Doomsday Preppers Week 9: In the Hurt Locker
Kevin O’Brien was on last season of Doomsday Preppers. He moved his family from Florida to Eastern Tennessee because he’s worried the Sunshine State would end up under water in the event of polar shift. Even his kids think he’s nuts, which simply means they’ve learned how to work the Google.
Lonely in new surroundings, without friends or fellow preppers, Kevin started a web site to connect and network with other preppers. It just so happens that one of those preppers to join the web site is Lucas Cameron, only 35 miles away. Kevin would like to join Lucas and his group, but do that, he must first… bring them a shrubbery!
Oh, were it only so simple.
Instead, the producers put Kevin through a trial by fire, as Lucas and his group run mock-nighttime raids against the show’s experts, the team from Practical Preppers. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time in two seasons where the crew from Practical Preppers stepped in front of the cameras. Yes, my curiosity was piqued. The guys were great at criticizing and ranking others, but how would they perform under (simulated) fire?
The scenario they ran involved the guys from Practical Preppers hitting a nighttime supply transfer between Kevin and Lucas’ prepping group. How did it go down?
The preppers got smoked. It wasn’t even close.
It’s one thing to practice on a static range against stationary targets in daylight, and quite another to fight an enemy with communications gear, night vision, and what appears to be real infantry training. Nonetheless, despite their lopsided loss, Lucas and his team were impressed with how Kevin stood his ground during the assault on the Alamo. Kevin now belongs to a prepping community.
It’s too bad he’s so deeply invested in a crackpot theory with no scientific validity at all. In Lucas’ defense, the threat of the New Madrid fault, while probably not the quake zone written about in the Bible, is at least a proven possible threat.
Not everyone died at the Alamo. Yes, the defenders were killed, but their wives and children were spared, as were any slaves. One defender locked himself in a cell then convinced the Mexicans he was a prisoner of the Texicans.
http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/history/1836/the_battle/the_texians/survivors.html if you’re interested
I like both shows and they are ahead of you buddy. Suck their AR’s since you are embedded with jealously. If your ever in Texas call me I could use you for fertilzer since your not the salt to the ground
Calm down there, chief.
I was impressed this week. 2 great was to be prepared: having a working farm and learning to live off the land. I suspect that they downgraded Snake for one simple reason: how does Practical Preppers make any money selling nothing to Snake.
They down graded snake for Political reasons….
The humble “noble savage” is supposed to cry when the environment is violated by Evil White Men….he’s not supposed to BE a “manly man” in line with (politically incorrect) survivalist (dare we say conservative) priorities.
Native people can only be VICTIMS in Hollywood. If they “fight back” at all, its as Marxist-style “revolutionaries” deposing White Europeans who’ve “oppressed” them. His skills are relevant, and would be showcased as “superior” in another arena, but he’s on the “wrong side” of the political divide, so out he goes.
This show is pure Anti-Red State Propaganda, its designed to show the “beautiful people” with Wide Screens in the Burbs what NUT CASES people of the “gun culture” are.
PJM, Please stop giving them free advertising
I don’t think Snake Blocker will last long. I don’t think anyone relying on hunting and foraging will last very long if SHTF. If the food disappears off the shelves nationwide everyone will start hunting and foraging. Our country, as larger and abundant as it is, couldn’t sustain that. Every squirrel, deer, and house cat will be in a cook pot before a year is out. There won’t be a wild hog problem anymore. Every berry and grain will have been picked long ago. Even if Snake Blocker is better at those core skills than others the quantity of people will be overwhelming. Of course his skills will be more useful when all those millions of starving people start hunting long pig.
In the new tv show “Revolution” they had an episode with a guy who had a pack of trained attack dogs. My first thought; after 15 years with now power, those dogs would have been somebody’s meal about 13 years prior.
One of Robert Heinlein’s best books was called “Glory Road”. it deals extensively with survival in primitive situations with NO help possible.
One of Heinlein’s theories is overarmed people tend to stand out, NOT camouflage as well as they should, DON’T hide as well as they could. His basic theory is everything else equal, an unarmed person will survive better because they WILL hide every time instead of stand and fight. While I believe there IS something to this, I’m old, crippled and slow. I cant hide or run so well, I HAVE TO be able stand and fight. I HAVE to be armed enough to destroy those who come against me. This doesn’t mean I’ll survive, those who hide best WILL survive better. Now, a person who can blend being well armed with being paranoid enough to hide all the time is probably going to do best of all.
How does Heinlein say the people in out of the way places (e.g. Alaska) fare? Like you, I’m old and crippled, but unarmed currently (please don’t track me down). I’m wondering where to go. Thanks.
Not to quibble, but that was Tunnel in the Sky. Glory Road was the exact opposite, they had an entire armory in a magic bag in Glory Road. Tunnel in the sky was a pretty good story about people cut of from the modern world (and a space traveling civilization at that).
By having skills everyone else will end up having to resort to anyway, you don’t think he’ll last long?
He’s the only one of these moron’s who’ll last. The rest think prepping means “amassing stuff”, when it means being able to survive in the world that comes after the disaster.
Snake Blocker spoke against the government too, saying that we shouldn’t depend on them (paraphrase, but you get the point; he sounded conservative which is big minus on the scale).
How good are hunting skills when there are no animals left? How good are foraging skills when the land is barren? There’s a reason agricultural societies bested hunter-gatherer societies.
White people have been agriculturalists so long we don’t believe in another way of life. I live in AZ, IF this Apache guy Snake is here, he’s going to be FINE on Apache land and the surrounding BLM and state lands that are empty for hundreds of miles in any direction except for 100 or so tiny little 10-100 person burgs dotted here and there VERY thinly. As long as he DOES know the plants of every season, he’ll survive, his wife may not. HE has genes that will let him survive on a diet that will kill her. It’s scientifically researched and proved. All humans are NOT the same. when TSHTF, the Apache who remember the old ways will prosper. Most whites in AZ will die. They are mentally and physically weak technologists with NO primitive abilities and the old folks who remember how to live in 1920s America are 99.99% gone.
Genetics don’t save people from famine. And there won’t be an inch of America that won’t be picked clean by scavengers. Millions will stream out of California as chaos erupts. The smart ones will head Northeast. But enough will head out into the desert fearing winter. Lines on a map won’t keep them out. Like a plague of locusts they’ll spread out consuming everything on public, private and indian land alike. Unless there’s some sort of massive decrease in population such as flu pandemic food supplies will quickly dwindle. Maybe those mighty indian genes should be focused on growing crops and defending them. See that’s the thing. I have massive respect for Mr. Blocker’s skills. But unless he adds new ones such as ranching or farming he’s doomed.
So, when is all this going to happen? Who is going to do the scavenging? I’m not following all this. Thanks.
You are exactly right. During the three month battle of Okinawa, every animal, tame or feral disappeared from the island. We can safely assume they were eaten by the local population and Japanese soldiers.
To answer the subtitle question. all TV shows are about selling advertising. If you’re not going to buy what they’re selling, you don’t count.
Reality-wise, if you were actually serious about doomsday prep, the very last thing you would want is to bring a camera crew into it, to document for all and sundry who you were and what you have…
Why not just mail Holder your gun inventory list while you’re about it?
I agree with answers 5 and 7. because of power outages and hurricanes, we keep about a month’s worth of food on hand year round. Do I tell my neighbors how many rolls of toilet paper I have? never. The web sites have taught me alot tho, like toothpaste can expire, don’t empty the food closet after hurricane season, just rotate the food and that tap water has a 6 month shelf life so why buy it.
I’m like Susan. I have no bumper stickers, no decals on my house windows or doors, and only my closest friends know what security and emergency preparations I have.
I believe being able to live off the land without any money, being mobile (on foot), having the minimum tools necessary to construct temporary shelters along with a source of water (springs), as Snake Blocker does, would give a person more security. I also believe if the SHTF (as Cole put it) that within 3 weeks 50% of the urban population will be dead and within 3 months it goes up to 80%. That is if urban folks don’t learn to like the taste of rats. Finding water, especially clean water, will be a problem in urban areas.
I am concerned that people watching these shows and preparations will think that they can never match that level of prepping, in reality, most need only a basic 72 hour kit. Anything above and beyond is nice, but as the saying goes “a journey of ten thousand miles begins with one step”.
Take the first step, the internet is full of both good and bad advice but it is a start.
Most may indeed need only a basic 72 hour kit, however, probably at least 80 percent of the population doesn’t even have that much. If these programs can goad even a few percent of those into being even minimally equipped to sustain themselves for a few days or a week, the rest of us are that much safer at least for that short period.
On the other hand, I really think that most would prefer to stick their heads in the sand and believe that the government will be there to rescue them in any emergency (which the rest of us know is unlikely). The way to appeal to that large sector of the population is probably more likely to start talking more about how, historically, it is cheaper to buy food today than it will be tomorrow. Once you have people thinking that way, and stocking up today to save money in the future, they are on their way to being less dangerous to everyone else. Some will take it further as well – ‘see the light’ so to speak, but, judging by the lack of foresight I see in today’s population, I won’t count on that.
However, I don’t care what their motivation is for being a bit more ‘prepared’ – I just want them to stay off my doorstep for as long as possible. Starving people are fearless and savage people. I am not sure that these ‘over the top’ shows really help ‘educate’, or even create ‘awareness’, in those whose minds are closed. I think that, by most, they are viewed more as entertainment, as an example of how ‘extreme’ they don’t want to be themselves. Making being ‘smart’ about having a backup of food on the shelves a ‘mainstream mindset’ thing through subtle means – regular cooking shows that talk more about the old ways of ‘preserving’, displaying more simple ‘boy scout’ tricks for surviving a situation within the context of popular dramatic shows, etc., rather than sensationalizing it – seems a better way of approaching something we should all do – as common sense. But, realistically, it will probably take a massive and widespread event of some kind to wake people up (if they are lucky enough not to perish).
Also, Snakes “doomsday scenario” is actually plausible. I worry of an economic collapse, myself. My stepfather spent over ten thousand dollars on preparation for all kinds of disaster scenarios. (He still thinks we have the whole year left to see the destruction of the Mayan “prophecies”.) Me, on the other hand…I’m just a country boy with parents and grandparents who always valued being able to live off the land, just in case you didn’t have the technology anymore. This was a real problem for my depression era, poor rural grandparents and, even, my mother in her youth. (My grandparents still had an outhouse when I was a child). So far, I’ve spent about forty dollars on prepping, by buying a water filter and an emergency survival manual. I only wish I had a few more can foods, but I know how to hunt.
I want to hear from ACTUAL SURVIVORS such as south Vietnamese refugees that are now American citizens.
No water filtration? Boiling it doesn’t work anymore?
It appears fairly obvious that this shows is a government production, designed to make preppers look insane so fewer people will prep, more people will be government chum behind a wire fence begging for scraps through the barbed wire.
Look people, RICE AND BEANS ARE VERY CHEAP. Buy big 40-50 pound bags of each, wrap them in several trash bags and if you can, fill the trash bags with c02 gas, it will kill any weevils that hatch in the grain without adding any toxins. Buy big bags of salt meant for water softeners, potassium also, you CANT live without salt or potassium and water softener salt is CHEAP. And get a $100 hiking water filter with a built in pump and spare ceramic filter.
also buy a decent pellet gun, with a small scope. If you want to eat something besides rice & beans, shoot large birds, squirrels, rabbits, rats, gophers, quietly, with NO observation. You can MAKE pellets by hand if you have too, out of old car batteries. The Apache Snake is right, the old ways WILL be THE way for most.
Okay, well, suppose of the Book of Revelation: “And, see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.”, that, like his father, then, the Lucas Camerons in the agricultural producing areas are to be spared because, the agriculture itself is no threat, . . .
The defenders at the Alamo died because they would not surrender to General Santa Anna. They did not expect to survive. The purpose of the battle was to delay the Mexicans to give the Texans time to prepare for the arrival of the Mexican Army, and Santa Anna was defeated at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836.
Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) — In today’s “Single Best Chart,” Bloomberg’s Scarlet Fu displays how inflation has increased in the 100 years since the creation of the Federal Reserve. She speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg Surveillance.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/is-inflation-the-legacy-of-the-federal-reserve-ZsuSCqK4QKaWEcfAnrEcHg.html
Rivenburg is right (previous commenter) The government doesn’t want anyone to prep because they want everyone to be subject to them. If you want the government to control your life even more then do nothing. If you are like me and are sick of the government trying to control one more thing then do some kind of prepping. It’s not as expensive as the show can portray it. Do some kind of preparation. I don’t think anyone that has been prepared for anything that may come their way in life has ever regretted it. Freeze dried food is the newest latest and greatest. Give it a try.