Society
Mon Jan 23, 2012 7:6PM
Chuck Izzo, a "prepper" sits in his basement where he stores emergency survival goods.
Driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, terrorism and natural disasters, a new growing subculture of Americans have emerged who are preparing for Armageddon.
The group who refer to themselves informally as "preppers" have been growing in America over the past few years.
Preppers store food and supplies to survive and be self-reliant for a certain amount of time in case of environmental cataclysm.
Unlike survivalists of the 1990s, who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government, preppers are worried about the end of a functioning US economy --a belief fueled by the fact that tens of millions of Americans are on food stamps and that many US children are living in poverty.
"A lot of Americans sense that a massive economic storm is coming and they want to be prepared for it," one prepper, Michael T. Snider says.
Another prepper, Tegeler, 57, says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home, and thinks that the time of emergency could come soon.
"I think this economy is about to fall apart," she said.
According to Cathy Gutierrez, an expert on end-times beliefs at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, such behaviors are not unnatural in a time of economic recession and a growing national debt.
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