Ready for the apocalypse! One American family shows what it takes to prepare

dailymail ^ | 23 March 2013 | By Ryan Herman

[dennisw]

Imagine if suddenly, and completely without warning, the world experienced a total blackout – no electricity, no mobile phones, no banks, no internet, no TV, no emergency services.

As it becomes apparent that the lights are never coming back on, nations are plunged into chaos, mass riots break out in major cities and, without electricity, governments are toppled. Into the vacuum step ad-hoc militias, armed and ready to enforce their own rule of law.

This is the apocalyptic premise of the hit American TV series Revolution, which begins on Sky 1 this week. In the first episode, viewers are pulled through this nightmarish chain of events.

So, what would you do? It’s a question that members of a burgeoning subculture known as ‘Preppers’ – people who are prepared for any kind of disaster – have been asking themselves for years.

Preppers look at the world around them and see all kinds of potential threats – economic collapse, global warming, terrorism, nuclear war, dwindling energy supplies, asteroid strikes and, yes, a prolonged blackout.

They’ve largely reached the same conclusion: the end of the world as we know it is just around the corner, and time is running out to gear up for the total collapse of society.

Furthermore, the recession has seen ‘Prepping’ become a multibillion-dollar industry, with many American Preppers spending thousands every year stocking up on supplies

Ron Douglas has seen business boom in the past 12 months. A founder of the Red Shed Media Group in the States, he’s enjoying what might be described as the ‘profits of doom’.

Last year, Red Shed organised five Self Reliance Expos, which pulled in 40,000 punters at $10 a head, while its radio network has notched up over two million podcast downloads.

[DPMD]

A few buckets of beans ought to fix that.

[tbw2]

I’ve seen multiple history documentaries on the people sent to live in the Western United States and settling in Australia. We’ll solve the urban poor problem by sending them to the unsettled country to farm! People who had no idea how to farm were sent out to the wilderness. Those few who were farmers pushed out to the unexplored areas were able to make it, because they knew how to farm and only had to deal with rough territory. The city dwellers who had no idea what to do typically drifted back to the cities or became miners.

[metmom]

OPSEC is everything

OPSEC is everything what?

I Like trying to figure out acronyms but this one has me stumped.

[metmom]

You just don’t get it, do you?

[Old Sarge]

OPSEC = “OPerations SECurity”.

Basically put, you don’t broadcast to the world who you are, where you live, what you own, and what you’re planning to do with it.

The Leftist Media is notorious for blowing the bejeezus out of OPSEC when there’s a Republican government: “Mr. President, regarding the upcoming military operations, which units are deploying, when and where will they attack, and what are the street addresses of the families of the generals in charge?”

[Marcella]

“After reading all of these doomsday posts I am going to spend the rest of my life worrying and gathering supplies so that I can hunker down in some filthy hovel and protect my stash.”

Your thinking of preppers worrying all the time is wrong. I am a prepper and have prepared and don’t worry about anything that could happen. Hurricanes come through here even though I’m 100 miles from the coast. If I wasn’t prepared for that, you bet I would be worried. Since I am prepared, I don’t worry about hurricanes and that goes for any emergency that could happen.

[familyop]

I wonder how many folks making comments here know that the British article above this thread generally equates preppers with psychotic mass murderers?

[familyop]

From the British article behind the link.

"The show hasn’t met with broad approval within the Prepper community, perhaps because it sheds light on a more sinister side of the movement, one that generated headlines when it was reported that the mother of Sandy Hook killer Adam Lanza was a Prepper."

"Nancy Lanza, Adam’s first victim, was shot four times before her son embarked on a killing spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School, murdering 20 schoolchildren and six teachers before taking his own life."

[ansel12]

If and when your scenerio should ever come true then we truly have reached a point where life on this earth is not worth living.

Speak for yourself, many of us are from families and regions in America that didn't get total relief from centuries of that kind of living until the last 95 years or so, and many of us wouldn't mind a challenge even today.

[metmom]

Ok. Thanks.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

"without electricity, governments are toppled. Into the vacuum step ad-hoc militias, armed and ready to enforce their own rule of law."

Wrong. This the most untrue, and yet the most universally accepted, assertion I see among preppers. Think of the fedgov. Think how HUGE it is. It is not going to simply disappear one day because there is no electricity. They have EMP hardened equiptment, and plenty gas (millions of gallons in reserves) and generators to run it. Even if it didn't it still wouldn't just disappear like a puff of smoke.

If anything the government will expand, exponentially. It won't protect citizens from riots, hurricanes, tornados like many head-in-the-sand general populace folks would expect...But it will still be there, ready to gobble up and consolidate any power that it can.