Doomsday Preppers (History Channel)

[MadPlumbarian]

Anyone watch the show? my wife recorded it for me on our dvr, and she ended up watching it (surprising) now i like being prepared, but WOW, not as much as they do, funny thing was, the wife said "hey isn't that what you carry"? since i carry a EDC bag, with mostly everything in it. but after watching the show, i think i kinda got the wife's attention on being prepared..  but anyone watch it?? and whats your take?  JR

[tattoosteve99]

I watched it. Found some very useful info and I am in process of doing some research. I like it. Guns, ammo, knives, big out gear. Cool stuff. I don't think they are going to extreme especially the way the economy is.

[Heinz Doofenshmirtz]

I didn't watch it, but I agree... while I don't think it's very likely that there's going to be some sort of nuclear holocaust or zombie apocalypse, you never know... 

I'd rather be prepared and able to take care of my family and not need the stuff than be stuck without it and at the mercy of nature, roving street mobs, etc.

Besides, where I'm from, California, it's not a question of if the next big quake is going to hit, but when.  And from what we saw in New Orleans, anyone who thinks the federal government or local or state municipalities are going to be able to deal with it, let alone capable of sufficiently helping people in need are going to be in for a big surprise. 

[MadPlumbarian]

I don't have a room full of goods dedicated for a disaster, but no matter what you should be prepared for anything, just like our state wide black out, from hurricane Irene, during the day wasn't so bad, but at night it hit in the single digits. and even though you have gas heat you still need electric to run your heater.. but we were fine, all the cooking was done off of our camping equipment, and just before bed we cranked up the  camping gas heater to get some warmth, besides that the candles gave off some btu's.. luckily our neighbors have a gas water heater, so we could go over there house to suds up.   It was kinda funny, our water heater crapped out the night before the storm hit, but i didnt know till morning, so i went down and got a new one, installed it, 2hrs later we had hot water, then 3hrs after that we lost electric, so no more hot water, we had plastic shoe boxes filled them up with snow, and shoved them in the frig and freezer, and drained every morning and repacked them, we lost nothing. and never went to the store,   JR

[Syph007]

I rate myself as a 'soft' core survivalist.  At any given time I have about a months worth of food/water stored.   I have alot of tools and I have a backup generator, lots of spare fuel and that kind of thing.  Im looking at a generator upgrade that runs on propane next, since its got a crazy long shelf life compared to gasoline. Im not expecting armageddon, but even when there is a day long blackout Im good to go, and that's happened.  So really its short term emergency stuff Im prepped for.

What actually started me on this was a long power out with heavy rains... my garage was taking in water and I had no way to power the sump to pump it out, that ticked me off so I bought a generator. Weve also had boil water warning when power is out, the water treament plant doesnt work 100%... so then I thought stockpiling water was smart, and that led to canned goods and a few more things.

Hardcore are the guys that stock seeds to replant crops expecting to restart civilization on their own, or the 100% off the grid guys with solar/wind setups.  The best ive ever seen is a fellow tha thad a stream going through his property turning a water wheel to generate his power.  I dont have a stream sadly.

[mvyrmnd]

I'm not kitted up well enough for any of that. I haven't had that "Oh Smurf" moment yet, though.

Where I live, we had out worst ever floods a year ago, and I had nothing to worry about. I live on high enough ground that floods aren't an issue.

The whole town is situated in the lee of a small mountain, which happens to be the same direction 90% of the weather comes from, so we don't even get blasted by storms.

I really could go for some food and water stocks, and a generator, but I don't feel the need to go all out...

[MadPlumbarian]

As far as flooding goes, there's a large stream to the left, and one to the right, but were off the ground, just going to suck for the sewer, but its not my problem since i rent, but as you can see after math of the snow melting it didn't get to my door step, but got really close to my neighbors,, the second pic is me looking down to the idiots standing in the flood, and im not getting my feet wet, and my wife is taking the pic from the edge of our place were the flag is. JR

[Heinz Doofenshmirtz]

Syph, I guess you could call me 'getting to be' a 'softcore' survivalist...  We keep a couple weeks worth of canned goods and dried things on hand, like beans, rice, flour, etc. and several jugs of water, batteries, etc. and then all of our camping gear as well.

A generator and a Mossberg 590 are the next two items on my list.

My mother in law is starting to get into it more seriously though... she and her parents own a cabin up in the Sierra foothils, and I've been helping her make out a family plan to overhaul their cabin with supplies, including seeds, fuel, etc.  She's a retired ER/ICU nurse, and she's got a pretty good stock of medical supplies and equipment already built up there too. 

We're developing a plan for all our different families to congregate their in the event of another big quake or the like.  I like going up there for weekends and the like, and I'm glad we're doing it, though I honestly do hope we never have to make use of it that way.

[Etherealicer]

Thread Necro...

Just watched most of Season 1

[Etherealicer]

The Good
Some interesting information, some laughs. Good entertainment.
Some of the preppers where love-able interesting characters (I write characters, because at the end of the day, its a TV-SHOW).

[Lichtbote]

To be honest ... i just watched a few episode for the laugh.

[Etherealicer]

The Bad
Some of these preppers are mad and a danger to society (Storing volatile liquids in a densely populated area). Some are a bad nuisances spreading unnecessary panic. The last group mainly consists of the Influenza-Preppers, not once do they stop and look at the lethality of influenza.

[Etherealicer]

To be honest ... i just watched a few episode for the laugh.

As you should, its entertainment

[Etherealicer]

The Ugly

These of course are the Experts. They are absolutely useless, miss every chance to educate. Default answer: You have 20 guns, you need 30. You have 1000 gallons of water, you need 1500 gallons of water. Seriously, they are boring and useless.

Think about it, in one episode a firearm accident happens (nothing serious), that would have been the perfect opportunity to talk about firearm safety. Also they guy who got hurt (father) fainted and it could have turned out pretty bad but thankfully the TV crew was there and they did bring a EMT. A great chance to talk about first-aid and that more than one should know it (I mean what if the person trained in 1st aid gets hurt?).
What was the experts comment? "It's important that you learn to shoot with your injury"


Radioactivity: I'm somewhat an expert in this
Geiger counters are fun aren't they. Depending on the tube it might detect different types of radiation. Add to this that the range of alpha radiation is cm not meters (Its bad if ingested but it has 0 penetration power). So talking about what kind of radiation you might encounter, how to protect against it etc is critical. Maybe educate people how to use the Geiger counters, talk about limitations.
Also how much radiation is too much? In Switzerland people working with radioactive materials (scientist, power-plant, hospital) have a limit of 20 mSv / year. In Southern Cornwall natural radiation is higher than that (and people live there just fine).

Biohazard: I'm an expert in this (PhD in molecular Biology + internship in a governmental agency responsible for these kinds of risks)
These people clearly have no idea what they are talking about. While a pandemic can disrupt supply, this is for a limited time and not the end of the world.
Yes an influenza pandemic has the potential to kill lots of people. But who dies? Mostly the elderly and other people with poor health. So how do you prepare for an influenza pandemic? Simple, eat honey to keep your immune system trained (worst thing you can do is use anti-bacterial / -viral cleaning products). Eat and live healthy.
Pandemics also don't happen from one day to another. So once one started (e.g. like the recent Mexican flu), wash your hands often. Actually, the Mexican flu is a prime example that if you start with some more rigorous hygiene you can stop the spread (Switzerland). Matter of fact is that the Mexican flu only claimed 3000 lives in Northern America (and the same number in Europe), hardly a threat to life as we know it.

Lets put the Mexican Flu into perspective:
The estimated number of 285'000 death world wide (the pandemic lasted for roughly a year) is far below the 437'000 people murdered every year.

[DazMechanical]

I occasionally watch Doomsday Preppers, it's pretty funny how extreme some people are! The so called experts are a total waste of time. I saw one episode where the "experts" say you could survive for 6 months, this family lived on some kind of farm If I recall correctly, they said your experts are wrong, we've been living like this on this same land for 2 or 3 generations. I had a chuckle! 

[Sea Monster]

Cerberus, curator of silenti, sino phasmatis venire contra mihi. Phasmatis, radix quod causa of vita, commodo adeo suffragium mihi in meus negotium.

I am assured by quality websites that the above is an effective necromancy chant.

Anyway, I've been watching this (or something similar? Not sure, all your crazy reality TV shows look the same to me)

Some of it seems like doing things the hard way just for the sake of it, as if there is some kind of purity is being ornery.

Some of it seems common dog, (but then, half of 'Straya was only discovered in 1972, so we're a bit behind in our convenience stores)

Okay, after a bloody minded argument about breakfast with my wife, I can't remember what my question was?

Right, right - Do we have many folk who consider themselves "preppers" here, beyond having useful tools and kit on hand?

Anyone do it professionally? "prep" schools? consultations? installations etc?

(on other comments here: The "expert advice" always seems to be "more guns", I can't fire more than one gun at once, and carrying more than a sidearm and a rifle is beyond my interest as far as effort is concerned.)

[mr626]

I think with these type of shows, they can be useful for a) entertainment and b) getting you to think about being prepared for the most likely 'event(s)' in your local area.

For myself and my family, that means bushfires (aka wildfires). In practical terms this means having a well maintained property, having appropriate insurance, and being ready to leave at a moments notice.

[Sea Monster]

In practical terms this means having a well maintained property, having appropriate insurance, and being ready to leave at a moments notice.

...selling the crappy XR8 and getting a luxy....

[mr626]

In practical terms this means having a well maintained property, having appropriate insurance, and being ready to leave at a moments notice.

...selling the crappy XR8 and getting a luxy....

I must not be up with the lingo, but I have no idea what a luxy is. Google says it is a dating app?

I quite like my XR8 (for those having no idea, it is a Ford V8 sedan, only really sold in Australia and New Zealand). It's a fun car to drive, actually really practical (with the rear seats folded down I can fit long lengths of timber in there) and it really isn't that bad on fuel either. Nothing crappy about it 

[Alan K.]

My experience level is somewhat higher than average but not professional.  I started reading survival magazines when I was a kid in the 1970's and have been interested in it as a sort of hobby and study topic for a very long time.  So long, in fact, that some of the stuff I learned in the beginning is no longer valid.  For example, Mel Tappan said, "your survival retreat should be a full tank of gas driving distance from a city."  Well, cars today can easily go 300 miles on a tank of gas so there's not too many places anymore, at least in the U.S., that you can't get to on a tank of gas.  I have an extensive library of survival books and a store of survival supplies in my home including plenty for trading material, and I am a moderator of the survival and preparedness sub-forum of a web-site that has been around since the mid 1990's.
   
I enjoyed the Doomsday Preppers show, but I can't say I learned anything especially useful from the show.  I don't have as much stuff as those featured on the show but I surely did admire some of them for the quantities of supplies they managed to amass and their organization of their supplies.

The extent of my supplies is sufficient for most natural disasters but nowhere near as much as I'd like.  At least I won't be one of the panicking horde that the news always shows rushing to the store before every storm to buy the last loaf of bread and the last gallon of milk. I've got my bread and milk so I can relax and watch the horde on TV from the comfort of my couch.

[ToolJoe]

I watched season one a few years ago. It was interesting and entertaining to say the least.

[Etherealicer]

Nothing wrong with Prepping... and depending on where you live I find it kinda shocking that not everybody prepares (like tornado risk areas etc). I think the candidates were mostly crazy, which is normal as that makes for good entertainment. What I found sad are the so called experts of the show.