' needs all sorts of industry and resources to bring it together. (Someone has to get the wood, someone has to mine or manufacture the graphite, someone has to get the rubber for the eraser, etc.) And of course for all of these, someone needs to ship the finished product from one end of the world to another.

However, AfterTheEnd, the loss of the infrastructure that allows for all of this seems to be only an inconvenience for the characters, rather than the huge game changer it would be. While vehicles, weapons, and other goods tend to be [[UsedFuture rusted out]] and made [[ScavengerWorld from all sorts of scrap]], they are only marginally less effective than their pre-apocalypse counter-parts, and finding the resources to maintain them is only a mild inconvenience at worst, or not even a thought at best. Sometimes, the work will even ignore the rusted out part, and pre-apocalypse goods will look no worse for wear than they were before [[WorldWar3 the bombs fell]] and [[ZombieApocalypse the dead rose from their graves]]. Simply [[BreakOutTheMuseumPiece digging them out]] might even [[ArchaeologicalArmsRace be the key to victory]]. This can be even more jarring if the work is set ''generations'' after the fall, and the world is still at rock-bottom, yet finding [[RagnarokProofing functional pre-apocalypse goods]] isn't too much of a hassle, and/or making post-apocalypse equivalents still isn't that difficult, nor are they that worse off compared to the former.

* In ''VideoGame/JustCause2'', Hantu Island is a forsaken military base manned by (supposedly) 100-year old Japanese soldiers who still think [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII WWII]] is going on. They have access to modern vehicles and weapons and seem to have all the fuel, food, and electricity they need despite being isolated for decades on an island with little natural resources.
* ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars: Days of Ruin]]'' states that most of the human population was killed off in the Apocalypse, and the earth itself is mostly just a barren wasteland full of destruction and desolation. However, there's still plenty of machine tool factories and workers who know how to build tanks and artillery, and train infantry for battle. Granted, the story takes place in two former military superpowers who had just spent decades at war with each other, and it has been directly stated that the factories are partly automated.

* The post-apocalyptic setting of ''VideoGame/NexusClash'' still has food, fuel and ammo that can be scavenged after years of being looted by other player-character scavengers. Possibly justified since there are a few hundred to a few thousand at most player characters, scavenging goods from cities that according to the lore once housed millions. Some players roleplay out the scarcity of goods anyway.

* Averted in ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', when one interviewee begins by lecturing the interviewer on what it takes to make a ''can of root beer'', when even local all-natural resources like grass-fed cattle are too inefficient to maintain in the face of the ZombieApocalypse. [[spoiler:At the very end of the book, [[BookEnds that same man is holding a barbecue, serving grass-fed steaks and root beer]].]]

* Part of the premise of ''Film/TheLastChase'' is that the world's oil supply has been dried up for years, but the main character is somehow able to find enough fuel to drive a home made ''race car'' across the continental US. The highways are also in really good condition considering nobody's used them in years.

** [[spoiler"By the DistantFinale two decades after the end of the regular series, the survivor enclaves across the former United States have managed to re-establish contact with each other from coast to coast and a loosely united government again. They're also on the verge of re-establishing a transcontinental railroad again - using ''steam'' power. Civilization wasn't quite "knocked back to the stone age", but after twenty years they've only just managed to get back up to 19th century levels of technology and infrastructure.]]

** [[spoiler|By the DistantFinale two decades after the end of the regular series, the survivor enclaves across the former United States have managed to re-establish contact with each other from coast to coast and a loosely united government again. They're also on the verge of re-establishing a transcontinental railroad again - using ''steam'' power. Civilization wasn't quite "knocked back to the stone age", but after twenty years they've only just managed to get back up to 19th century levels of technology and infrastructure.]]

* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'' uses this a lot. When the Blackout stops electricity from working, civilization collapses and millions die. Fifteen years later, the Monroe Republic has serious logistical issues and can't even mass-produce bullets and has just managed to get a steam train working again. However, when electricity is brought back, various vehicles and even helicopters are quickly made operational even though their systems must have degraded a great deal during the intervening period and any replacement parts would be in similar condition. There is also enough gasoline and aviation fuel to operate them.

[[/folder]]

* Subverted by ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} After the End'', which includes rules for tainted food and water, treats canned goods and MREs as valuable treasure, and offers alternatives to gasoline (which has long since spoiled). Bullets are common, but only because shell casings can be reloaded (something that isn't actually difficult to do).

* ''TabletopGame/GURPSReignOfSteel'' is set in the aftermath of the RobotWar sixteen years ago, with humans reduced to DisasterScavengers. There are still urban scavengers in the ruins of cities that haven't been bulldozed yet, and nomads use scavenged vehicles (or captured robots) powered by methanol, which can be distilled from pretty much any available vegetable biomass. The real example, however, is the United Kingdom, which maintains a functioning modern society (if a bit downscaled from pre-War tech) despite having no international trade nor assistance from their local AI.
* The D20 version of ''TabletopGame/GammaWorld'' gives this topic a mention. Essentially, the New Empires era has built some new nation-states out of the ashes, several generations AfterTheEnd. However, it mentions that the planet's easily-accessible resources are exhausted, and the world either has to advance to a second nanotech-age civilization ''now'', or everything they've built will fall apart for good and humanity will be reduced to hunter-gatherer tribes forever after. The trope still applies, however, because the setting still allows humanity to rebuild a modern civilization from the ruins of one apocalypse.

** Averted in later seasons after the time jump of about seven years. Car bodies are used as wagons to be hauled by horses, and spears and bows and arrows have replaced guns.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* This would be zig-zagged. [[http://www.autoblog.com/2008/03/31/does-gas-go-bad/ Gasoline would go bad before the year is up]], yet canned food would still be edible for many years. However, after ten to fifteen years, this would be on a can-to-can basis depending on the state of ''each individual can''. Some will hold up well, others not - even cans coming from the same factory and same batch. Things made up of stainless steel, glass, and plastic would remain intact (perhaps even usable) for a long time as well. Depending on how long it has been after the end, and the population levels before and after, availability of resources might not be that bad at first. However, the ''production'' and ''transportation'' of these things would be an entirely different matter. So you can expect in a largely depopulated world from a non-physically-destructive apocalypse like a virus, there should be supplies for a small band of 100 survivors to eat comfortably and have necessary medications and vitamins for five years or so in an urban environment. Humans are social animals, so really the only people looting and pillaging actual settlements of people would be those pushed to desperation; very few would do it ForTheEvulz as fiction would have us believe.
* Logistics is 99% infrastructure: You can build a car or boat easily enough and if need be you can make do with horse carts and sailing vessels or burlak barges, but you ''cannot'' run them where there are no roads. Steel reinforced concrete starts falling apart sooner or later (and if the apocalyptic event was a war, bridges and tunnels would have been prime targets) and even rail lines that have kept with minimal maintenance since the 19th century will get taken over by vegetation with faults that aren't fixed getting worse and worse until they are impassable within a few years.

** Averted in later seasons after the time jump of about seven years. Car bodies are used as wagons to be hauled by horses, and spears and arrows have replaced guns.

** Discussed in ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' where the People Eater complains that Immortan Joe has wasted so many resources, especially fuel, on the pursuit that makes up the plot of the movie. Interestingly, the film still plays this trope straight, with the Citadel producing water, food and milk, an active refinery at Gas Town (and a large ''mobile refinery'' used in the pursuit) and a presumably active ammunition factory at the Bullet Farm.

-->'''Coker:''' We must be part of a community to have any hope for the future at all. For the moment we've got all we need--food, supplies, everything. But the food will go bad, the metal will rust, the petrol to drive the machines will run out! Before that happens, we have to learn to plow...and learn to make plows, and ''learn'' to smelt the iron to make the plowshares. We must learn to make good ''all'' that we wear out--if not...we say goodbye to civilisation and we slide right back into savagery. All the knowledge is there, in books, if only we take the time to learn it. Time, you see, Time. We must be part of a community that's large enough for some people to be free from productive work to have time: to study, and experiment, and teach the kids, to prepare for the day when what we have it gone.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'' uses this a lot. When the Blackout stops electricity from working civilization collapses and millions die. Fifteen years later, the Monroe Republic has serious logistical issues and can't even mass produce bullets and has just managed to get a steam train working again. However, when electricity is brought back, various vehicles and even helicopters are quickly made operational even though their systems must have degraded a great deal during the intervening period and any replacement parts would be in similar condition. There is also enough gasoline and aviation fuel to operate them.
* ''Series/TheWalkingDead''. While supply runs are a major facet of the show, well-maintained cars (pretty enough to serve as ProductPlacement) are driven around without any mention of fuel, or any show of characters getting it. While there are ample abandoned vehicles scattered about that probably have fuel, the show is now over a year into the apocalypse in an area with plenty of other people, making it questionable that gas would be that easy to get a hold of. Ammo is mentioned to be scarce, but firefights in the show don't seem to depict this, and conservation of gunfire is mostly motivated by [[SoMuchForStealth not wanting to alert the walkers]]. The main characters avoid major cities on the pretense that they are infested with the dead, however this is a HandWave to keep them scavenging for supplies.
* ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}''. Crops up a few times. In an early episode, the characters briefly talk about how 'farming' is starting up again 'down south.' Not mechanized and industrial farming surely. Nor would such farms be of any use to Jeremiah or his friends as there is no transportation system, or systems of any kind period to transport food in any event. In the second season, Jeremiah meets a man whose life ambition is to be a 'baker.' Needless to say, any bakeries he came across equipment would all be electrically powered (no grid,) rusted, and seized, and it's never discussed where the wheat (flour,) yeast, clean water, sugar, salt, etc. would come from to supply his would-be bakery. Even worse, there is no formal 'economy' of any kind, besides barter and salvage in the town he lives in-no money and everyone is still more or less permanently hungry. If he did manage to overcome the (many) logistical hurdles, his fellow townspeople would likely simply rob him of all his food and not feel bad about it later. The second season did mention the revival of regional trade routes, as well as law and order on the community level.

* ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'', depicts the breakdown of a dystopian near-future America and the struggles of clashing successor states based on differing political and cultural ideologies, and is more brutally honest than many such stories about how disastrous such a scenario would be for most of the population. It gets bad enough ''early'' on that one government has to not merely ration, but requisition ''all'' fuel oil and gas for military use. With the basic food supply itself precarious, even senior military figures make sure to have their own farms for private use.

* As in Literature above, this is addressed in the 1980s ''Series/{{The Day of the Triffids|1981}}'' TV series. Jack Coker realises that only communities will flourish, because they will have the people and resources to spare some for gathering knowledge and teaching it to others.
-->'''Coker:''' We must be part of a community to have any hope for the future at all. For the moment we've got all we need--food, supplies, everything. But the food will go bad, the metal will rust, the petrol to drive the machines will run out! Before that happens, we have to learn to plow...and learn to make plows, and ''learn'' to smelt the iron to make the plowshares. We must learn to make good ''all'' that we wear out--if not...we say goodbye to civilisation and we slide right back into savagery. All the knowledge is there, in books, if only we take the time to learn it. Time, you see, Time. We must be part of a community that's large enough for some people to be free from productive work to have time: to study, and experiment, and teach the kids, to prepare for the day when what we have it gone.

* As in Literature above, this is addressed in the 1980s ''Series/{{The Day of the Triffids|1981}}'' TV series. Coker says they've got to remember not only how to use and build things, but also how to find and shape the materials used to make them.

-->-- ''[[http://www.tomparisdorm.com/viewstory.php?sid=4084 Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space]]''

** The characters have no real problem getting cars. Food's surprisingly abundant (unless it's [[RunningGag twinkies]]) and even electricity's shown to be pretty easy to rig (at one point they're able to power up an entire theme park and at another they just chill for a bit watching [=HD-DVDs=] in Creator/BillMurray's luxury Hollywood mansion.) Possibly justified in that the survivors we follow are well established as being CrazyPrepared. Borders on a CozyCatastrophe, seeing as how the power grid is still up and active almost everywhere they go. Entire city blocks and shopping centers are still powered, which doesn't pass the sanity test for the "must be backup generators" idea.

** The characters have no real problem getting cars. Food's surprisingly abundant (unless it's [[RunningGag twinkies]],) and even electricity's shown to be pretty easy to rig (at one point they're able to power up an entire theme park and at another they just chill for a bit watching [=HD-DVDs=] in Creator/BillMurray's luxury Hollywood mansion.) Possibly justified in that the survivors we follow are well established as being CrazyPrepared. Borders on a CozyCatastrophe, seeing as how the power grid is still up and active almost everywhere they go. Entire city blocks and shopping centers are still powered, which doesn't pass the sanity test for the "must be backup generators" idea.