The State of Our Nation’s Infrastructure 2013

Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers releases a report card on the state of the country’s infrastructure, giving grades, state by state, to a number of elements ranging from the quality of drinking water to the number of bridges needing repair, from energy self-sufficiency to schools and parks.

Not much of this has any direct relationship to us as preppers.  But there are some very weak correlations between a state that has a good infrastructure at present and it therefore also being a state which might be able to better withstand stresses to its structure during some sort of disaster, being a state which could manage for a longer time with ‘deferred capital investment and maintenance’ during the period of a Level 2 situation, and being a state which is more likely to recover sooner from whatever the problem was.

Furthermore, all other things being equal, a state with good infrastructure is probably a better run state every which way, and a better choice to live in, both now and in the future.

You can see their entire 2013 report card here.  You should appreciate that this is a group with a vested interest in developing infrastructure, because such activities directly result in more work for their members.  But even after recognizing their bias, it remains true that a state they rate as better than another state truly is better, no matter how actually good or bad each state may be.

Unfortunately, it seems the methodology used to grade the states was possibly inconsistent or maybe just plain incomplete, and not all states were given grades.  This makes it difficult to compare state by state, but you can see some basic facts about each state, both by clicking states from the map on this page and by selecting the states by name after clicking the states label from this page.  It seems that both routes give you the same information, but presented in slightly different formats.

Something to consider when you’re considering what state to locate your retreat in, perhaps.

You also of course need to consider not just about an entire state, but also about the county and local area in which you would locate.  Don’t be like one family we know – they proudly told us of their great retreat location, down a country road well off the main traffic routes.  The only problem?  There was no other road access to the property, and the road to their property included a bridge which was washed out unexpectedly, one spring (note – not the bridge pictures at the top of this article!).

It was six months before the county repaired the bridge!