Paranoid Prepper: An Introduction

Paranoid Prepper: An Introduction

Different people have different circumstances.  As preppers we need to consider those unique characteristics of our own situations that require we do something different from other preppers.  Salty kindly offered to accept a few posts from me, as I have a somewhat different perspective on prepping, due to the fact my circumstances are different from other preppers.

I live in a suburban area.  I’ve lived in the suburbs all my life.  Work has always kept me within a short distance of an urban center and we’ve all been taught we need to get away from such areas in a true SHTF situation.  However, I have no desire to radically change my lifestyle, as long as the SHTF hasn’t happened. 

Disasters? Been there, done that. A lot.

Over time I have experienced a variety of short term disasters including hurricanes, a tornado, etc.  This didn’t seem too out of the ordinary until 9/11, when I was inside the World Trade Center when it was hit.  As a result, I realized there is a god and his name is Murphy, they really are out to get me, and paranoia became a proper response to life.  ☹

World Trade Center courtesy Wikimedia Commons

After consideration, I decided paranoia was not enough to keep me alive, and came around to prepping as a supplement to paranoia.  I started by assembling a BOB for every member of the family.  While you read on prepper forums about family members objecting to prepping, my family decided to humor me. 

After all, I was only asking them to toss a backpack in the trunk of their cars, and it would come in handy if they had a problem like a breakdown, or bad weather, or a breakdown in bad weather, . . . Plus the BOB was free to them.  Maybe there would be something useful in that backpack?

This was the state of things until I started to think in terms of longer running disasters, like 96 hours, at which point I decided I needed to push out the length of time we could stay in the house without going out for anything, and I needed to plan for extended family showing up. 

Paranoid Prepper: It’s a family affair

I have about 20 family members in the area due to grown children and grandchildren.  So now my “unique circumstances” included being in the wrong place (the suburbs) way too many people to prep for, lots of real experience with Murphy’s Law, and paranoia.  😊 

I started to acquire preps.  Long term storage food began to accumulate.  Exactly how long the food would last depends on how many of my 20 family members show up.

Supplies

I had a generator wired into the house after a couple prolonged outages.  My wife objected to the cost of the generator, but tolerated it.  I explained that Murphy’s Law meant that if I spent way too much on a generator, we would never need it, because we would have made our sacrifice to the god of Murphy. 

However, the generator turned out to be a very prescient purchase when a few months later Hurricane Sandy came through and knocked out the power for 8 days.  Unfortunately, it also turned out to be a noise generator with an electricity option.  Next time I’ll get an electricity generator with less noise.  😊 

Who am I to predict where Murphy will show up?  After Sandy, she agreed it had been an insane purchase, so now I was a “paranoid prepper”, though that was okay since it worked out.  Now that she has come around about the generator, we haven’t had another serious outage.  😊 

Super Prepper? No, but…

I haven’t become a “SuperNinjaPrepper” like Salty’s friends, and probably never will.  However, I am probably the most prepared guy on my block, (okay, so it’s a short block) and I haven’t stopped prepping.  My focus changes from time to time as I feel that I am in good shape in one area, and begin to focus on another. 

Currently, I have two old car restoration projects underway.  If the projects ever get finished, (Murphy’s Law again) I will have a couple EMP resistant vehicles, one car and one SUV.  I’ve probably bought my last new car, or even late model car.

So that’s me, a paranoid prepper, and the most prepared guy on my block in NJ, but hey, stuff happens.  I couldn’t do what Salty and Spice are doing anywhere within a couple hundred miles of here.  However, I am on a “continuous improvement” kick where every year I am more prepared than the year before. 

My plans are specific to my situation, which is a large dependent group in a suburban area, and a lot of experience with short term disasters and Murphy’s Law.  I suspect there are others out there that have situations similar to mine, perhaps without paranoia.  Now that you know who I am, I’ll follow up with some posts based on my experience.