Survivalist Preppers discussion

Do you consider yourself to be a Prepper? If so, what kinds of disasters or threats do you prepare for and why? What got you into the lifestyle? Did a real-life event push you into preparedness, or was it something you read in a book?

Yes. I prepare for whatever. Losing a job, flood, electrical outages, anything g that could happen. Only people on Doomsday Prepper prepare for one emergency.

I don't really consider myself a prepper. I consider myself #1 a mom. My kids need to be safe, protected, healthy, and relatively comfortable no matter what. There's infinite situations where things may go awry...Having the supplies to live safely and in relative comfort whether there's horrid weather, or some kind of social unrest, or quarantines, Biblical calamities...whatever...It's a mom's responsibility to provide security for her children...and foresight is critical.
I've learned a heck of a lot from LDS friends...They were 'preppers' before 'prepping' was cool...lolol...

Yes, I do consider myself something of a prepper. I guess, and this will sound crazy so bear with me, I'm prepping for the EMP event. Now understand, I don't think we'll have one in my lifetime, but it is the worst possible event that I can imagine. To me, if I prepare for the worst thing I can imagine, I should be ok in a lesser emergency.

I got into prepping because it was how my grandparents lived. They had a pantry, root celler, and a variety of skills that most of the people of my generation have forgetten even exist. My grandfather died at the age of 98, he was truly a man out of time and he passed that on to me.

While I'd been a decent prepper in my everyday life, what really got me into the lifestyle was an ice storm a few years ago. My area of Arkansas lost power for 2 weeks after the storm. I really had no problems dealing with the loss of power, but it brought home to me how the skills I had learned needed to be honed and expanded.

Between that event, working as an EMT, and some events while hiking, I knew that I needed to expand the skill set and get deeper into it.

Anything from an EMP to the season finale of Game of thrones

Between week-long power outages in the Appalachian winter, living on the edge of tornado alley, the 2020 epidemic, and spending over a year in a war-torn country that went from first world to third world in 48 hours, I prep for anything short of nuclear holocaust. Well, the best I can at least.

Do I consider myself a prepper? Yes—but it’s been a gradual evolution. I started with a basic 3-day hurricane supply when I moved to rural coastal Virginia (no stoplights in the county). Then I bumped it to 7 days, thinking that was more realistic. After Katrina, I stopped assuming help would arrive at all. That’s when I really started prepping.

I began with a lot of dehydrated #10 cans—enough for two people for six months. I quickly added more, knowing theory doesn’t always match reality. Cooking with dehydrated foods was a learning curve. Potatoes and peas were easy. Tomato powder? That was a whole experience. I still test cans now and then, and nothing’s gone bad 20 years on. Sure, nutrition drops, but I’d rather have a 25-year-old can of edible something than nothing.

This year I’m starting my survival … Oops! … kitchen garden using GreenStalk towers—trying to maximize yield in a small footprint. I’ve mapped out staggered sowing for lettuce, scallions, parsley, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and more. It’s part food security, part sanity check.

I’m not off-grid, but I prep like I might need to be. Quietly, steadily, and with a lot of trial and error.