Best Bug Out Locations in America: Safest Areas To Be After Society Collapses

Best Bug Out Locations in America: Safest Areas To Be After Society Collapses

NYPrepper

Oct 15, 2022

What are the best places in the United States to bug out to or safest place to live? I explain in this article and on my youtube channel. Video below.



Legend

RED shaded areas are the BEST bug out areas or safest areas to live

ORANGE areas are the second best areas to bug out to or live in

YELLOW areas are the best areas to get to or live in if you cannot reach the orange or red areas

Americans Are Preparing for When All Hell Breaks Loose

Once thought of as a fringe mind-set, the prepared citizen movement is gaining traction in a world shaped by war, the pandemic and extreme weather.

Christopher Eric Roscher, an Air Force veteran, teaches a course called Full Contender Minuteman in Leesburg, Fla.Credit...Zack Wittman for The New York Times

By Thomas Gibbons-Neff


Thomas Gibbons-Neff reported from Leesburg and Orlando, Fla., and participated in the minuteman training described in the article. The New York Times paid to take the class.

April 9, 2025
Leer en español


Ten men, some wearing camouflage, others in vests loaded with ammunition for their AR-15 rifles, gathered under the morning shade of oak trees in Central Florida last month. They were there to learn marksmanship tactics common among Special Operation forces and elite law enforcement units.

Their instructor, Christopher Eric Roscher, an Air Force veteran, introduced himself and then led the group in prayer.

“Lord, you would use them as assets, to be protectors in this world, in a world that’s full of evil,” he prayed.

The men gathered around him were not soldiers, police officers or right-wing militia members. They were mostly civilians, including two pilots, a nurse and a construction company executive. The class’s title — Full Contender Minuteman — even referred to the civilians turned soldiers of the American Revolution.

PREPPER BEAST SYSTEM FEAR TRAP / Hugo Talks

Do Doomsday 'preppers' have a point? Here's what we can learn from them.

In an age of record-breaking hurricanes and global pandemics, preparing for the worst no longer seems so far-fetched. Here are some of the key lessons you can learn from doomsday preppers.

Flashlights. Tape. A survival blanket. These are all components of one man's "go bag"—or "bug out bag"—photographed at the Kansas City Survival Expo & Gun Show in Missouri. Survivalists and Doomsday preppers have long been prepared for the worst but as climate change wreaks havoc on our planet, we could all learn from their tips.

Photograph By Roger Kisby/Redux

By Rosemary Counter
July 25, 2024

Amid Costo’s already stocked shelves of oversized jars of peanut butter and 12-pack macaroni and cheeses, there’s a hardcore new addition that is lighting up social media: The Readywise 150 Serving Emergency Food Bucket. For $100, the bucket includes 80 dinners, 30 breakfasts, and 40 energy drinks with a shelf life of—prepare yourself for this—25 long years.

“In a world where unpredictability has become a constant,” reads the description, “our assortment takes on a vital role in emergency preparedness. Imagine the sudden onset of severe weather, the challenges of unexpected job transitions, or the unsettling thought of food shortages.”

This isn’t hard to imagine, as recent years have given us plenty of examples: the COVID-19 pandemic, obviously, but also Californian wildfires, the Great Texas Freeze, Kentucky floods and mudslides, and hurricanes Beryl, Idalia, and Ian. Extreme weather events are happening more often and with more severity; even the American Government’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which used to recommend every American home have a 72-hour self-sufficiency plan, quietly tweaked its minimum to at least 72 hours and its recommendation to a full week.

(Instead of "natural disasters," should we call them "disasters of our own making"?)

HOLY $#!+% Moldovan WW3 FRONT CONFIRMED, Romania PREPARES, CHINA on HIGH...

Hiddden in America | Biblical Preppers | Documentary

Confessions of a Christian Prepper

Opinion | Discipleship

Confessions of a Christian Prepper

My hope shouldn’t lie in survival skills and stockpiles.

Andrea Palpant Dilley

Bio@AndreaPalpantFacebook

Image: CatLane / iStock / Getty





“You could be forgiven for thinking apocalyptic thoughts,” writes The New York Times in response to recent disasters.

With multiple earthquakes, successive hurricanes, fires raging in the Northwest and California, as well as escalating tensions with North Korea, the last few months have brought an onslaught of natural and man-made chaos.

The less obvious threat for Americans is the vulnerability of our electrical grid—which, in the opinion of some experts, is imminently hackable.

Vanity Fair publishes regularly on the topic (see Michael Lewis’s latest story). Even Ted Koppel, the calm, unflappable former news anchor, says it’s a matter of if, not when the electrical grid goes down and leaves us suspended in a strange, uneasy darkness.

This “confluence of disastrous events” brings out our most basic instinct: the urge to survive.

The “prepping” trend has grown in response, from basic emergency preparedness (extra water and bags of dried beans) to fully furnished underground bunkers packed with freeze-dried rations. (Costco offers options for both groups.) According to Google Trends, searches for “prepper” and “survivalism” have reached record highs in the last few months.

At a deeper level, these dangers and disasters bring us face to face with the fragility of human life. Lurking beneath our well-socialized exteriors is an intense, primitive need to protect ourselves and those around us from existential threats. Parents fear the possibility that one day we’ll wake up and find ourselves unable to keep our kids safe from famine or fire. One way or another, we all have to contend with the fundamental tension between readiness and relinquishment: When do we accept our mortality, when do we fight against it, and when do we give it up to God’s providence?

Existential dread comes easily to me—although I fear disaster more than death. By some standards, I’m a doomsday prepper in waiting. If I had a more fragile, paranoid psyche, there’s a good chance I’d be living “off the grid” in an abandoned brick warehouse with a small herd of cats and a stack of canned food. I’d hunker down with a ham radio while my children scuttle around like Dickensian street urchins.

As it is, I sublimate my anxieties into more socially acceptable form by skimming prepper websites and organizing canned food and water in the back of my pantry. After the recent Harvey hurricane, I sent a donation to a Houston-based nonprofit and then joined my fellow Austinites lined up at fueling stations to fill portable gas cans in case of a shortage. (The cans now sit in two neat rows on a shelf in my garage.)

How to Live Off Grid Successfully

 By Guest Contributor on September 12, 2016@prepperjournal




4.17/5 (92)

Editor’s Note: This post is another entry in the Prepper Writing Contest from John L. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today.

If you have been wondering how to live off grid – “is it really possible?” and “Can I do it?” the short answer to all of these questions is, “Yes!”.

Remember: The only sure thing in life is Change itself. There is another important rule of life that is often overlooked:
“Anyone can only teach you what they know.” Learning is a lifelong process. The long answer is still yes, just with a lot more things to take into consideration. Living off grid will take a commitment of time, resources, and determination. You will really need to believe in what you are doing, have a vision for it, and want to make it work despite the obstacles that will plague you.

Living off Grid Takes Practice

Living off grid is not the easiest way to live. Until you do it you don’t even know the things that you are going to have to give up. The big things are easy to figure out: Refrigerators, Heating systems, Television, Kitchen Appliances, and THESE ARE THINGS YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GIVE UP!

There are other things that many people don’t think about until they are actually in the midst of it. Like indebtedness, careers, local churches & schools. Sometimes families and friends.

The Polish paramilitaries preparing for war

Armed men in body armor at Walmart tell police they were preparing for doomsday

CRIME

JULY 31, 2016 5:59 PM

BY LINDA BLACKFORD AND MORGAN EADS

lblackford@herald-leader.com


A report of a car full of men in body armor with semi-automatic weapons brought Lexington police to the Walmart on Richmond Road on Saturday night. Officers found two men, one in body armor, a 20-year-old woman and a six-month old baby.

Lt. Jackie Newman said that when Lexington police officers got the three people out of the car about 11:15 p.m., they said were preparing for doomsday and needed supplies. A 26-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were in the car with their 6-month-old baby and a 19-year-old man, police spokeswoman Brenna Angel said Monday.

The older man had just bought a bulletproof vest, a semi-automatic AK-47 and a .357 Magnum revolver, Angel said. He was wearing the vest, and both weapons were loaded and visible in the vehicle. He told officers that they had recently received a settlement from a car crash and used the money to buy tactical gear “should the end of days occur or should there be an Armageddon-type situation,” Angel said.

A license is not required to have semi-automatic weapons in a car, police said.

The older man man and the woman had driven to Walmart to show the younger man their new gear, Angel said. None of the three went inside the store.

Police also found some marijuana in the car.

All three voluntarily came to police headquarters for questioning that night, Lt. Richard Willoby said. The three cooperated with police, and no charges were filed.

Willoby said police took photographs of the car and the weapons to complete a report to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services because of the infant in the car.

“There appeared to be nothing criminal,” Willoby said. “They’re in the mindset of preparing for the end of the world, accumulating weapons and things like that, but the weapons appear to be legally owned.”

Source: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article92962632.html#storylink=cpy

Primed to fight the government

Play Video1:45


Primed to fight the government
A fast-growing U.S. movement armed with guns and the Constitution sees a dire threat to liberty


Story by Kevin Sullivan
Photos and Video by Matt McClain
Published on May 21, 2016


REDMOND, Ore. — B.J. Soper took aim with his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and fired a dozen shots at a human silhouette target. Soper’s wife and their 16-year-old daughter practiced drawing pistols. Then Soper helped his 4-year-old daughter, in pink sneakers and a ponytail, work on her marksmanship with a .22-caliber rifle.

Deep in the heart of a vast U.S. military training ground, surrounded by spent shotgun shells and juniper trees blasted to shreds, the Central Oregon Constitutional Guard was conducting its weekly firearms training.

“The intent is to be able to work together and defend ourselves if we need to,” said Soper, 40, a building contractor who is an emerging leader in a growing national movement rooted in distrust of the federal government, one that increasingly finds itself in armed conflicts with authorities.

Prepping for Doomsday: Bunkers, Panic Rooms, and Going Off the Grid

Trends



By
Clare Trapasso

6:00 am ET
May 10, 2016



From left: EdStock/iStock; celafon/iStock; mik38/iStock
ginosphotos/iStock; Maxiphoto/iStock

The apocalypse has become big business. And it’s getting bigger every day.

In the ’50s, homeowners fearing Communist attacks built bunkers in their backyards and basements, hung up a few “God Bless Our Bomb Shelter” signs and called it a Cold War.

But today, Americans en masse are again preparing for the worst—and Communists are just about the only thing not on their list. What is? Terrorist attacks, a total economic collapse, perhaps even zombie invasions. Or maybe just a complete societal breakdown after this November’s scorched-Earth presidential election.

But this is not your Uncle Travis’ guns-and-canned-foods-militia vision of Armageddon preparedness. While the fears of survivalists and so-called preppers are modernizing, so too are their ideas and methods of refuge.

The business of disaster readiness is getting higher tech, higher priced, and way more geographically diverse, with state-of-the-art underground shelters tricked out with greenhouses, gyms, and decontamination units in the boondocks and the latest in plush panic rooms in city penthouses.

Welcome to the brave (and for some, highly profitable) new world of paranoia.

“There’s a lot of uneasiness in society. You see it in politics. You see it in the economy. The world is changing really, really quickly and not always for the better,” says Richard Duarte, author of “Surviving Doomsday: A Guide for Surviving an Urban Disaster.”

Prepping “gives them a certain comfort that at least they’ve got some sort of preparations to … take care of their family if things start falling apart all around them,” he says.
Better be safe with a safe room

If the booming sales of panic rooms are any indication, more and more city dwellers these days are obsessively worrying about everything from home invasions to terror attacks. And they’re backing up those worries with cold, hard cash.

Sales of safe (aka panic) rooms, where families can safely lock themselves away from most threats, are up 30% over the same time last year at Gaffco Ballistics, a Londonderry, VT–based installer which does much of its business in New York City, according to CEO Tom Gaffney. That’s driven in part by the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, CA, and Paris, he says.

Most of his safe rooms are actually fortified master bedrooms, with ballistic fiberglass–reinforced walls, a Kevlar-lined door that is purported to resist both bullets and sledgehammers, and bullet-proof windows—as well as a high-end alarm system that is designed to withstand burglars, rioters, and more.


Panic room controls
Gaffco Ballistics LLC




He also turns home theaters into radiation-proof rooms where residents can watch the latest Hollywood blockbusters while World War III rages on outside.

The rooms range from $250,000 to $1.5 million. (No one said paranoia came cheap.)

People are “just more aware” of potential threats, says Gaffney of his clients, many of whom don’t consider themselves preppers. “It’s a growth market.”

That paranoia has also been fueling business at construction company and safe room installer GoNavco Corp., a Troy, NY–based safe room installer.

Owner Joe Navarra began installing panic rooms several years ago after requests began pouring in. Now this burgeoning portion of his business is up about 50% over the same time last year.

His no-frills chambers start at $20,000, although most are in the $50,000 range. They’re typically installed in the closets or bathrooms of master bedrooms.

Panic rooms aren’t just relegated to the biggest cities and the biggest disasters. Author Duarte has several spaces in his suburban home outside of Miami that could serve as safe rooms with fortified walls and doors.

“You’re never going to stop a determined attacker” with his homemade safe rooms, says Duarte, who says he became a prepper after Hurricane Andrew destroyed his home in 1992. “But you can slow them down to give you enough time to call the police or figure out how to defend yourself.”
Survivalist properties: Living off the land

Of course, for some survivalists, cities will never feel safe. These are the folks who need to go far off the grid. But even this age-old concept is getting a makeover, and a business plan.

Some real estate companies are seeing big increases by specializing in “survivalist properties”—large parcels of rural land with homes targeted specifically to preppers, with full fortification and self-sustainable food and energy options. After all, why not grow your own tomatoes and kale while you wait out the end of the world as we know it?


For example, sales at American Redoubt Realty, a real estate firm nestled in the heart of prepper country in northern Idaho, are up 50% over the same time last year, says real estate agent Todd Savage, who specializes in such transactions. His clients typically hail from Texas and California.

Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are often considered the epicenter of the modern survivalist property trend. But you can find pockets of it across the country, from North Carolina to Washington state.

“Each election cycle we see a huge uptick in interest and sales,” says Savage, who first noticed the trend in 2012, when Mitt Romney faced off against Barack Obama. “People are tired of both sides.”

His buyers are looking for very specific, “100% self-sustainable,” rural properties, at least 10 acres and up, says Savage. To make it true prepper property, the land must have at least two abundant water sources, like a well and a stream; alternative energy, like solar panels or hydropower; and the ability to grow food.

It must also be easily defendable against a multitude of threats, with either bunkers or safe rooms or simply reinforced doors and windows and a lot of ammunition.

Properties already outfitted with solar panels or hydropower are particularly in demand since they can be expensive to install, he says.

Self-sustaining power sources such as solar are key.  AmericanRedoubtRealty.com



Survivalists are also particularly hungry for metal containers they can convert into shelters and bury underground, as well as Quonsets, those steel, half-moon-shaped shelters that can be built into mountainsides, says Jake Crites, a real estate broker at Jake’s Old West Properties in Ashfork, AZ. He’s seen a big uptick over the past two years.


Emergency Quonset 
jakesoldwestproperties.com

Better have deep pockets for a bunker

Likewise, sales at bunker builder Rising S Co. have never been better. They shot up 20% to 25% over the past two years for the radiation-resistant shelters, which can be sunk 33 feet underground and tricked out with gyms, greenhouses, and water filtration systems that can even enable dwellers to drink their own urine if need be. Ewww!

“The more politics that are played on TV, the more our sales go up,” says proud prepper Clyde Scott, owner of the Kemp, TX–based company. “People are in fear of our government passing laws to take their guns away and not allowing them to protect themselves,” including against a foreign invasion.

The company sells nearly two dozen, air- and water-tight steel bunkers a year, which can range from $40,000 to $10 million each. They bear little resemblance to the bare-bulb bomb shelters of the ’50s. The bulk of sales are in Texas, but the end-of-the-world-proof shelters are also big in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Florida, Scott says.


Bunkers soon to be under 10 feet of dirt




Most of his clients, from surgeons to billionaires, work in cities and are successful businesspeople with families. The bunkers are typically installed on their “bug out” properties, secondary residences in the country where preppers can go if (or when, depending on whom you talk to) disaster hits.

Business is also good over at Ultimate Bunker, based on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, where sales have nearly tripled each year since the company opened shop four years ago. General contractor Mike Peters got into bunkers (literally, folks!) after watching the TV show “Doomsday Preppers” on the National Geographic Channel. He was convinced he could build them better.

His underground shelters start at $59,000 and go way up from there. His top-of-the-line model has areas for raising rabbits and fish. The majority of his sales are in the $500,000 range.

“Almost everything I do is off-ground and located in the middle of nowhere,” says Peters, who often powers the shelters with solar panels placed on nearby sheds.

Customers “want a bunker right now because they feel the country is doomed after the election,” he says. “It doesn’t matter who wins; we’re in trouble.”






Clare Trapasso is the senior news editor of realtor.com. She previously covered finance for a Financial Times publication and wrote for the New York Daily News. Clare also teaches journalism at a local college, loves food festivals and bike trips, and enjoys playing with her dog.

Source

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Preparing for Disaster - BBC - The Documentary

 

The Documentary - Preparing for Disaster


Lu Olkowski reports from New York about the growing 'prepper' movement in the city. Preppers are people who are fearful of the future and who are preparing for the next disaster. The city has already experienced natural calamities such as Hurricane Sandy and has suffered devastating terrorist attacks. Preppers, who operate as individuals or in small organised groups, are convinced another disaster will strike the city soon and refuse to believe that the government will do enough to protect them. They train in self-defence and plan ways to escape the city in the event of emergency. They store food and water in their houses and have 'bug out' bags ready at a moments notice if they have to flee. Lu Olkowski talks to a number of New York preppers and listens to their concerns and plans for the future. She finds out what they are particularly worried about – everything from a nuclear explosion to economic collapse and another major storm. She hears about their plans of escape and the variety of objects they have secured for their survival – everything from decades' worth of dried food to hoards of silver coins for possible barter after the natural order breaks down. She watches on as they prepare their defence. Are these people simply paranoid and easily influenced by the wild imaginings of Hollywood disaster films? Or do they have genuine concerns that all of us who live in cities should take heed of? (Photo: Jay Blevins walks to his backyard with a bug out bag, a quick grab bag with about 40lb of survival gear, including a Katana sword. Credit: Brendan Smialowski/ AFP/Getty Images)

Duration: 25 minutes

First broadcast:Tuesday 15 April 2014

Listen to the podcast: 
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20140415-0332a.mp3

Or

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01x18sc/The_Documentary_Preparing_for_Disaster/

Or

  Listen in pop-out player 

 BBC World Service

The Documentary

SSource. 

N.Y. survivors of Sandy ditch the city to 'bug out' in preparation for doomsday

PBS NEWSHOUR

Survivors of Sandy ditch N.Y. to prepare for doomsday
N.Y. survivors of Sandy ditch the city to 'bug out' in preparation for doomsday

Premiere Date: October 25, 2013 Rating: NR

SUMMARY

 Some Hurricane Sandy survivors have begun to study up on "doomsday prepping" in case another environmental disaster hits. City slickers by day, survivalists in the NYC Preppers Network head up to the Catskill Mountains on the weekends, armed with just the basics to practice living off the land. Paul Solman reports.

 Transcript

JUDY WOODRUFF: Time for a change of pace.

It's been nearly a year since superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast. We will have reports tied to its anniversary next week on what's being done to prepare for extreme weather events.

But, tonight, a different take from a less conventional group of folks preparing for disaster, natural or manmade.

The NewsHour’s Paul Solman has the story.

NARRATOR: All across America, people are preparing.

PAUL SOLMAN: The once-August National Geographic Society's huge TV hit Doomsday Preppers.

MAN: I'm going to survive a genocidal siege by building a tunnel that will lead my family to safety.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now, whether they fear terrorist attack, a shift of the magnetic poles, zombie apocalypse, or, these days, more proximate threats like U.S. debt default and global economic chaos, Nat Geo's ever-more-popular preppers seem to be prepping for a war of all against all, which is why they practice bugging out: quickly leaving their lairs with just enough supplies for a couple of days en route to lives away from their fellow would-be antagonists.

Season three of Doomsday Preppers debuts October 29, the one-year anniversary of superstorm Sandy, which threatened to doom New York. Were there New Yorkers, we wondered, among the two million or so Americans who reportedly consider themselves preppers?

Sure enough, a meet-up group known as the New York City Preppers Network. And so we repaired, one Friday afternoon, to bug-out practice a couple of hours' drive, or, in case of catastrophe, a couple of days' walk, north of New York, in what passes for wilderness around Woodstock in the Catskill Mountains. The organizers had said they'd arrive between noon and 1:00 p.m.

MAN: Preppers?

PAUL SOLMAN: Improbably, given that this was prep for an emergency get-out-of-town evacuation, they were late.

Jason? Jason?

When fireman Jason Charles, who runs the meet-up group, arrived three hours later, he explained that he'd had to buy dog food before bugging out.

JASON CHARLES, New York City Preppers Network: My wife, she ran me on a bunch of errands before we had to go.

PAUL SOLMAN: Some buggers-out showed up even later.

WOMAN: I have been camping once in my life, and I had no intentions of ever going back.

PAUL SOLMAN: Jodi Paulovich is a realtor and local cable access TV host.

NARRATOR: Live from New York City, it's "The Jo Show."

JODI PAULOVICH, New York City Preppers Network: I am the antithesis of your stereotypical survivalist.

PAUL SOLMAN: But stormy weather had driven city slicker Paulovich and boyfriend Joe Suba, an actor and stuntman, out into the wild.

JOE SUBA, New York City Preppers Network: I was there when Sandy hit. So I have seen people in lines -- I have it on video, lining up down the block, Pampers, milk. And it's like, hey, are you going to stand there, or you are going to do something?

PAUL SOLMAN: Sandy had converted prison guard Preston Williams as well.

PRESTON WILLIAMS, New York City Preppers Network: I had just had surgery on my shoulder, and I was in a sling, and trying to run through waist -- I mean, thigh-deep water with an 8-year-old. It was scary, because you didn't know how high it was going to go. It made you step back and look at everything and say, wow, I need to be prepared.

PAUL SOLMAN: What do you do now that you didn't do before Sandy?

PRESTON WILLIAMS: Well, I started dehydrating food. Usually, I will try to cook a big dinner, and then I will dehydrate it and pack it away and put it in a barrel.

JASON CHARLES: A disaster, it's -- it's a test, and this is a test. The basic idea is for everybody in the group to live out of their bug-out bag for two nights.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, armed with food and water, ropes and knives, tents and sleeping bags, the New York City Preppers trekked the two-mile trail up Slide Mountain.

The NewsHour’s suburban slickers, you may not be surprised to learn, trekked back down to spend the night at a motel. But we were back at the campsite at the crack of dawn to see how the preppers had fared.

The first casualty had been Preston Williams, the food dehydrator. He wound up with a case of, well, dehydration himself, a gastrointestinal illness that kept him confined to his cocoon. Jodi Paulovich had had better nights herself.

JODI PAULOVICH: Lying on the mud, and it was so hard, and there were all these tree roots under us, and even though our sleeping bags were pretty warm, it was still freezing. It was just freezing.

PAUL SOLMAN: As might be expected if one were really fleeing the ravages of an October storm in the Northeast.

So, first on the weekend agenda, learning to make a fire, then how to use a compass, read a map.

MAN: There's true north, grid north, magnetic north.

PAUL SOLMAN: Helpful when setting out to find water, though a word to Joe Suba: Next time, maybe ditch the bottle, and bring a flexible bladder bag, like everyone else.

Also, it turns out there's a reason for cargo pants. Then it was back to camp for a little gruel: some precooked chicken. Italian tuna fillets in olive oil?

JODI PAULOVICH: Why not? I mean, why bring those yucky cans, if I can could this?

PAUL SOLMAN: And, finally, the critically important first-aid class, with Jason Charles apologizing for his handiwork.

JASON CHARLES: This is by far the crappiest looking stretcher you will see.

PAUL SOLMAN: OK, we admit it: No matter how pervasive preppers are becoming, or how earnest they are, it's almost irresistible to make fun of them, especially urbanites first venturing out of the asphalt jungle.

But, in the end, we thought we learned something worth sharing. The basic vision of the prepper movement is that ours is a "Mad Max" world, in which, once disaster hits, you take from the other guys before they take from you, or, as Jodi Paulovich put it:

JODI PAULOVICH: We don't want to be stuck on a little island with crazy people in martial law.

PAUL SOLMAN: And yet here was a stunningly diverse group of random New Yorkers brought together by legitimate fears, with perhaps a whiff of paranoia, who were learning what? To prep for disaster by depending upon each other, to survive, but in community, trusting people they had never even met before with their very lives.

MAN: And when you're taking him out, always keep his head above the broken extremity.

PAUL SOLMAN: Community, not every man for himself, as the key to survival come doomsday, a hopeful punch line with which to end a news story for a change.


Source
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US 'preppers' prepare for Armageddon

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.

PG/TE



Source

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For 'preppers,' every day could be doomsday

Chuck Raasch @craasch USA TODAY



Scott Hunt shows how to build a fire in a small BioLIte stove which he is using to charge a cellular phone,. The stove converts heat from the fire into usable electricity.(Photo: By Tim Loehrke, USA TODAY)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The burgeoning "prepper" movement prepares for the end of civilization
Prepping has achieved cohesion and community in the Internet age
Some observers suggest energies could be better spent working for peace

5:50AM EST November 13. 2012 - Braxton Southwick is convinced a weaponized smallpox terrorist attack, or something similarly horrible, is inevitable.

He's read Revelations. He watches news about nuclear saber rattling, financial meltdowns, mega-storms rendering populations helpless for days. He is 40, and his research has led him to believe a biological attack "will happen in my lifetime."

Terrorists, he says, "would like to get a nuclear weapon, but I'm sure they'd take a pint of smallpox."

So Southwick and his wife, Kara, also 40, and their six children, ages 13-21, have stored 700 pounds of flour, 600 pounds of sugar, 800 pounds of wheat, water, gas, diesel fuel, chemical suits, coal, charcoal, 14 guns and eight chickens. They're ready to haul it in trucks and trailers to a cabin redoubt 90 minutes from their home in the West Jordan suburb of Salt Lake City if calamity hits.

They are part of a burgeoning "prepper" movement that believes preparing for the end of civilization is more rational than ridiculing those who do. Once viewed largely as a practice by survivalists on the fringe, prepping has achieved cohesion and community in the Internet age through best-selling writers, bloggers, risk assessors, conspiracy theorists and companies that cater to preppers' needs.

The number of preppers is unknown, but a poll done for National Geographic Channel in September indicated that 28% of Americans knew one. Preppers meet-up networks are proliferating on social networks. Doomsday Preppers is the network's most-watched series, and the Southwicks are featured in the series premiere Tuesday night.

Getting ready for the end is not new, of course, or strictly American. Recall how people across the USA dug fallout shelters during the Cold War. Doomsday prophets have been around as long as civilization. The federal government was the ultimate prepper during the Cold War.

One of that era's icons remains — a massive underground bunker designed to protect all 535 members of Congress and their aides against nuclear war. Dug into the Allegheny Mountains at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., it once had 75,000 gallons of water, a power system, medical and food services, 30-ton blast doors, art of the last days of Pompeii and a mural of Washington scenery that was capable of changing leaves on the trees, depending on the season.

After its cover was blown by a story in The Washington Post in 1992, the bunker was abandoned by the government as an emergency destination.

Almost 10 years later, the chaos of 9/11 prompted further calls for doomsday contingencies to protect the nation's leaders and sustain the government.

You can tour this slice of underground history today. After the Southwicks visited the bunker recently, they said they felt even more strongly about the need to prepare. Their family reflects a new preparedness instinct that has been growing since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After that shock, the government urged people to store food, buy duct tape and roll water barrels into their basements.

Some went further.

Shelter builders saw a flurry of business right after 9/11, again after the financial meltdown in 2008, and in 2010, when predictions of a Dec. 21 end of the world — derived from interpretations of a Mayan calendar — hit popular culture.

Skeptics question movement

John Hoopes, a University of Kansas anthropologist and archaeologist, has spent much time debunking the Mayan end-of-the-world predictions, arguing they are "contemporary hype ... invented by our culture and promoted by the mass media." He blames, in part, a junk-science hangover from the psychedelic drug culture of the 1960s.

Although it is prudent to prepare for storms or power outages, Hoopes says, going underground based on predictions from a long-vanished culture is simply irrational. As for the prepper movement, he urges perspective. There have always been storms and earthquakes and threats from the unknown, he says — they just weren't tweeted in real time.

Kenneth Rose, a University of California-Chico professor and author of One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture, says the prepper movement raises "neighbor vs. neighbor" scenarios and "troubling class issues."

"Will the well-to-do only be able to afford these types of activities?" he asks.

"Frankly, I think people should put their energy into making a more peaceful world, rather than contemplating saving their own skins," Rose says, adding that there is "no threat now that compares with the threat of nuclear annihilation" during the Cold War.

BRACING FOR THE END
Nine out of 10 Americans expect a world disaster to occur in the next quarter century, yet 56% say they aren’t prepared, according to a survey conducted for National Geographic Channel. The percentage in the survey of 1,040 adults who predicted the following catastrophes:

Significant hurricane: 58%

Major earthquake: 53%

Terrorist attack: 51%

Financial collapse: 49%

Widespread blackout: 33%

Pandemic: 25%

Nuclear fallout: 13%

Source: Kelton Research for National Geographic Channel

The premiere of the second season of National Geographic Channel’s seriesDoomsday Preppers airs at 9 and 10 pm ET on Tuesday.


Preppers don't buy that. Jay Blevins, a former deputy sheriff and SWAT officer in Berryville, Va., says social unrest from a financial meltdown could be devastating. He has formed a prepper network of family and friends, people with varying skills such as knifemaking. They'd help one another in such a calamity. He says his Christian faith drives him to help others prepare, and although he is not certain the end is near, he thinks getting prepared is an act of personal responsibility.

"We watch and pray," he says of his family's view toward doomsday scenarios.

Some preppers have considered ramping up efforts since President Obama's re-election last week, convinced it means the economy will soon collapse in a cascade of debt. Some are convinced Iran or another enemy is developing an electromagnetic pulse weapon that would wipe out the power, communication and transportation grids, rendering useless any device with a microchip.

Like the Southwicks — he a mechanic and former professional bike racer, she an employee of a financial company — some preppers live normal lives on the surface. Underneath, they are prepared to live in a world apart.

The Southwicks are part of a seven-family neighborhood group that vacations together and makes doomsday plans together. The neighbors know they can camp out at the cabin, Braxton says.

Others featured on Doomsday Preppers are more out there — literally. Robert and Debbie Earl, retired Florida chicken farmers, worry about the seas rising. So they are building a home constructed of old tires and sand-filled bottles near Alpine, Texas. Robert Earl describes himself as "Mad Max meets Rube Goldberg with a little bit of Al Gore thrown in."

A vulnerable world

A veritable industry has sprung up around the prepper movement. James Rawles, author of the non-fiction book How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It and a pair of best-selling novels on survival, says 130,000 people regularly read his survivalblog.com, where he and numerous contributors provide tips on how to prepare. The former Army intelligence officer has 40 advertisers selling everything from seeds to silver, and 30 more advertisers on a waiting list.

"It's a growing recognition we live in a very fragile, very interdependent society, with long chains of supply and an increasing dependence on the power grid," says Rawles, who won't say where he lives. "That dependence increases every passing year, and the vulnerability of the infrastructure to technological destruction increases by the year."

He says Superstorm Sandy's devastating impact on the populous Northeast ought to make the need for prepping obvious.

"If anybody had any doubts, if anybody was teasing their neighbors before Sandy" for storing food or preparing a "bugout bag" of essentials, he says, "they are not doing that anymore."

The day after Obama was re-elected, Rowles posted, "Several readers have written to ask me if I plan to stock up on more ammunition and magazines, now that the gun grabbers have further cemented their hold on Washington, D.C. My answer: No. I already have lots of ammunition and magazines."

The business of prepping

Scott Hunt, who co-founded a South Carolina company called Practical Preppers, says phone calls from potential customers increased the day after Election Day. "I am not going to make that correlation," Hunt says, "but you can."

Twenty months ago, Hunt, an engineer, and Dave Kobler, a military veteran, started Practical Preppers to advise people how to stockpile and defend their homes.

Business for Hardened Structures, an engineering firm based in Virginia Beach, is up roughly 40% since 2005, co-owner Brian Camden says. Some of his clients buy gold and silver and other precious metals as a hedge against a possible collapse of the currency, and they want to be able to protect it and their families, he says. So his company designs ways to build underground bunkers, strengthen walls and improve security systems on homes.

Camden says he thinks a grid-destroying electromagnetic pulse from a solar flare is the most likely threat but "after interviewing clients for 20 years, the one thing I do know is no one knows for sure what will happen."

"The rise of al-Qaeda, Islamic terrorism, political divisions here in the U.S., the rich getting richer, the separation of the economic classes," he says, describing what drives customers to him. "At the end of the day, it is asset protection. Most people identify their family as their most important asset. This is a family insurance policy."

The Southwicks sure see it that way. Braxton says his Christian faith turned him into an evangelist, urging people to prepare.

Braxton wrote a book, A Letter to My Friends, that includes the basics he preaches: Have emergency food and water in your home, have a "bugout bag" for every person that includes water, food, clothes, a thumb drive of your financial and other vital information, and other essentials.

Kara Southwick portrays herself as "more of a realist" and is not convinced that the threats are as dire as her husband portrays them. But, she says, "We prepare for everything."

Braxton and Kara Southwick from Utah offer a tour of a declassified bunker. They will star in the upcoming National Geographic Channel show 'Doomsday Preppers,' featuring Americans stockpiling for the end of the world. NGC conducted an online survey with 1,040 people to find out how they would spend their final days. Here are some of the results. By Tim Loehrke, USA TODAY

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Doomsday Ready? More Americans Becoming 'Preppers'

By Chuck Holton

CBN News

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C. - When an unexpected summer storm knocked out power across the mid-Atlantic region in July, more than 4 million people went without power for up to two weeks.

Throughout the summer, a severe drought across much of the country also put a serious strain on the nation's infrastructure.

Couple that with the threat of a currency collapse, civil unrest, and other nightmare scenarios - stocking up for the unexpected is looking smarter all the time.

Learn More: Surviving the Unexpected

Now, a small but growing segment of society is asking the question, "What happens when the lights go out for more than just a few days?"

Preparation or over reaction? CBN News Reporter Chuck Holton talked more about the "prepper" movement as well as how and why many Americans are readying for the worst, on "The 700 Club," Sept. 12.

Many of these "preppers" think the recent record-setting blackout could be just a preview of things to come.

Keith Iton is a die hard prepper and has started a business to help others get ready as well.

"The biggest problem we suffer here in North America is complacency," he claimed.

"People figure since nothing has happened in 'x' amount of years, nothing bad will ever happen," Iton continued. "So they get comfortable, and they get lazy and then unpreparedness comes in. Then you have other people who look at history."

From 'Crazy' to Common

Survivalists are sometimes seen as wild eyed, crazy people waiting for the 'zombie apocalypse.' But with the state of the economy in today's world, being prepared is more popular than ever.

Recently, some 2,000 people gathered in North Carolina for the the Carolina Readiness Seminar to discuss the risks and what can be done about them.

"It's very environmental, very green, takes us off of fossil fuels, and [is] very easy to do," prepper Joel Henderson said.

Henderson is co-owner of Green Gold Filters, one of the vendors at the recent convention. His patented filtration system is helping people accomplish something that America has been trying to do for years -- run a vehicle without foreign oil.

"If anybody has a diesel engine, truck, tractor, or generator, you can use used cooking oil as an alternative diesel fuel, or motor oil," Henderson explained.

"If you go to the restaurants, this is a local restaurant here in Nashville, an Indian restaurant, this is their used cooking oil they were throwing away," he continued. "We picked it up, ran it through our filter system, and now we have a nice alternative diesel fuel that I'll put right in my tank."

'Doomsday Preppers'

The prepper movement is being helped along by a new trend in television shows about the subject. The most popular is National Geographic's "Doomsday Preppers."

"'Doomsday Preppers' is the highest rated show right now ever on National Geographic," casting director Brooklyn Bagwell said.

"It's a show about your average American family, unique people who are prepping for any of life's uncertainties, whether that be economic collapse to solar flare in 2012. No matter what it is they're going to be prepared," he added.

One of the challenges for the show is that most preppers aren't eager to advertise their stockpiles of supplies, since if the bottom drops out, looting could be a real problem.

"We do understand it could be a risk, but we do respect privacy on the show. We don't have to say your first name or last name or where you're from," Bagwell said.

"We try to get in the lives of many diverse preppers, and have each prepper give a take away to our viewers so they can learn more about prepping," he said.

Prepare with God

Iton said the first step to being prepared, however, has nothing to do with canned food or bottled water.

"Your first step to preparedness, for me personally, is your relationship with Jesus Christ," he explained. "If you build a solid relationship with Jesus Christ, then you are more prepared than the average Joe."

"Then after that, if you can get a little food, water stored away, a little safe retreat, it'll all fall into place," Iton said. "You want to be able to feed yourself, feed your family, help a neighbor, help a friend."

A hundred years ago, having extra supplies in the house was considered completely normal. But that has changed.

A recent survey found that 55 percent of Americans have less than three days supply of food in their homes. Many people have no emergency supplies, or even a first aid kit.

But with America's infrastructure becoming more fragile every day, preppers say it's a good idea to stock up, just in case.

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MEET THE ‘PREPPERS’ — THE AMERICANS STOCKPILING FOOD & WATER FOR A POSSIBLE COLLAPSE

• Posted on January 23, 2012 at 8:39am by Billy Hallowell

The world’s a scary place. Wars, famines, corrupt politicians, terrorism, imploding economies — the list goes on. There are plenty of issues worth fearing, which is why a subset of the nation is preparing for what they see as impending calamity.

These individuals, dubbed “preppers,” are stocking up on food, guns, water and other items that they may need should the economy erupt or a massive natural disaster strike. With so many possibilities for problematic occurrences, these individuals want to ensure that they can live beyond any tragically defining moments.

Most preppers are fearful of the prospects of no governmental structure — something that some see as a possibility amidst economic woes and political strife. Back in 2009, a Newsweek report described this phenomenon:

In the late 1990s, Y2K fears brought survivalism to the mainstream, only to usher it back out again when disaster didn’t strike. (Suddenly, unused survival gear began showing up in classifieds and on eBay.) A decade later, “preppers” are what you might call survivalism’s Third Wave: regular people with jobs and homes whose are increasingly fearful about the future…

Watch some preppers discuss their lifestyle, below:

Reuters published a report this weekend, highlighting some of the preppers out there who are stockpiling and awaiting what they see as the inevitable. To begin, there’s Patty Tegeler, a 57-year-old who lives in Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains.

“In an instant, anything can happen,” she said. “And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared.”

Tegeler’s home has essentially been prepared for whatever may come. She has a large generator, water tanks, portable heaters and enough freeze-dried food to lock herself inside and to keep nourished for two years.

Wondering how she secured these items? There’s an entire market that caters to these individuals (most vendors operate on the internet). These companies sell many of the items that Tegeler has in her own home, as they teach skills or sell the products needed to ensure individual and family survival pending disaster.

The Reuters article even mentions Glenn Beck:

Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck seems to preach preppers’ message when he tells listeners: “It’s never too late to prepare for the end of the world as we know it.”

Additionally, it goes on to further explain the movement:

“With our current dependence on things from the electric grid to the Internet, things that people have absolutely no control over, there is a feeling that a collapse scenario can easily emerge, with a belief that the end is coming, and it is all out of the individual’s control,” [Cathy Gutierrez, an expert on end-times beliefs at Sweet Briar College in Virginia] told Reuters.

While many would dub survivalist behaviors as silly or a waste of time, preppers separate themselves from the likes of Harold Camping and other leaders who have set dates for what they promise to be apocalyptic conclusions to societal existence. Preppers like Tegeler claim that their items won‘t go to waste regardless of whether there’s a collapse or not. For these individuals it’s all about being ready for anything that could unfold.

And there’s plenty of media outlets for these individuals to consume, as they share tips and communicate with one another. Blogs like lawyer Michael T. Snider’s “The Economic Collapse” focus upon the themes surrounding the economy’s potential bust.

“Most people have a gut feeling that something has gone terribly wrong, but that doesn’t mean that they understand what is happening,” Snider said. “A lot of Americans sense that a massive economic storm is coming and they want to be prepared for it.”

Then there’s James Wesley Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, who is behind the “Survival Blog,” an online outlet that preppers regularly read.

“We could see a cascade of higher interest rates, margin calls, stock market collapses, bank runs, currency revaluations, mass street protests, and riots,” he said in an interview with Reuters. “The worst-case end result would be a Third World War, mass inflation, currency collapses, and long term power grid failures.”

A screen shot from the American Preppers Network

Tom Martin launched “American Prepper’s Network” back in 2009 — a daily blog and support network that attracts thousands of individuals each week. The most recent post on the site’s blogreads:

Man-made disasters come in many forms. The most obvious would be spills and contamination caused by deteriorating materials, poor driving, train derailments, pipeline maintenance (or lack thereof), infrastructure collapse, policies that lead to coastal erosion, policies that contribute to widespread forest fires, sub-standard building codes, etc. There are other potential disasters that can be even more far-reaching. These include, but not limited to, monetary policies, tax codes, currency issues, stock market crashes, credit down grades, recession/depression, inflation/hyper-inflation (alaWeimar republic) and devaluation of a currency. Venezuela, Japan and others have experienced these events.

The list of possibilities is long and growing, but again, the prudent man attempts to prepare. For his family and his continued well-being.

This is only a small lens into the prepper movement, but this is nothing new. Throughout history, subsets of American society have remained ready and prepared for whatever may come. While critics may dub it an over reaction, preppers feel they’re simply being prudent.

For a glimpse into some others who are “prepping” for the future, be sure to watch GBTV’s “Independence USA” — a reality show featuring a family trying to live off the grid.

Below, watch a clip that provides a glimpse into the show:

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