The experience of seeing their grocery store shelves stripped bare may have been the “Katrina Moment” for thousands of people, starting some of them on the road to preparedness.
A quick survey of websites selling freeze-dried meals shows that they’ve been hit pretty hard too. You might notice from some of these screenshots, sites like Mountain House and Auguson Farms were even sold out of their mega-pallets-o-food packages. Check out those prices! People have been dropping some serious dollars on buckets of emergency food.
Old salts will be quick to say that there’s more to preparedness than a few buckets of 25-year meal pouches. They’re right, of course, but new preppers need to start somewhere. Purchasing a few days’ worth of meals to tuck away is an easy first step. The question will be, what comes next?
Human nature being what it is, quite a few of these neo-preppers will fall back into their former complacency once the situation improves. When the store shelves are stocked with all the TP, bread, or rice that they could want, their buckets of freeze-dried meals will gather dust in their garage or basement. They might even cringe when they rediscover them years later, wondering, “What was I thinking?” Complacency is a strong magnet.
For some, though, the sudden shortages will have flipped a switch. They will take some comfort in knowing that they have a few days of food stashed away for their family. But, the vulnerability feeling won’t go away. They will look around with newly opened eyes to see where else their lifestyle had been, essentially, hand-to-mouth — and too often, it was someone else’s hand they depended upon.
Once those eyes are opened, it’s usually hard to close them again. The mind, once the switch is flipped, is prone to see other ‘what if’ vulnerabilities. What if the power went down for a long time? What if the city water stopped? What if the city sewer system stopped? What if the police are too busy to answer my 911? It can be overwhelming for those starting out.
Not just for newbies
In my quest for yeast (another story), I found that store shelves were stripped of flour (and yeast) too. On the plus side, I found some comfort in thinking that enough folks still knew how to cook from scratch to empty the shelves of a raw ingredient and not just frozen pizzas. I was not worried about a shortage of flour because I had stocked up a while back on some bags of raw grain — wheat, rye, barley — for fresh bread baking
That got me curious to see if bulk wheat was being “sold out” too. The results were mixed. Some sites, marketing to preparedness folks, were showing their 50 lb. sacks of wheat berries were sold out. One site I’ve bought from (Palouse) had no 50 lb. sacks but did have 25 lb. sacks.
Apparently, some folks that think beyond the store shelves have been stocking up too.
It will be interesting to see how many new folks start to move away from complacent “grasshopper” lifestyles to seeking self-sufficiency and being ready to “roll with” the next Katrina event. And then, how many will give it up quickly and go back to being grasshoppers.
Really good article Mic. It will be interesting to see how many more people stay down the path of preparedness.
Hi Chip, I’m hoping a few of them were actually awakened and keep prepping. Many, I think, will have only bought a band-aid that they won’t end up using. It’s a common failing for us humans that we like a quick, single fix to our problems. That failing has sold a lot of snake oil over time.
Mic,
I hope this does “create” many new preppers. It seemed just before all of this there seemed to be a lot of the preparedness community disappearing. And I wont hesitate to buy some unused gear at a heavy discount….
Hi Jeff,
There was a disappointing drop-off in the preparedness community’s enthusiasm following Trump’s election. Seems like some of the “new preppers” that came along during the previous administration were all too willing to fall back into complacency. It will happen again with this crop of new preppers. There may well be unused gear (or still-sealed buckets of freeze-dried foods) for sale after this virus thing blows over.