# What inspired you to start preparing?



## Annie (Dec 5, 2015)

Here we are with a brand new format on Prepper Forums. For some reason it makes me want to look back at where I've been. And if you please I'd like to hear your motivation too, regardless of how long or short a while you've been at this. 

Here's my story. 

I think I've always kept a fairly good pantry supply. In addition I had typical camping equipment that can help in the event of an emergency. Things like a Coleman stove, flashlights and lanterns, extra blankets...

Then Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012. Two weeks into the prolonged power outages there were very few supplies coming into town.That's when I had this moment that I remember clear as day. I was in the kitchen boiling water and thinking, 'What if this doesn't end soon?' I could easily envision my happy little community becoming something of a nightmare. It was at that point I knew I had to commit to getting ready for hard times. 

I can't even believe it's been almost ten years since Sandy hit, but here we are in 2021. My preps have been continuing slow and steady. Probably very boring in a way. I stash a little back here and there each time I shop. We've made bigger purchases for things like a generator as our monetary resources have allowed.

Prior to being part of this community I had almost zero experience with firearms. Hubs and I have been able to begin taking care of self defense, mostly because of the motivation I've received here from others at the forum. 

I think the important thing for any new preppers is to just keep doing a little week by week. Most of the time its not very glamorous, and there's so much to learn. Just taking it a little at a time. What's the saying? How to you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.


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## Robie (Jun 2, 2016)

Honestly?
I started in earnest 2 months after Obama started occupying the White House.


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## admin (Apr 28, 2016)

For me, it was Hurricane Katrina. I thought I was well prepared but found I didn't have backup plans for my backup plans.


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## NotTooProudToHide (Nov 3, 2013)

100% honest. It was watching The Walking Dead and starting thinking "what if."


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## bigwheel (Sep 22, 2014)

Annie said:


> Here we are with a brand new format on Prepper Forums. For some reason it makes me want to look back at where I've been. And if you please I'd like to hear your motivation too, regardless of how long or short a while you've been at this.
> 
> Here's my story.
> 
> ...


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## Back Pack Hack (Sep 15, 2016)

The 1992 Rodney King riots is what got me started.


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## bigwheel (Sep 22, 2014)

Well this new format is a gonad twister for us old guys so far..but I started sorta trying to prep in Boyscouts before the girly men perverts moved in as Scoutmasters. We had crusty old WWII and Korean Vets to lead us. The motto was be Prepared and we tried in childish way such as having plenty of ammo and such things. Got really motivated when a goofy guy named Jimmy Carter showed up. Made me me and my pals highly nervous..then Brother Reagan showed up as a guiding light. About that same general time frame..mid 70s? A nice Mormon wrote a book called "How to Survive the Coming Hard Times." My litle group of pals took it serious..got a cheap dehydrator and started dehydrating everything in sight. Even went out to the wrecker service and bought a tank of nitrogen to purge the o2 in the bags which we could never figure out how to do it right. We just puffed up the storage bags and zipped em right quick. Took up a lot of room in storage. Sorta like trying to store small ballons. Anyway..I wouldnt make a wart on a preppers coolar currently but I have plenty of ammo. lol.


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## paraquack (Mar 1, 2013)

Watching what was happening in New Orleans after Katrina.


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## LetsGo (Feb 16, 2021)

I have dabbled in it for a few years, nothing organized, mostly by accident. But something moved me and the wife about December - can't really put my finger on it - political, mask mandates, lockdowns, empty shelves, land and RE prices, business forced out of business, ammo shortages, unemployment (not me), just a host of things; something smells.


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## Camel923 (Aug 13, 2014)

My Parents. They were products of the Great Depression. Grew food to can and freeze, live below your means, have extra household items like soap, laundry detergent, freezer for meat bought on sale. Old items that were still good and kept for someone in need or if some you had needed replaced. Our well water was not potable. I remember as a child having a five gallon jerry can that we would fill up at what ever relative’s we visited for drinking and cooking water. I have expanded on those ideas as an adult.


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## Chipper (Dec 22, 2012)

It's been our way of life as long as I can remember. Long before it was cool and called prepping.


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## 2020 Convert (Dec 24, 2020)

I was always prepared for a couple weeks worth of food in Western NY snow and Ice.

In 2020 shortages increased it to a couple months. Then I started to formulate a real plan. 

Level 1 emergency- Power out for a period of time. Already had a 7500 gen hookup for 6 circuit. Increased my gen size and can hook up it to my propane line

Level 2-Level 1 + the road blocked ( I live 3 miles up a 1 lane rd) food supply up to 3 months. 

Level 3 (had both happen in 2020) Fire Evac and Fire Evac with no power. Lost 2 fridges worth of food on the 2nd. IBC tanks now placed to give water to horses for 2 weeks.

Level 4- SHTF. Have defense plan. 

Level 5- Earth quake and buildings down. Bug out kit at entrance of car port for accessibility, could still have gen power. 

Need to do-convert horse trailer into bug out /earthquake shelter. Easier solution (2nd transfer switch to run deep well pump)for water, maybe another shed up on some bedrock that has the best view.

Its never ending once you start.


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## NMPRN (Dec 25, 2020)

In February of last year I thought I was a pretty well prepared . By the end the March I realized I wasn't nearly as prepared as I needed to be. I never realized how incompetent and dysfunctional our government is or how fragile our economy and supply chains really are. 

...one of my favorite memes from last summer:


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## Bigfoot63 (Aug 11, 2016)

survived an ice storm in the late 70's. we lived in myrtle beach, s.c. my father was in Vietnam and we got so much ice and snow that the entire city and out lying communities were shut down completely. we had to learn along with the neighbors to rely on each other and survive with out electricity or running water. we made it... two and a half weeks. rough and hard to explain to young kids, but I was determined to make sure our family had what they needed so at the age of 12 with the help of boy scouts and popular mechanics magazines, I began very primatively to prep.


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## Megamom134 (Jan 30, 2021)

I started when I suspected the election would be stolen and reading about the new green deal, minimum wage increase and trickle down economics, watching food prices soar along with the price of everything. So I am late to getting prepared but doing as much as can a little at a time within my income. Hadn't shot for a long time so got a new gun, took some classes, got my cc and have been reading everything I can about long term food storage, food foraging, medical herbs, baking from scratch with limited ingredients. And here I am, still learning.


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## danaben (Feb 23, 2021)

I think I mentioned in another thread that we survived the Blizzard of 1978 in Boston. Rt. 128, the road that encircles Boston, was a parking lot for days. We lived in an apartment, but had a kitchen with a pantry so that we had up to a couple of weeks of food if needed. Luckily water was not a problem (water as a problem occurred to me later). Our apartment days are long over, and I slowly expanded our emergency supplies as we moved to larger houses. Our family has started pushing for us to downsize (wouldn't you like to be someplace where all the maintenance is taken care of?). I'm not interested and will only live in an apartment when I literally can't function otherwise.


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## Annie (Dec 5, 2015)

Thanks guys, I'm really enjoying your motivations and stories.


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## Maine-Marine (Mar 7, 2014)

Reasons

Peak Oil
Coming Anti-Christ (No not Biden)
Socialist take over
Family Tradition My grandparents also had extra for snow storms and times we could not take the 1.5 hour round trip to shopping
Snow Storms
Because Slippy and Denton said to
Help other people


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## acidMia (Aug 3, 2016)

I guess my reason is I've come to learn to never depend on someone else to take care of you. I started prepping in order to keep myself out of situations where I had to choose between a roof over my head, food on the table, or keeping the heat on. All of these things I can do for myself now without anyone's help. Now I just work on extending the time in which I can reliably keep that up


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## Tanya49! (Jun 20, 2020)

Hurricanes in Florida 2004/5!


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## inceptor (Nov 19, 2012)

I read a couple of books about Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus. I was maybe 12-13 at the time. The predictions roughly stated that the end of the world as we know it would start about the turn of the century. The next thing was the blizzard of 78. That was part of what made me decide to move to Texas, a decision I have never regretted.

When I started prepping I had no idea what I was doing and stored long term stuff I didn't even like. Since then I found this website and some interesting facts from the internet. I'm on track now and it's helped us out. My wife thought I was crazy for doing this until the kungflu hit. We wanted for nothing. Now she's on board.


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## Nick (Nov 21, 2020)

I have always been a little more prepared than the average person. But like many I didn't get too serious about it until 2020.

When all the Covoid stuff first started happening and I went into a few stores to find nothing but mostly empty shelves it was a big wake up call.

I figured if things could get that bad that quick over a virus that had a 99.9% survival rate and the supply lines hadn't even slowed down, what would happen if something really serious happened.

Even if it was just another virus that was more contagious and killed only 1% of people infected it would probably bring the entire country to a halt.

That would mean no more deliveries to resupply stores. In a very short time (days) the shelves would be bare and stay that way for who knows how long.

Anyway that's what really showed me how quick everything could go to hell over something so minor, never mind something major.


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## inceptor (Nov 19, 2012)

Something else that should give you pause to consider. They haven't come outright and stated this but like a puzzle, you can put the pieces together.

Stop and think of all the articles on the covid lock down. Many farms were shut down and farmers had to dump crops because they had no market to send it to or just plowed the crops under because they had no one to pick it. Other farmers had to cull their herds because they could not find or afford feed.









Why farmers dump food and crops while grocery stores run dry and Americans struggle


As the coronavirus pandemic continues to wage a silent war across the country, American farmers are being forced to pour out milk, crush eggs, toss fresh fruits and vegetables, euthanize livestock and plow under perfectly robust crops. Meanwhile, financially beleaguered Americans are lining up...




www.foxnews.com





Tons of milk have been dumped because they can't get it to the processors. One reason is that either the processors have shut down or are working in a very limited capacity.









Farmers dump 3.7 million gallons of milk in US due to coronavirus


Farmers have had to dump milk and plow vegetables back into the soil as many face difficulties repackaging products to meet changing demands for products during the pandemic.




www.dailymail.co.uk





This past summer we had a derecho that wiped out a lot of crops.









Monday's derecho damaged 10M acres of crops in Iowa; 600K still without power in Midwest


Iowa was especially hard hit, as the potent windstorm devastated the state’s power grid and flattened valuable corn fields.



www.usatoday.com





Last year quite a bit of crops were destroyed due to weather.









Farming: Weather is Leading Cause of U.S. Crop Loss – How Do You Assess the Risk?


Agricultural policy analysis can be improved with a systematic approach to assessing relative risks for agricultural production. For example, the climate variables used to predict agricultural production outcomes are often




agfax.com





The food supply is so tight in many countries that they are not exporting.



Countries are starting to hoard food, threatening global trade


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## Kauboy (May 12, 2014)

What started my journey of preparedness?
The Obama administration.

Fully realizing that one 4 year term could cause so much damage to normal citizens, that energy costs were going to rise, food prices were going to rise, and the economy could teeter on a knife's edge with any action tipping it toward collapse.
That opened my eyes.
I think that was around the time I started understanding the full impact of a HEMP explosion over the U.S. too, and that NK and Iran were actively pursuing nukes for this purpose.

That started the fire REAL quick!


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## Hemi45 (May 5, 2014)

Living in South Florida.


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## jeffh (Apr 6, 2020)

Robie said:


> Honestly?
> I started in earnest 2 months after Obama started occupying the White House.


That was when I really started buying firearms in earnest, so I guess that was my first prepping move.


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## Piratesailor (Nov 9, 2012)

I guess I had my first taste with Camille and living in Florida. My parents were always prepared. They were teenagers, young adults, during the depression so although it wasn’t driven into us, it was just part of what the family did. 

Living in Colorado with blizzards and storms I always thought of prepping in one form or fashion. The minimum I always had was something in my vehicle to help me survive. 

Later in Texas and with a career in BCP/DR planning I was immersed in the concepts from a business standpoint but also with employees/people. From there I prepped more and more until TS Alison then ramped it up even more. Hurricanes are the primary reason I prep but when Obama took office I saw the writing on the wall. It continues today but is only worse. 

Thanks my story and I’m sticking too it.


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## bigwheel (Sep 22, 2014)

Camel923 said:


> My Parents. They were products of the Great Depression. Grew food to can and freeze, live below your means, have extra household items like soap, laundry detergent, freezer for meat bought on sale. Old items that were still good and kept for someone in need or if some you had needed replaced. Our well water was not potable. I remember as a child having a five gallon jerry can that we would fill up at what ever relative’s we visited for drinking and cooking water. I have expanded on those ideas as an adult.


Same here on the older kin who survived the Depression. It was better to throw it up than throw it out at my house lol.


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## Steve40th (Aug 17, 2016)

Hurricanes are what go me started. I think it was Matthew. Not much happened to me, but the way the people showed how unprepared they were in stores. Water, TP, canned foods.. 
I have enough supplies to last me a few weeks. So, I am slowly buying and storing everything from water shock to propane stove items.. Food, water, water storage, toiletry, and working on first aid. 
Never going to be totally prepped. But can be ready for a slow transition into SHTF


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## Mrs. Spork (Jan 30, 2017)

Spork pulled me into prepping, but it didn't take much convincing. All the snowflakes cry in their safe spaces that aren't really safe. I don't cry in mine, I know we have what we need when the worst happens. That's why I like to prep, my mind is very much at ease when it comes to my family's wellbeing, no matter the external drama on any level (local, national, global).


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## MisterMills357 (Apr 15, 2015)

I came to this forum because I figured it would be an outstanding way , to check myself against other folks who want to survive, against all odds. I have faced some daunting circumstances, and I have been called a lot of names.

But, I knew there had to be others who were like me, who are tough and tough minded. And some folks on here are pretty tough, maybe in ways that I am not; but they know how to live through challenges. So here I am,still comparing notes and learning how to live through hard times.


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## PAPrepper (Oct 24, 2013)

Winter and ice storms then becoming woke to what is going on.


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## Swrock (Dec 14, 2018)

Hurricanes. I'm about 10 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. 
Every time one is potentially heading our way people go crazy and the non perishable items at the stores sell out really fast.
Bottled water, gas and ice go quick too.
So now when a hurricane is headed our way we usually only have to pick up bread and milk, and we do that early on.


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## Weldman (Nov 7, 2020)

Started with growing up around hurricanes in the 80's from watching my parents sort of prep, but I got the eye opener when I went to war in Iraq. Words can't describe it of what it could be like here unless you been there, another part that's etched in my brain and dictates everyday life is running out of food,water, ammo and rationing it out. Lived in fox holes for 6 weeks in 110 degree weather with chemical suit on sleeping one up one down after the sun went down if you weren't on QRF or on missions which meant no sleep while running low on supplies and you get where I came from. Still won't drink bottle water to this day going on 18 years later March 19/20th 2003. 
C co 1-187 Infantry Ft. Campbell KY.


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## The Tourist (Jun 9, 2016)

I got into the idea rather late. I had the guns, the knives, the ammunition and appropriate clothing.

What turned the tide for me was realizing that the largest section of society was doing absolutely nothing. And if we have food and water, you can bet that "society" will demand we hand it over.

I thought about that "cabin way off the map." Then again, I like A/C. I do not want to live in a cave.

I took a long look at my gun room. I have reloading equipment, lots of brass, I can sharpen just about everything and I do not look at "the gym" as punishment. The only thing that was holding me back _*was me*_!


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