Heard The Prepared on NPR this morning in an interview titled “Doomsday Prepping Goes Mainstream”

Bradical - June 30, 2021

I listen to NPR every day as part of my daily news sources and entertainment and was surprised to hear a friendly name, The Prepared!

The interview was well done and goes over how prepping is becoming more popular and isn’t just for the old white guys in their underground bunker. 

If you need something to listen to on your drive into work here’s the link: https://the1a.org/segments/doomsday-prepping-goes-mainstream/

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Hi, that was me! Thanks for noticing and sharing, and you’re all more than welcome here.

The live show was an hour, but it looks like they cut the podcast down to 30m. 

Of the bits that were cut for the podcast, the part I think was most important was busting this myth that because you prepare / care about self-reliance, that somehow means you’ve given up on life and society and don’t do anything to help fix the problems we face.

… which is 100% categorically false. Just because you have car insurance doesn’t mean you choose to drive like an idiot. Just because you have homeowners insurance doesn’t mean you stop doing preventative maintenance on your house. And so on.

Some other stuff that came up:

• The new austere first aid course
• Use the FIFO method to cheaply build up a buffer of the stuff you already buy and use in normal life 
• CERT community response teams 

 

Good morning Bradical,

This is great news.

Later will check out that NPR link you provided above. Merci for this !

 

I am sure all the curious newbs (like me) did a number on your site because of that report. It’s good to find a level-headed site where I can talk about and work on my own preparedness. 

 

Welcome to the site! I’m glad you joined the forum and I look forward to learning from and talking preparedness with you.

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of prepping Sunfell. You came to the right place.

What are some things you would like to be more prepared for? 

 

Interesting question! For me, climate change is a major unknown, and the patterns of the past no longer fit. Neither do the creatures: I have geckos living on my porch, and they are not native to my area (AR). We had to deal with a deep winter freeze that broke major water mains in Little Rock, and froze folks in for over a week. Our homes aren’t insulated for that kind of thing. 

The pandemic was like a practice run on how to cope with crazy, shifting logistics. I am glad that I have a decent pantry with a backstock of things that people tend to hoard (TP, food staples). I’d like to be part of a local community that promotes disaster preparedness without all the paranoia, because I feel that everyone should at least have a preparedness mindset. 

 

Good morning Sunfell,

Welcome to the forum and overall preparedness community.

If interested in joining a local community disaster preparedness group, Arkansas is about the same as the rest of our places: some few real groups comingled among the many others.

You know the fundamentals; avoid groups offering seminars on hunting rabbits with  57mm  mortars, land navigation by directly heading into the wilderness, the best clothing means leaf camoflage …

I learned of the Arkansas Prepper Network a couple of years ago at at prepper news site. What you’re looking for is takes some time to identify and locate.  Keep in touch with your state emergency response agency and area FEMA org.

 

Hi Sunfell, I’m located a little ways north in SW MO, but same general climate if a little cooler. We were minus 20ºF something in the cold snap, lots of folks had problems here too. Part of the deal in the middle of the country where our weather comes from Canada, Pacific, GOM, you name it. I get the feeling that those outlier events will be what saps our resources and resilience going forward from here. They aren’t the romantic overnight apocalypse many think of, more like death by a thousand cuts. Our own personal infrastructure is the place to concentrate efforts at first I think.

I’m not really a joiner, and I don’t share my plans widely, well, not at all to be honest. Probably I’m paranoid but I know myself and I’d have a hard time turning anyone away. I would and do help whoever I can but I don’t want to be known as a fat target for whomever before hand. I try to be a helpful, friendly neighbor though, sorta let folks know I’m “handy”, dependable, approachable, etc. Close by neighbors will be natural allies, but best to be on a neutral footing, I think. I don’t want to be the guy everyone figures “Why should I stock up? I’ll just head to Pop’s if something goes down!”

Which is why I like the semi-anonymity of online groups. Especially a politically neutral version like this.

 

Climate change is not something I used to consider but the past two years I’ve seen some bad weather that normally wouldn’t have occurred and it made me realize that this will be a bigger threat than I thought. 

In 10-20 years we will probably have even more dramatic swings of weather and need to be even further prepared. 

 

Thank you for sharing this link Bradical! I always enjoy hearing The Prepared’s founder John do interviews and share prepping with others.

 

I listened to the NPR interview yesterday and checked out the site as soon as I got in the house. Glad to have found The Prepared.

 

Welcome to the forum! May I recommend the four articles under the “Start Prepping” button on the top left corner of the page?

These articles really helped me out a few years ago to develop a sane and level headed approach to prepping and not feel so overwhelmed. I had  been prepping for years before finding this site and was kind of all over and had very unbalanced preps. Too many guns and hazmat suits and not enough first aid, food, and water. But this site set me straight and my preps are still a work in progress, but are much more balanced and I have my basics down. 

The forums here are great and we have a wonderful community here, so feel free to jump into conversations and ask or comment whatever is on your mind. No question is dumb or too beginner.

 

I heard it too and then went to the website.   Been there ever since :-).  

 

Welcome to anyone who may be new to the site. I have visited it a couple of times a week for the past year and a half. Spurred by the “sane prepper” concept, I have moved from a condo to a small home in a small town. I didn’t want shared hallways, problematic homeowners association dynamics, lack of storage space, a 40-year-old shared water well, and outdoor parking in a cold climate any more. I appreciate this site for helping me think through what I was doing and why.

 

Good progress Seasons4! The recent disaster at the Florida condo likely reinforced those sound decisions for you. 

 

Hi, that was me! Thanks for noticing and sharing, and you’re all more than welcome here.

The live show was an hour, but it looks like they cut the podcast down to 30m. 

Of the bits that were cut for the podcast, the part I think was most important was busting this myth that because you prepare / care about self-reliance, that somehow means you’ve given up on life and society and don’t do anything to help fix the problems we face.

… which is 100% categorically false. Just because you have car insurance doesn’t mean you choose to drive like an idiot. Just because you have homeowners insurance doesn’t mean you stop doing preventative maintenance on your house. And so on.

Some other stuff that came up:

• The new austere first aid course
• Use the FIFO method to cheaply build up a buffer of the stuff you already buy and use in normal life 
• CERT community response teams 

 

That is so ridiculous! I am still very active in my community and try to help it and others but they are the ones that are dragging their feet so I need to supplement and do some preparing on my own to at least keep myself afloat and protected when the disaster comes. 

I very much know that society can come back and work together on solving issues if they want to. It’s all about where our priorities lie.

 

Good afternoon Dragoon,

Don’t forget we’re still in the “In case of emergency call 9-1-1” environment. When this evaporates away our fruited plain will improve.

Not too much is new under the sun. We’ll get through this.

 

Dropped in to say that I, too, listened to this podcast. It was nice to put a voice to the face and name, John Ramey.

This may be the result of the editing, but it seemed like you didn’t get enough time to delve into the sane prepper mantra. It seemed like the host was really pushing the emphasis on “doomsday”, despite stating how prepping has evolved over the decades. Also, a little less time could have been given to the fiction author. Yeah, there was some relevant personal experience there and I’m a fan of thinking about problems before encountering them… Totally dug the bit about how prepping can be done on a tight budget. People need to know that they can do it.

 

I found the story very helpful to post on my wall and send out to friends that I was hoping to get more interested in prepping. Though I was really discouraged by some of the comments from listeners about how we should be focusing on fixing things. I never understood the mentality that we can’t be actively involved in both.

 

People are funny. I wonder if it isn’t just easier to toss that out there than to take responsibility to safeguard your own home & family in case ‘fixing things’ doesn’t succeed? I’d be willing to bet those same people aren’t doing much fixing either. My favorite response has been ‘I’ll just come to your house.’

 

I’ve stopped telling the average person, like my co-workers, that my side hobby is emergency preparedness because they don’t care, they think I’m nuts, and the response every single time is “I’ll just come to your house”. I know they are joking, but are they really? When food and supplies are scarce are they going to remember this conversation and really show up to my house? I like them and all, but I can’t prepare for my entire office staff.

I do believe in sharing emergency preparedness with others, being a leader, and helping others. But you have to do so smartly, otherwise it could turn out badly. So I only tell close friends who will respect me and will be receptive to learning more and doing something about it themselves instead of just having their emergency preparedness plan be “I’ll just come to your house”.

 

LOL, so true! Even our grown kids haven’t seen most of what we’ve done. When they were little we’d talk about it some with close friends & realized they actually meant it when they said they’d come to our house. So I switched over to teaching skills like gardening & canning, preserves, sewing, small livestock, etc. instead, and figured that was helping out in the right direction without over sharing. 

 

That’s a better strategy to say you are into something like gardening or fitness. If they show interest in those topics I can talk peas or pushups with them.

 

With three kids now entering college, we’ve had a LOT of kids and parents in and out of our homes the past 20 years.   We make our prep items as discrete as possible, and if anyone asks, we say “It’s for camping”.   

Whenever we discuss in public, we always use “camping” as our code.  

 

Camping is a safe code word. It is a very similar to prepping and bugging out and easily explains all the gear.

 

I had to laugh because I think “camping” is probably most preppers’ code word, even among those of us that go camping.

And now that I reflect on my neighbor recently telling me that her sons went “camping” in the Blue Ridge Mountains, it just confirmed for me that they are preppers, too, based on how she described it.

I get it, I like to go camping/testing prepping gear, too. LOL

Maybe that insight is an opportunity for networking… Hmmm…

 

Thanks for posting this.  I’ve not been as consistent in my NPR listening without a commute as I’m still working from home.  Great that TP is getting more press and the message out to more people.  

 

I’ve visited this site before but it was this npr story that got me to sign up. I don’t even listen to npr anymore but I caught wind of it somehow… probably on reddit, and listened. I’m thankful for the level headed way this site presents prepping. Like some on here, I sent this site to a few friends that I’m trying to encourage to start doing for themselves. This is the first prepper site I found that I’m not embarrassed to show to my friends. Thanks for doing this.

 

I share this site with many people as well. Not sure if they ever go look at it, but there isn’t anything on here I’d be embarrassed to share unlike many other tin foil conspiracy prepping sites I’ve come in contact with over the years.

Everyone should at least go through a few of the basic articles and get their feet wet with some food and water storage.