My wife found episode one confusing, to which I said it should be, because even the show's characters are in a state of confusion as would be expected by a sudden devastation.
What I didn't understand was why the bombing of Denver was constantly mentioned and not Wichita...
I say Wichita because a highway sign seemed to indicated that Wichita, Kansas? (or is their a small one in Colorado?) was about 15-25 miles away. Why didn't someone get selected to go find out if it still existed and report to those people on the situation in Jericho?
If you got even a dozen people living 20 miles from your position, it'd take 20-30 minutes to get a Jericho resident out there to determing whether anyone else survived or not.
Another thing, most good AM radios, and maybe some cheap models, can pull in stations from as far away as 1,000 miles at night. Having several townsfolk with battery operated radions or even walkman tuning to see if any cities large or small were still getting out radio signals would give the Jerichonites an even bigger idea of who is still alive out there, even if far off.