Preppers Going Mainstream

As more people face the fact that even relatively “normal” events and setbacks can leave us temporarily at a loss to cope, being prepared for some unexpected, natural, or manmade crisis or emergency just seems like so much good sense.

This means that being prepared – i.e. being a prepper – is much more mainstream.

Middle-class preppers

An article published by the BBC on the 10^th of December 2020, described how more people are being won over to the idea that preparation is probably no bad thing – prepping makes perfectly reasonable and logical sense.

The account features a series of individuals who are not die-hard members of any fringe group or community but normal working people, rational and serious, with largely middle-class jobs.

They are hardly that unusual in having encountered the fairly routine disruptions to normal life created by power blackouts or, more recently, of course, the restrictions imposed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Unlike many others, however, they have learnt from those experiences and discovered just how useful – and potentially life-saving – it can be to know where you packed an emergency kit of your most basic needs. These are “go-bags” (some preppers call them “bug-out bags”) containing things such as a torch, water rations for at least several days, a radio, medications, and food.

A widening community

In the United States – the original home of the more extreme versions of the prepper movement – there is a growing number of communities of like-minded souls who are a far cry from the weirder wings of the movement and, instead, characterised if anything by their ordinariness.

That air of normality – respectability, you might say – was also reflected in the stories told to London’s Metro newspaper at the start of 2020. Far from preparing for any end of the world apocalypse, these preppers had discovered the advantages of being prepared in the face of more conventional crises such as water shortages, electricity blackouts, and natural disasters. In a twist that strangely anticipated the rigours of that year’s spread of the coronavirus, they also referred to prepping for any ‘flu pandemic.

When asked why other Britons should follow his lead in preparing for unexpected crises and emergencies, one former soldier suggested that they just ask themselves what they would do if the power goes down or “the water doesn’t just come out of the tap”.

An academic specialising in survival psychology – and herself a practising prepper – also offered some prepping tips on the basics for the average person living in Britain:

• store sufficient food and water in your home to last several days;

• keep a small fire extinguisher and a fire blanket in the kitchen;

• organise some first aid training for yourself or a designated family member;

• pack extra supplies of any prescription medications you take;

• pack a “go-bag” to keep in your car – with a spare blanket, a portable power bank for your mobile, and a first aid kit – together with a spade and enough food and water to see you through car breakdowns or motorway blockages and closures.

A final correspondent from Chester who currently lives in Slovakia’s Carpathian Mountains suggests that there is nothing new in prepping or being prepared for the unexpected.

People should be more like their grandparents, he said, who remained constantly prepared for that “rainy day” – by keeping a stash of candles for when the lights went out, a store of preserves and tinned food in the larder, and spare cash tucked under the mattress in case the banks closed and you needed quick access to your money.