"All hell will break loose": 'Prepper' families planning for Doomsday 

 

By Mirror.co.uk
 

The survivalism movement has been around since the 60s when Cold War fears prompted thousands into stockpiling food and weapons

Tim Ralston with his guns

Once a week Tim Ralston and his wife Marie take their three teenage kids to a secluded cabin in the Northern Arizona desert.  
Surrounded by wildlife and the cows, sheep and chickens they raise it looks like a perfect eco-friendly family retreat.
But the Ralstons are not there for an American version of The Good Life.
On arrival Marie heads straight to the pantry to check the 15 years worth of tinned and freeze-dried food they’ve stockpiled, the kids test out their survival gear, first aid kits and water purifying tablets and Tim gets in some self-defence practice with his Crovel.
It’s a 13-tools-in-one weapon he has designed himself and, as he is more than happy to demonstrate, it can slice a pig in half with two blows.
“It’s the Swiss army knife of shovels,” explains Tim proudly.
“The spike at one end, a pry bar, a hammer... and the blade itself is so strong it’s used as an axe. It’s very hardcore.”
It’s also selling like hot cakes and has been voted the No 1 Zombie Killing Tool in the World by the more extreme members of the growing community who, like Tim, are getting ready for Doomsday.

Planning: Tim teaching his family to use guns

For Tim and his family are Preppers, some of the tens of thousands of people worldwide preparing for Teotwawki – or The End Of The World As We Know It in their language.
The survivalism movement has been around since the 60s when Cold War fears of atomic attacks prompted hundreds of thousands of Americans into stockpiling food and weapons.
In 1999, fears of the Y2K computer bug triggered another surge in prepping, while the 9/11 attacks and terrorism alerts drove it to new highs.
Survivalists used to be dismissed as wild-bearded weirdos living in caves.
But this week the Prepper phenomenon was thrown into the spotlight by the Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut.
Across the US, and in Europe and even the UK, apparently ordinary people are also preparing for WTSHF – prepping jargon for disaster, or when the s*** hits the fan.
They have their own organisation, the American Preppers Network, their own TV series Doomsday Preppers and Preppers UK on the National Geographic cable channel and scores of “how to prep” shows on local radio.

The supplies: Stockpiles of food

Then there are the websites and blogs, magazines and books like Preppers’ Home Defence, a snip at £8.35 in Walmart.
And a huge industry is cashing in on their fears with companies selling special food and equipment – such as the air-purifying SCape Mask – as well as purpose-built shelters.
In North Salt Lake, Utah, builder Paul Seyfried is doing a roaring trade in bespoke bunkers which cost from £32,000 to £40,000.
Some Preppers will have woken up this morning feeling pretty confused as, according to one doomsday prophecy based on the ancient Mayan calendar, the world should have ended yesterday.
Tim, 49, a former IT consultant, did not believe that was how the end would come, nor does he think it will be a zombie apocalypse, plague, or bio-chemical attack, as other Preppers do.
He fears an electromagnetic pulse attack, triggered by man-made sources such as a missile or small nuclear bomb, or through the sun having a solar flare.
It would cause all electrical systems to blow up rendering everyday life ­impossible.

But Tim, Marie, their 15-year-old daughter and sons aged 16 and 13, insist they could survive for up to a year “off the grid” in a post-apocalypse world by “bugging-out” from their home in Scottsdale to their secret cabin.
Their food store has hundreds of tins of chicken, beef and tuna neatly lined up.
And then there’s the stockpile of weapons – from an AK-47 assault rifle to hunting rifles – giving Tim enough firepower to keep a mini army at bay.
Tim, who runs a store specialising in outdoor and survival gear, adds: “My whole family knows how to shoot and use weapons responsibly.
"Why would they not want to know how to use a gun? I bring a gun to work with me every day.

Gas mask: Purifier air kit for Preppers

"If someone comes into my store and threatens me with a weapon I am not going to tell them to go away simply with good intentions.
“That is what my gun is for. People will not argue with a gun.”
With other Preppers living nearby, he said their community has all the skills needed to stay alive
 “The whole point of being a Prepper is that you are prepared for the worst,” he says.
“It’s a kind of insurance – like health insurance or life insurance.
“Prepping is different than survivalism. Survivalists used to be those lone guys sitting up the mountains counting beans and rice.
“The Preppers build communities with networks of people that have like minds and goals, mainly to protect themselves.”
His views are echoed by Jeff Nice, 46, who lives on a 13 acre farm in North Carolina with wife Jeannie and their stockpile of food and weapons.

Bunker mentality: Hideout full of supplies

They also have a 200 yard rifle range and teach other Preppers “hunter education”.
The Nices’ big fear is nuclear apocalypse.
“When there is an attack all hell will break loose,” says Jeff. “People will be looking for ways to survive.
“No one thought there would be a 9/11. You only have to see how unstable the world is and then people will realise what we are doing is not crazy.”
Jay Blevins, 35, from Berryville, Virginia is a former deputy sheriff and Swat team officer who now teaches self-defence.
He has been prepping for more than a decade and estimates he’s spent £9,000 on supplies.
His family is part of a network of 20 Prepper families who have three “strongholds”— houses with additional supplies — as well as a “bug-out” location in a wooded area away from cities.

  The bunker: Paul builds bespoke shelters

They also have a contingency plan to leave there and Jay believes, because of the network members’ skills, they could survive indefinitely.
He says: “You might laugh – but there’s millions of people that suffer in large types of emergencies, just because they didn’t do a little bit of preparation beforehand.”
"Preppers seek to prepare, save, and defend life. Preppers are like Victoria Soto, the teacher who sacrificed her life for her students.”

Top 10 survival items

1. Water and water filter
2. Food – easy to prepare such as military style rations or dehydrated
3. Bag packed with essential supplies for spending 72 hours without any outside help
4. Shelter such as tent or tarpaulin
5. First aid supplies and medication
6. Back up communication – CB, ham radio, am/fm radio
7. Generator
8. Escape vehicle
9. Security devices – pepper spray, Taser, baton, knife
10. Stored fuel for escape vehicle and power generator

Hurricane Sandy and the Disaster-Preparedness Economy

BUSINESS NEWS        The New York Times  Nov 2012

Folks here don't wish disaster on their fellow Americans. They didn't pray for Hurricane Sandy to come grinding up the East Coast, tearing lives apart and plunging millions into darkness.

But the fact is, disasters are good business in Waukesha. And, lately, there have been a lot of disasters.

This Milwaukee suburb, once known for its curative spring waters and, more recently, for being a Republican stronghold in a state that President Obama won on Election Day, happens to be the home of one of the largest makers of residential generators in the country. So when the lights go out in New York — or on the storm-savaged Jersey Shore or in tornado-hit Missouri or wherever — the orders come pouring in like a tidal surge.

It's all part of what you might call the Mad Max Economy, a multibillion-dollar-a-year collection of industries that thrive when things get really, really bad. Weather radios, kerosene heaters, D batteries, candles, industrial fans for drying soggy homes — all are scarce and coveted in the gloomy aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and her ilk.

It didn't start with the last few hurricanes, either. Modern Mad Max capitalism has been around a while, decades even, growing out of something like old-fashioned self-reliance, political beliefs and post-Apocalyptic visions. The cold war may have been the start, when schoolchildren dove under desks and ordinary citizens dug bomb shelters out back. But economic fears, as well as worries about climate change and an unreliable electronic grid have all fed it.

Driven of late by freakish storms, this industry is growing fast, well beyond the fringe groups that first embraced it. And by some measures, it's bigger than ever.

Businesses like Generac Power Systems, one of three companies in Wisconsin turning out generators, are just the start.

The market for gasoline cans, for example, was flat for years. No longer. "Demand for gas cans is phenomenal, to the point where we can't keep up with demand," says Phil Monckton, vice president for sales and marketing at Scepter, a manufacturer based in Scarborough, Ontario. "There was inventory built up, but it is long gone."

Even now, nearly two weeks after the superstorm made landfall in New Jersey, batteries are a hot commodity in the New York area. Win Sakdinan, a spokesman for Duracell, says that when the company gave away D batteries in the Rockaways, a particularly hard-hit area, people "held them in their hands like they were gold."

Sales of Eton emergency radios and flashlights rose 15 percent in the week before Hurricane Sandy — and 220 percent the week of the storm, says Kiersten Moffatt, a company spokeswoman. "It's important to note that we not only see lifts in the specific regions affected, we see a lift nationwide," she wrote in an e-mail. "We've seen that mindfulness motivates consumers all over the country to be prepared in the case of a similar event."

Garo Arabian, director of operations at B-Air, a manufacturer based in Azusa, Calif., says he has sold thousands of industrial fans since the storm. "Our marketing and graphic designer is from Syria, and he says: 'I don't understand. In Syria, we open the windows.' "

But Mr. Arabian says contractors and many insurers know that mold spores won't grow if carpeting or drywall can be dried out within 72 hours. "The industry has grown," he says, "because there is more awareness about this kind of thing."

Retailers that managed to stay open benefited, too. Steve Rinker, who oversees 11 Lowe's home-improvement stores in New York and New Jersey, says his stores were sometimes among the few open in a sea of retail businesses.

Predictably, emergency supplies like flashlights, lanterns, batteries and sump pumps sold out quickly, even when they were replenished. The one sought-after item that surprised him the most? Holiday candles. "If anyone is looking for holiday candles, they are sold out," he says. "People bought every holiday candle we have during the storm."

If the hurricane was a windfall for Lowe's, its customers didn't seem to mind. Rather, most appeared exceedingly grateful when Mr. Rinker, working at a store in Paterson, N.J., pointed them toward a space heater, or a gasoline can, that could lessen the misery of another day without power.

While sales of emergency supplies spike during storms, several retailers and manufacturers — including Generac — say their baseline of sales has grown in recent years, too, perhaps driven by economic uncertainty and the frequency of wild weather and power failures in an overtaxed electrical grid.

"Anytime you see as much devastation as what happened in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and in Joplin, Mo., it brings it to everybody's minds," says Mike Vaughn, president of the National Storm Shelter Association, referring to devastating tornadoes that swept through both cities last year. He added, "$5,000 isn't much to save your family's life," a reference to the approximate cost of a storm shelter.

Mr. Vaughn owns a company, too, which makes concrete storm shelters for protection against tornadoes, and he says business has grown about 30 percent in recent years. Talk to him and it's clear that he isn't a doommonger. Yet the members of his association market their products aggressively, warning about the dangers from tornadoes and hurricanes and telling how their products can save lives.

"Nature is strong," says the Web site for Vaughn Concrete Products, Mr. Vaughn's company. "Our shelters are stronger."

That sort of disaster marketing is all over the place, in the hope that the memory of a nasty storm will persuade consumers to plan ahead and, of course, spend some money.

It's hard to define the overall market for disaster supplies. For one thing, many products that are useful in emergencies — flashlights, batteries, duct tape and extension cords, to name a few — are also handy for everyday chores. And other products, like "bugout bags," packs holding enough gear to survive a disaster for a few days, continue to be marketed to a small, but apparently growing, niche of survivalists.

But there's little question that the market is in the multiple billions of dollars. The size of the generator market in the United States, including residential, commercial and industrial models, is roughly $3 billion. Trying to nail down a figure for survival supplies is a much more dicey exercise, given the fuzzy parameters of the market.

Jonathan Dick, director of sales and marketing for the Ready Store, whose slogan is "where America goes to get ready," estimates that the market for disaster supplies like freeze-dried food, flashlights and radios was $500 million for consumers, but several billion dollars when sales to businesses and government agencies are folded in.

"The industry is very event-driven," he says. "When there is a hurricane like this, or the stock market crashes, we'll see crazy increases in demand."

Mr. Dick says the core customer for his company, which is based in Draper, Utah, and includes retail and online sales, remains "conservative, gun-toting Republicans." But he says the industry is steadily attracting a broader audience. And major retailers have taken note.

Both Walmart and Costco now sell a year's supply of food, much of it freeze-dried. Costco's offering is 120 gallon-size cans of food for $1,499.99. Sears offers emergency/survival rations for dogs. And the National Geographic Channel has a reality series called "Doomsday Preppers," which "explores the lives of otherwise ordinary Americans who are preparing for the end of the world as we know it."

David Lyle, the chief executive of the National Geographic Channel, said the program was a breakout hit in its first season. The second season will begin on Tuesday.

"You start by thinking, 'Wow, these people are odd.' Then there is this creeping realization: Who is crazy now?" says Mr. Lyle, who notes that other shows like "The Walking Dead" and "Revolution" deal with similar themes, like living off the grid (albeit with zombies). "How interesting that some of them believe that the oil supply will run out and that will result in civil unrest. And now with Sandy, you see people having brawls in gas lines."

If there were a headquarters for the emergency preparedness market, one candidate would be Wisconsin, the center of residential generator manufacturing. Generac's two biggest competitors, Briggs & Stratton and Kohler, are also in the Badger State.

That may be no coincidence. The German immigrants who flocked to the state were particularly skilled in manufacturing engines, in addition to beer and bratwurst.

The founder of Generac, however, was an Iowa transplant and an engineer, Robert Kern, who found a way to make generators so they were more affordable for home use. The time was 1959, during the cold war, when Waukesha had its own missile silo, on the east side of town.

People scarcely seem to remember all of that — and the missile silo is now a park. But that period may have been the beginning of a survivalist economy, the early shoots of Mad Max capitalism.

It has grown ever since, through recessions and wars, Y2K and 9/11, tornadoes and hurricanes.

So has Generac, with a 15 percent compound annual growth rate since 2000. In 2012, with a big boost from Sandy, the company expects shipments of residential products, which account for 60 percent of its business, to increase nearly 40 percent.

At the company's plant in Whitewater, Wis., about 30 miles southwest of Waukesha, employees have worked three shifts, six days a week, since Hurricane Sandy increased demand. The plant makes residential generators and power washers. Inside, wires and cranes dangle above a bustling factory floor where workers, many in Green Bay Packers garb, assemble the parts. Air hoses hiss, drills drone and carts beep to alert unhurried visitors and keep them from being run over. At a 200,000-square foot distribution warehouse across a parking lot, oversize boxes of generators are stacked high, awaiting shipment.

"Everything in this building, except for the power washers, is sold and then some," says Russ Minick, Generac's executive vice president for residential products. "The metrics on this storm have been nothing like we have ever seen. Compared to Hurricane Isaac, this is five times bigger."

At the company's newly rehabilitated headquarters in Waukesha, Aaron P. Jagdfeld, the youthful and enthusiastic chief executive, says major storms typically create an immediate demand for portable generators — and the demand from Sandy was unprecedented.

But while his company has sold tens of thousands of portable generators in recent weeks, Mr. Jagdfeld gets more excited talking about the longer-term possibilities: the sale of more permanent, and more expensive, "standby" generators that can be hooked into a house's natural gas line and that turn on immediately when the power goes off.

He explains that standby generators for homes were once considered appropriate for only the largest estates. But the worries of Y2K — the idea that computers would stop functioning in the new millennium — made the company realize that it could sell standby computers to a broader market if it could bring down the price, he says.

He now envisions a day when standby generators, which start around $4,500, fully installed, are as common as central air-conditioning, a goal that is a long way off but one helped immeasurably by Hurricane Sandy. Standby generators are in roughly 2.5 percent of stand-alone single-family homes, he said.

"No one knows about it," Mr. Jagdfeld says, but he adds, "It is the next must-have appliance."

He later tempers his enthusiasm. "We don't want to appear we are profit-mongering," he says. "This is a horrible situation. It's really, really tough, the marketing around that."

For now, at least, with tens of thousands still without power and millions of others harboring grim memories, a chimpanzee could sell generators by the truckload. Like Generac, Briggs & Stratton and Kohler say they, too, are swamped by demand.

"People are really starting to understand the impact of what a power outage means to them, and it is changing their behavior," says Melanie Tydrich, a senior manager at Kohler, which sells kitchen and bath appliances and standby generators, among other things. "It's just not something they want to live through again."

Laura Giangeruso, the mother of two girls, 4 weeks old and 7 years old, certainly fits that description.

In the wake of the storm, Ms. Giangeruso, who is 42 and lives in Glen Ridge, N.J., spent nine of 10 nights living with relatives because her house had no power. With a newborn, she says, she had little choice but to leave. But she says the solution became obvious during a visit with her sister, who lives nearby.

"It was like a miracle," she says. "The power went out, and then in like 30 seconds, I heard this hum." She lifts her hands from her hips upward, along her sides. "And then the power came on."

So now she is leading an electrical contractor through her home's cold and dark basement, pointing out the electric box and meter, all so she can get an estimate on a standby generator of her own. A neighbor, Chris Nehrbauer, tags along, partly to be neighborly but partly because he is getting an estimate next.

Jack Lamb, the contractor, who works for Bloomfield Cooling, Heating and Electric, says he has been working nonstop since the storm, providing estimates. When he shows up for an estimate, often four or five neighbors are waiting, he says, adding that he is booked through Jan. 8.

Ms. Giangeruso, who notes that last year, after the "Snowtober storm" on Halloween, her house was powerless for six days. "If we are talking in the neighborhood of $6,000, it is worth every dollar. If I could get it right now, I'd write a check," she says. "The wives in this area don't want jewelry for Christmas. They want generators."

FEMA  Builds 'Hurricane domes' as shelters -- and gyms

By Juan Lozano,    NBCNews.com

 David J. Phillip / AP Work continues on the construction of a hurricane dome at Edna High School in Edna, Texas, on Dec. 6.  

Most of the time, the windowless building with the dome-shaped roof will be a typical high school gymnasium filled with cheering fans watching basketball and volleyball games.

But come hurricane season, the structure that resembles a miniature version of the famed Astrodome will double as a hurricane shelter, part of an ambitious storm-defense system that is taking shape along hundreds of miles of the Texas Gulf Coast.

Its brawny design — including double-layer cinder-block walls reinforced by heavy duty steel bars and cement piers that plunge 30 feet into the ground — should allow it to withstand winds up to 200 mph.

"There is nothing standard" about the building, said Bob Wells, superintendent of the Edna school district, as he stood inside the $2.5 million gym, which is set to be completed by March. "The only standard stuff is going to be the stuff we do inside."

The Edna dome is one of 28 such buildings planned to protect sick, elderly and special-needs residents who might be unable to evacuate ahead of a hurricane. First-responders and local leaders will also be able to take refuge in the domes, allowing them to begin recovery efforts faster after a storm has passed.

Storm-defense structures are getting increased attention in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which inflicted heavy damage on the East Coast in October. The city of New York, for instance, is considering a multi-billion-dollar system of sea barriers.

For Texas, a state always in danger during hurricane season, the domes offer the extra benefit of serving as recreation or community centers when not needed as shelters. They are being erected with help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

David J. Phillip / AP Bob Wells, superintendent of the Edna Independent School District, shows the new domed gym under construction in Edna, Texas.

"I think it's good for FEMA, and I think it's good for us. And I think it's good for the taxpayers," Wells said.

The gym in Edna, a town of 5,500 people about 100 miles southwest of Houston, is the second hurricane dome in Texas. The first was built in 2011 in Woodsboro, near Corpus Christi. Most of the domes will be around 20,000 square feet.

The plan calls for structures in 11 counties in the Rio Grande Valley, around Corpus Christi and along the coast from Victoria to Newton counties, said Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

So far, $34.5 million has been awarded. This month, FEMA approved funds for a hurricane dome that will serve as a community center in Brownsville, one that will serve as a wellness center and physical rehabilitation facility in Bay City and two that will serve as multi-purpose training centers in Kingsville.

Inside the gym in Edna, Wells' voice echoed as he pointed to the ceiling, which has layers of sprayed-on concrete, insulation and rebar, all of which are under a heavy duty fabric that gives the structure its distinctive wind-resistant shape.

The doorways are covered by awnings of heavy gauge metal and supported by concrete girders that go 15 feet into the ground.

FEMA is paying for 75 percent of the dome structures, with local communities picking up the remaining cost.

The funding is part of the agency's initiative to help homeowners and communities build hardened shelters that provide protection from extreme weather.

Nationwide, more than $683 million has been awarded in 18 states, including Texas, Alabama, Michigan and South Carolina.

Walking around the gym, Wells said it reminded him of when, as a teenager, he first walked into the Astrodome after it opened in 1965 in Houston.

"It was like, 'Oh, wow, this is so cool,'" he said. "I'm still kind of in the 'Oh, wow' stage with this."