People have asked us why on earth did we expose ourselves as preppers to the world. The simple answer is that we felt the need to urge everyone to prepare and quickly.
The long answer is that by getting out there in the public eye our message would get out there to thousands who would not have the opportunity to know, to prepare otherwise.
Is anyone ever truly prepared? The answer is no. No matter how hard you work at it, how much you store or how much you train, there will be something you forgot.
This is where your support group comes in. Family, friends and like minded people. Together, as a family, as a group, you have a better chance.
These are the things we hope to bring out. That working together we can survive. That by preparing for the worst, we can together live for the future. That it’s not about some survivalists holed up in a bunker, rather an extended family, with children, looking toward the future.
Without that hope of a future, the past means nothing.
Yes, you can be that survivalist, hiding out in the boonies, eating nuts, berries and venison, but without family, you will just be another mouldering corpse out in the woods, alone. Our family, our tribe, our community will go forward.
Paul the Skeptic
Paul Range
Gloria Haswell now Gloria Range
thank-you for that jnfo. keep me /us postet good job ruth havava florida.
Very impressed with both of you from watching the show last night. I’ve learned a lot from Kellene Bishop from following her blog and radio program the past year or so. I wanted to prepare for and protect my family from “whatever”, not doomsday. I learned much from your short segment and look forward to reading your blog. I am also in Texas.
Benefits of Prepping and how I got into it:
Learning how to live off of the land once a city’s infrastructure has crashed is something everyone should learn a little about. I’m educated, employed, and still did not know how to start a fire or filter water until I took some of these classes. Things our grandparents know.
I learned the hard way, as I lived in Louisiana during Katrina and Rita, but fled Houston for 12 days as soon as I got wind of another hurricane prior to Ike.
I told myself I would never allow myself to be that intimidated again by a natural disaster. It’s not that I couldn’t eat canned goods for a week, but that when things go wrong as a result of a disaster, other people lose their senses; I didn’t want to be one of those people.
Learning from these classes and this experience has eased a LOT of my tension and storm anxiety. It really has. I have a greater self-confidence of my own abilities.
I was a relief worker in Katrina (for six months). It affected me too. I didn’t ride out the storm, but road out the “downloading” of hundreds of victims each day, for six months. Most of us workers sorta lost it afterwards. I have sense been unable to think inside the box of “government will take care of us” mindset. I saw the cluster-F up close and personal. Saw the bigotry of relief agencies that claimed to be “Spiritual” groups, as they denied resources to some, while catering federal supplies to their “own” denominational members. So I don’t trust private non-profits either will be free from such inhumane treatment to one another when a bigger event were to happen.
Glad to hear you took classes & hope more will wake up to the reality that survival depends on preparedness & sometimes that is about knowing skills, not hoarding or looting or waiting for the magic carpet of govt or church relief.
Here’s my question. If you’re concerned about a continental shift, why don’t you have all of your food that is stored in sealed glass jars in a more secure housing instead of open shelves where they will most certainly fall and break when the earthquakes begin?
We had to pick one concern for the show. We prepare for everything. I took some of the jars out of boxes so they would look better for the show. We did have a 4.5 earthquake while the jars were on the shelves and not one fell off.
Might also want to put small cardboard shims between the bottles.
As you know, 4.5 is pretty small as quakes go.
Consider cargo straps for the front of shelves. Even if its only part way up the front of each shelf, it would be able to help a great deal in securing them.
ALso since you have the beautiful desert climate situation, have you considered learning how some of our more “primitive” desert societies use the earth to refrigerate or store below ground? Bedouins are amazing for this skill! Just something to think about. Cuts out light & also using the ole Irish technique of burying your food supply means marauding groups don’t find everything. Perhaps some, so they leave thinking they cleaned you out, but if you have caches underground they can last for eons, as have been the case with stores in Egypt.
Looks like you have a great set up. I was worried about one thing that you might want to change. If your most probable disaster is polar shift followed by large earthquakes….I wouldn’t have all my food in glass jars on shelves with no shelf edge blocker. At least run a 1×4 across front of each shelf. Hope your shelves are secured to the walls. Great set up though! Inspiring.Let me know if you agree. Frank
Hi y’all, I really enjoy the Prepper show and am learning a great deal from all the people on the shows. One thing I have noticed is that many of you have stored goods in big glass jars. What I wonder about is if there is one or more big earthquakes, how will you keep all those jars restrained on all your shelves. This struck me immediately: all those glass jars from top to bottom and no way I saw to keep them in their place. Seems like there’ll be a lot of food & broken glass on the floor. And, what about jars knocking together if they are restrained. I’m not trying to be a smarty, just wondering. Thanks. Anne Burdette
We are very interested in building a home out of storage containers. Could you pass on information on how we can do this? Where do you buy the containers? Thank you
Craigslist or the yellow pages for your area.
Paul and Gloria,
Thank you for appearing on NatGeo. It was awesome to see what y’all are doing. I live in Dallas and would love to see how you built your home, etc. I have a large parcel of land north of Dallas that I’d like to make into a bug-out facility and permanent home. Is this possible? You can vet me however you like.
Thank you,
Lance
We list our meetings and classes on the meetup site http://www.meetup.com/homesteadingftgu/
Hello, Thank you for becomming public advocates of prepping. My husband and me are looking for land to get started, do you know like minded agents that understand underground biuldings like root cellars, bunkers, greenhouse capability? We need to stay with in 30 miles of his work unforturnatley , thus the land is kind expensive…maybe a good prepper agent will take kindness on us and find forclosure or something of that nature land for us.
I’m grateful that I took the time out to watch this series. I stopped watching television because I felt it was too much of an entity within my life. Though after some years of the lost attachment I can enjoy it from time to time without feeling dictated to. I’m always thinking of the future and its many possibilities. Though I never gave much thought as like those that I saw from this series. I’m a college student from humble beginnings, but moreso motivated about what I plan to do to secure my future. Thanks for sharing your daily life and why we all could give a care to better prepare ours.
Here’s my question. If you’re concerned about a continental shift, why don’t you have all of your food that is stored in sealed glass jars in a more secure housing instead of open shelves where they will most certainly fall and break when the earthquakes begin?
Just wanted to say Hi and a general thank you.
My beloved wife and I started prepping last Feb (2012) once the gov’t started QE3 (“printing money out of thin air – again, ugh). Granted our reasons for doing it may be different than yours – but prepping is prepping.
I first watched Doomsday Preppers and something about the show just hit a chord with me. I was like “yea, no kidding. I have been thinking of doing this for a WHILE.”
But I had never gotten off my butt and started. Well, we just started a few months ago, and for complete beginners we’re doing pretty decently. We started with the basics : Food, medicine, first aid prep (to my skill level), weapons/ammo, and we will probably have (we will have) solar & wind at our home within the next 2-4 months. (had the contractors over to our house this week for their estimates).
I wanted to thank you and encourage you. Thank you for you showing how nice normal folk can be prepping, and to encourage you to keep on teaching and talking about it.
If you would like – I left my E-mail – and if you want to say hi or offer tips, please feel free to do so.
With sincere regards,
Steven
Prepping is smart for anyone. But in today’s economy what advice would you give to a family of 6 on how to prep. With limited cash prepping is virtually impossible. Most like minded folks that I know are the same, no money but fear futures catastrophic events.
Chris G.
Hey Gloria, I just wanted to say I enjoyed watching you and you husband on Doomsday Preppers. My husband and I are preppers too and I got to bragg that at one point and time you lived right behind me and my parents in San Antonio when you were Gloria Haswell. Glad to see you teach others the importance of prepping for any emergency and that some one I know has them same idea.
Thank you for sharing. The best layout I’ve seen. R the containers welded together? How does the temperature stay inside them. may have to take a class just to understand how u created your compound
Hi Paul and Gloria, love your NatGeo vid. great stuff. I noticed that you had cook chicken chimichanga. How it’s called that food storage technique? how long can you storage meat in that way? Here in Italy there’s one similar but it uses for fruit or vegetables, not for meat. Can you describe it so you’ll let me start? thank you for infos.
I’m reading your meetup group.
Keep up the great knowledge you are spreading.
Stefano
Italy
Hi Paul & Gloria (and all preppers out there),
I watched the Nat Geo show on Youtube and heard you were preparing for Polar Shift, Continental drift and earthquakes, and also saw your food store / pantry.
I have some advice: You need to secure your shelves and food stored on shelves in a much better fashion (particularly glass bottles).
I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, which is still recovering from the 2010/2011 Earthquakes, and so, I’ve had some experience in this. Anything that can move, will move. If your shelves are not braced (tie together with bars to make a rigid structure) they can domino onto each other. This happen at the central supply depot for several large shopping centres in Christchurch. Since they are not legally allow to sell damaged food goods, they had to dump tons of it. Many shops had their aisles filled with broken bottles, dented cans and split bags.
You guys have worked so hard to prepare yourselves, and food is such a valuable resource – I would hate to see it lost because of such simple thing.
God bless you guys! I hope and pray that God keeps you through whatever may come.
Gavin Prinsloo
I don’t seem to find any upcoming classes with you guys. How about an update on you two. We have the DVD from the first season of DDP and watch yours often.