Disaster preppers don’t seem so crazy now as stockpiling turns mainstream

Previously seen in the same light as evangelical preachers warning of the apocalypse, now everyone’s a prepper.

Fortitude Ranch Chief Operating Officer Steve Rene inside a storage room stacked with food in Mathias, West Virginia, where a group of US survivalists began preparing for the collapse of civilisation long before the arrival of coronavirus. Picture: AFP

Until about a fortnight ago, a man who stored eight months’ worth of food in his basement was generally considered to be a few dried nuts short of a picnic.

The “preppers” who guarded against a catastrophe by squirrelling away dried beans and lavatory rolls were seen in the same light as evangelical preachers who warned of the apocalypse.

Curt La Haise was not bothered. If anything, he felt that he ought to have more supplies in his basement near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

“Friends said: ‘What you do is kind of crazy.’ Well, they don’t think I’m crazy now,” he said.

The chaos wreaked by the coronavirus pandemic has lifted disaster preparedness into a mainstream occupation. The preppers have come to be regarded as prophetic figures whose horded sacks were a sign of prudence.

Disaster preparedness no longer has a bad name as shoppers line the aisles at Costco in Perth. Picture: Getty

“Preppers are former military people,” Drew Miller, the chief executive of Fortitude Ranch, said. “They are smart people.” The ranch is a business venture that aims to build a network of lodges for its members to serve as sanctuaries if society collapses.

One has been completed in the mountains of West Virginia, with log cabins, an underground shelter and an elevated deck to double as a “guard platform” to defend against marauders.

A storage room at Fortitude Ranch in Mathias resembles many kitchen cupboards nowadays. Picture: AFP

Mr Miller, 62, a former military intelligence officer, blamed the reality television show Doomsday Preppers for giving disaster preparedness a bad name. Real preppers kept their preparations quiet, he said.

He did not think COVID-19 signalled the total breakdown of society. He said that was more likely to come with an asteroid strike or a volcanic eruption. Mr La Haise, 57, a former police officer, said that he was more worried about the sun’s corona than coronavirus. “We could have a coronal mass ejection that would knock the power out,” he said.

He began prepping for disaster after a wildfire in 1982 drove him from his home in southern California. His house was spared but he began to make plans.

He had to retire from the police force after being stabbed on duty, so he and his wife moved to Wisconsin, where he founded a security company.

“My wife cans our own food,” he said. “We have dried food, dehydrated food, canned meats, nuts, that kind of stuff.” He runs a group called Madison Preppers but it can’t meet because of the ban on gatherings of more than ten people.

“I have never seen this much craziness,” he said. “There are armed security guards at our local store right now.”

Sellers of emergency supplies have been scrambling to meet demand. Tressa Epperson, a product manager for Augason Farms, said that business picked up in December. The company is based in Utah, where the Church of the Latter-day Saints encourages members to keep at least a three-month supply of food, water and money.

Ms Epperson said that its emergency food had been the target of “some humour”. Now people were desperate to place orders. “People are crying on the phone,” she said. “They are afraid.”

The Times