Have you been obsessed with watching the end of the world movies, such as Armageddon or The Day After Tomorrow? After binge-watching a few of these movies I decided to research and write a helpful post about what I learned about whether or not preppers are wasting their time.
Are preppers wasting their time? The simplest answer is that no, preppers are not wasting their time. Natural disasters are common and basic preparedness is a smart move for the safety of your family. You don’t need to prepare for every type of disaster, but you should be ready for the most likely situations in your area.
After spending a few hours researching this and learning more (along with a few years of basic emergency preparedness for my family), I’ve come across a few things that I believe are beneficial for every family. If you are just getting started with prepping and don’t have what some people call the “crazy uncle with the guns”, then this article will be a good use of your time.
Natural Disasters Kill Around 90,000 people a year.
Every year natural disasters affect close to 160 million people worldwide. They also are responsible for around 90,000 deaths every year. So what exactly are these natural disasters that are doing this? They include earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, landslides, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, heatwaves and droughts.
So it makes sense to at least spend some time learning a bit more about prepping if it could prevent you and your family from joining these statistics.
Right now I’m living in Florida and hurricanes are an issue for the state. Every single time that a hurricane is projected to hit Florida, the stores run out of basic essentials like bread and water. So doesn’t it just make logical sense to have these basics already prepared before-hand? Even basic preparedness like this is overlooked by a large percentage of the population.
Hurricane season in Florida goes from June 1 through November 30. During hurricane season in Florida, on average one to two hurricanes makes landfall on the eastern coast of America every year, with 40% of them hitting Florida. So it makes sense for my family to have our basic hurricane survival pack ready for if a hurricane does hit.
If you were in my position and lived down in Florida, and it was hurricane season, wouldn’t it make sense to prepare for it? It just seems like a common sense thing to make sure your family is safe in the event that something does happen. Even if a hurricane doesn’t hit my area, I think it’s best to be prepared in case one does. We’ve all seen the destruction and absolute power that hurricanes bring. I’d rather not have to worry about drinkable water, food and basic things for my family if a hurricane turns directly towards our home.
But prepping costs money… I know, I hear ya...
I do understand that not all of us have the disposable income to put towards some of the stuff that the extreme preppers purchase. But when it comes down to protecting your family, it’s essential that we find the money in our budgets to have at least a basic preparedness plan.
Okay let’s get back to the main point and we’ll start off with something that I found that kind of shocked me.
Back in 2012, a Reuters poll found that 1 in 7 people worldwide believe that the world is going to end in their lifetime. Source
If the world is going to end, are preppers wasting their time?
If one out of every seven people worldwide believes that the world is going to end in their lifetime, are preppers wasting their time?
Think about that for just a second. To me personally, I think that if many people believe it, it’s best to be prepared.
That also brings up a counterpoint that comes up often when I’m debating this subject with some friends and family members. Anyone else love talking about this stuff with their friends or is it just me? If the world is really going to end in our lifetime, what is the point of prepping?
If the world actually ends during our lifetime, and we’ve spent years and years preparing for it, did we waste all that time? This puts me personally in a pretty uncomfortable position to think about. Is there anything that my family and I can personally do to protect ourselves during that time?
Or will it be an actual catastrophic event like a meteor hitting the earth and just destroying everything immediately? Movies like Armageddon make it appear that us humans can actually have a shot at stopping an asteroid from colliding with earth and destroying all of us. But is that a reasonable assumption, that we could fly into space and destroy an asteroid before it destroys us?
We can’t possibly prepare for every single possible situation…
It’s best to be prepared for situations that might arise in your personal life. Sure, its sometimes fun to fantasize about being called in by the government to fight aliens, like in the movie Independence Day. But realistically, I don’t think that in our lifetime we’re going to have to stop an alien race from destroying our planet.
So what kind of stuff should you start prepping for if you’re a beginner to emergency preparedness? If you’ve lived in the part of the country that you live in now for your whole life, you probably know of the basic natural disasters that could happen. Your parents and grandparents might have taught you about tornadoes, or earthquakes, or even extreme snowstorms.
I grew up in New York and we had to prepare for those snowstorms. Winters in the northern part of the United States of America can be absolutely brutal if you aren’t prepared for them. So when I was growing up, I learned from my family about what we needed to have at our house in case of a snowstorm keeping us inside for a few days.
I actually remember one really bad storm we had when I was really young, my uncle took his snowmobile around town to check up on our family friends to see if they needed anything. This was before cell phones made it so easy to check up on people. Back then he went to the houses and made sure that the families had enough food and clothing and if a place didn’t, our family made sure that we helped out as much as we could.
Thinking back on that, it was really nice of him to do and I was too young to understand why he was just riding around on his snowmobile when we were supposed to be inside. It just goes to show how we all start as a beginner and slowly get better the more we learn.
If you just moved to a new part of the country and you aren’t really familiar with the natural disasters that could happen in your new town/city, you need to do some basic research. Ask around to friends, join some local preparedness groups and do some basic research on google to learn what kind of things are common in your new area.
While the time you spend learning this might seem like it’s being wasted, you’ll be glad that you learned when a disaster arrives. I still remember the first time I experienced an earthquake. I had absolutely no idea what to do and just sat on my couch and thought “whoa, this is weird”.
I know it’s probably not super professional of me to tell you that I didn’t know what to do during my first earthquake experience, but I wanted to be honest. We can’t possibly know it all when we get started. That’s why it’s so important to learn as you go.
Our site here was set up so that we could share the stuff we learn along the way and hopefully help you as much as we can with emergency preparedness.
So in conclusion, I want you to ask yourself the question and really think about it.
Are Preppers Wasting Their Time?
My hope with you reading this article is that you are starting to realize that no, preppers are not wasting their time. Some of your friends and family might think you’re a little crazy when you get started, but they’ll be coming to you for advice if anything is to happen.
It just makes sense to have a basic level of preparedness for all families in my opinion. If you are still getting started with prepping and are looking for a community that will help you with solidifying your family plans, I recommend learning more about the MASK Tactical Tribe, which stands for Master All Survival Knowledge. They specialize in teaching you everything you need to get further faster in life and go from average to savage in your preparedness.
