Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple years, you’ve no doubt noticed prepping has become much more commonplace. The CDC late last year began their Zombie Apocalypse campaign to increase awareness. Books on top of books about survival are selling like hot cakes. Heck, even Chevy got into it with an ad running during the Super Bowl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XxFYYP8040A
While I’m all for educating folks about disaster readiness, I do sometimes wonder if all this increased media focus is a good thing. Back during the run up to Y2K, thousands of people got into the prepping mindset and bought tons of equipment, freeze-dried food, and bottled water. Then, when nothing happened, their interest died. I know several long-time survivalists who made a killing buying up all those goodies from the people who just wanted to get rid of the stuff they didn’t think they needed anymore.
Is the same thing going to happen again at the end of this year? I really don’t know how many people out there truly believe the end of the world is going to happen December 21st. I certainly don’t. But I have to believe there is a large percentage of people out there who are buying up the survival manuals and stocking up on toilet paper now who are going to falter with their preps when nothing major happens at the appointed hour.
My own philosophy about prepping goes something like this. If you are prepared for an end of the world scenario, then you are almost certainly prepared for an event that falls short. By that, I mean if you are truly ready to survive, say, an EMP burst that takes our country back to medieval technology in a heartbeat, then you are probably well prepared to handle a two day power outage due to an ice storm.
With that said though, there are so many potential threats that could be totally life-changing to our society today. EMP, solar flares, New Madrid fault, Yellowstone caldera, nuclear launches, the list goes on. To my way of thinking, it is folly to believe nothing major will ever happen. Might not be in my lifetime, might not happen in my eventual grandchildren’s lifetimes. But history has shown nothing lasts forever, right?
My sincerest hope when it comes to all the media hype about prepping is that at least some of the people who catch the bug now keep with it in the months and years to come, should such time be given to us. Like I’ve said, it is just common sense.
I hope that I two or three three week power outage because of an ice storm is the most that I have to prepare for I wish that volcanoes and earthquakes or wars did not happen.
Wishing and hopeing is not good planning so I guess I’ll go ahead and keep on preparing for anything that I can think of I hope and wish others do the same but it’s not something I plan on. Have a happy Valentine’s Day see you later