If there’s one harmful stereotype that is stuck around concerning personal readiness and preparation, it is that everyone who preps is a “doomsday” prepper.
And it’s not even a sane doomsday: most “normie” folks think that people like us are preparing for zombie apocalypses, robot uprisings, alien invasions, gamma-ray bursts, magnetic pole reversals, and all sorts of ludicrous and impossible events.
But I want to let you in on a not-so-secret: the vast majority of preppers are normal people, your neighbors, and coworkers, who want to be ready when bad things happen just in case.
And those bad things they are preparing for? They have always happened, have happened recently and they will happen again.
The events of the past few years taught the whole world that when the chips are really down no one is coming. Your well-being and the well-being of your family is completely up to you.
Accordingly, today I’m bringing you a list of six things that preppers are actually prepping for that make total sense.
Pandemic
Oh, boy. Coming out of the gate swinging. Everybody remember 2020 through 2022? Remember what a great time that was? Well, never let it be said that such a thing can’t happen or won’t happen.
More than anything else I can think of in recent memory, the pandemic got people who have never prepped before on board with the idea. In most cases, whether they wanted to or not!
Government crackdowns and overreach, severe shortages of basic supplies and medicine, an uptake and violence in general insanity, and the ever-present, lurking fear of germs. Germs that might, in fact, kill you or someone you care about.
It was a bleak time, but as bad as it was, it was a lot closer to a birthday party compared to other outbreaks of the past. Spanish flu, cholera, tuberculosis, the black death: These were all pandemics that wiped out a significant fraction of national and world populations.
I think it’s safe to say that the COVID bubble has burst, but there is no telling when the next super germ might arrive on the scene. I can guarantee you that preppers, for one, will be prepared for it. The rest of the population? Not so much, as usual.
Shortages of Services and Supplies
It doesn’t take a pandemic to completely disrupt a supply chain. It only takes an accident and a subsequent domino effect, or in some cases even a single, isolated incident of good, old-fashioned human error.
Remember when that giant container ship Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal in 2021? Yeah, that didn’t help matters. Neither did truckers’ protests, highways and interstates being blocked by protesters and workers simply not showing up.
Modern commerce is nothing less than a miracle of logistics, logistics which are predicated upon an increasingly fragile web of interconnected nodes and functions, both human and electronic.
One thing goes wrong, one electron goes astray and the whole thing begins to break down and shortly thereafter unravel.
The result? The things you need simply don’t show up on store shelves, and those same stores can be emptied in less than a couple of days being dependent as they are on constant deliveries. Preppers today know this to be undeniably true and are now living their lives accordingly.
Whereas once it was considered adequate to have a stash of food and water, and maybe some bullets and bandages, for real trouble now folks are stocking up on everything from toilet paper and household cleaner to makeup, replacement parts for appliances and vehicles, and a whole lot more.
Shortage, lack, need: these things are always going to be the ultimate monkey on your back in times of trouble. The modern prepper, whatever their lifestyle, is fastidiously devoted to beating shortage before it arrives.
Natural Disasters
I’m going to make a blanket statement that if you don’t know many preppers you either live a life of idyllic obliviousness or you live in a place that simply does not fall victim to many natural disasters.
More than nearly anything else, it is regional and even local natural disasters that will make believers in the lifestyle of preparedness out of the unwashed and unprepared masses.
Simply put, natural disasters are probably the most frequent and certainly one of the most spectacular kinds of disasters that can occur.
From the scouring destruction of tornadoes to the widespread regional devastation that hurricanes can inflict and even seasonal threats like wildfires, avalanches, and more.
All are different, all have a different scale and effect, but all result in the same things. Destruction, loss of life, loss of property, and even more logistical challenges.
When help, real help, might be hours, days, weeks, or even months away in the immediate aftermath of a major disaster, having the goods, supplies, and skills to depend on so that you can keep yourself and your family alive is a cold comfort one that is sorely appreciated.
And as you might imagine, most adults who have a brain (re: preppers) and live in disaster-prone areas are constantly improving their posture of readiness.
If you live in one of these places, and you aren’t, you might need to get your head checked and right after putting your shopping list together.
Blackout
More than most places on earth, the US is increasingly vulnerable to and suffering from more and more severe blackouts. They’re happening more often, they are affecting more people when they do occur and they are lasting longer.
And I’m not talking about a little inconvenience after a strong but passing storm, either. I’m talking about blackouts that will cut power to tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of homes and people at once.
These colossal blackouts will bring commerce to a halt, gravely interfere with essential services and societal functions like hospitals, and imperil the lives of people who depend on life support, refrigerated medicine, clean food and water, and a lot more. I can’t even begin to go into all the second- and third-order effects here.
Suffice it to say that the jig is up: Everybody knows that the US power grid is old, decrepit, and extremely vulnerable to accident, disaster, direct (and primitive) attack, and cyber attack.
Just the past 10 to 20 years we have seen gargantuan blackouts take place on the West Coast and in New England, and both of them were arguably avoidable.
That doesn’t bode well for the future, and considering that for most folks living in the US electricity is what makes the world turn, preppers are taking notes and preparing accordingly.
Societal Unrest
The days immediately after 9/11 are gone. Long gone, and from where I sit it feels like they never happened.
America no longer feels like a country. It feels like an assemblage of countries, smaller nations made up of rival regional cultures, that are bullied by a federal government that is shot through to the core with corruption and drunk on its own power.
Calling this a powder keg with a lit fuse is an understatement. And don’t come at me with that “we are the world” and Morning in America stuff, either: violence is increasing, society is fraying at the seams and stitches are starting to pop.
Hard lines are being drawn, dehumanization of “enemies” by either side is occurring at an ever-increasing pace, and our justice system is either so compromised it cannot deal with ever-more vicious criminality or it is actively on the side of those who would tear our society apart.
Entire blocks of cities are taken over and burned down by mobs and absolutely nothing happens. If that isn’t surrender or apathy I don’t know what is.
The logical conclusion? No one’s coming to save you. There will be no justice, catharsis, healing, and learning. Violence, stupidity, and corruption reign, and sectarian, tribal associations will soon be the only ties that bind.
I know plenty of folks including your author here are fervently hoping and praying that that is not the case, but every day that goes by it looks like the writing is on the wall.
Preppers know that it’s a matter of guts and determination, and lots of other like-minded people pulling together for the common good of securing and actually protecting their possessions, holdings, and people that are the most important to them.
Terror Attacks / Active Shooters
Take all of the above factors and then take some latent mental illness. Add a big dose of mind-shredding stress, a dash crippling delusion, a heaping portion of frothing rage, a pinch of ideological motivation, and a steady stream of relentless cat’s paw implementation by domestic government agencies.
Put it all in a blender and hit liquefy. The resulting concoction, if you want to call it that, is simmering, terrible violence in the form of terror attacks and active shooters.
Whatever their actual reasons, whatever their actual goals, and whatever the inciting incident that put them on the path, you can bet your bottom dollar that we’ll see an increasing number of attacks on “soft” and densely-packed civilian locations by very small groups or “lone wolf” attackers with the intention of causing as many casualties as possible as quickly as possible.
I don’t think there’s a single soul alive in America that isn’t familiar with this type of threat in the current year: after all, the media sure won’t ever let us forget about it.
Preppers aren’t worried about zombies; they are worried about glassy-eyed, murderous maniacs. And, they are acting accordingly.
When bullets or shrapnel are flying and bodies are starting to pile up, it is not a time to improvise. Is it the time to beat feet or, if you can’t, time to fight back and barring that render aid to those who are hurt?
Preppers today know that evil, real evil, is absolutely real and they are planning to confront it head-on should the faithful day ever come.
Tom Marlowe practically grew up with a gun in his hand, and has held all kinds of jobs in the gun industry: range safety, sales, instruction and consulting, Tom has the experience to help civilian shooters figure out what will work best for them.
I am semi-retired and work part time in the produce department at a major grocery store chain in a small town. We receive a shipment every day of fresh produce. I can tell you that if there is ever a disruption in the supply chain (i.e., the trucks stop rolling, for whatever reason) you will notice the lack of fresh produce first. In just a few days, there would be next to nothing. Dairy is the same way. Dry goods could hold out for a while longer but not much, especially if people were panic buying. We are so used to being able to buy things like fresh produce even in the dead of winter without considering that during winter here, much of the produce we consume comes from South America where it is summer. It goes both ways somewhat, though winters are not as harsh in the south, especially in equatorial regions, where the growing season is year round. If that supply chain were disrupted, we would have very little access to such things. Forget tropical or exotic fruits! Anytime you get frustrated with trucks on the road, remember without them, your food, gas, and pretty much everything else would cease to exist! This is part of why we prepare.