across the country ordinary americans from all walks of life are taking whatever measures necessary to prepare i'm preparing my family for the total destruction of the power grid the yellowstone super volcano a financial collapse and protect themselves and survival is the goal it's into the spider hole fast fast fast fast from what they perceive is the fast approaching end of the world as we know it what i'm gonna use like this next we go inside the lives of four committed preppers who have devised extensive plans we have enough for about eight people for three years gone to great lengths oh poison them or cut their throats in their sleep or something like that and made huge personal sacrifices to ensure their very survival my knees broke my back's broke my hands broke uh the only thing that still works on me is my mouth the experts will assess their extreme preps and decide if they have what it takes to face armageddon here's to the end of the world and to survive this is doomsday preppers [Music] david sardi is a disabled truck driver living outside of nashville tennessee for 20 years his job took him to every corner of the united states but now his life's work is at home he's a prepper [Music] i'm preparing for an electromagnetic pulse that will disable the transportation system of the united states an electromagnetic pulse or an emp is a sudden burst of energy that can take out any electrical appliance a nationwide emp can be caused by a solar flare a sudden release of energy from the sun an emp only takes a millisecond your television will go off the car would stall all your lights would go out it would be like somebody instantly flipped a switch on the world in 1859 an emp in the form of a solar flare hit the united states and europe nicknamed the carrington event it caused an almost worldwide failure of the telegraph system one of the few electronic technologies of the day in some places it was so powerful it actually started fires and burnt the wires in two could you even imagine what it would do today with all the wires that are strung all over the place we know that the natural one will happen again if a similar emp hit today scientists believe that it could take over a year to repair america's damaged electrical grid to stay ahead of the game david monitors the sun's activity on a daily basis checking for the warning signs associated with massive solar flares yeah this is where one of those emp events would come from this is live right now the last few days it's putting out a lot of flares but right now we're getting a lot of electrical interference if one of those pops out at earth that's when things go bad some people think i'm obsessed about prepping but you know i hope they're right i hope they think i hope i am crazy i hope nothing happens you know that would be the greatest thing in the world all right you're gonna lose my eyes folks don't i look cool a fat tom cruise spending 20 years on the road as a trucker has given david an insight into just how bad the effects of an emp would be the trucking industry is what this country lives on there's not one thing one thing that you don't touch see hear and eat that does not come on a truck [Music] all the trucks are computerized and an electromagnetic pulse would fry the computer in those trucks just like it would fry the computers in most all your cars this is the truck computer don't look like much that controls all the stuff for the truck without that this one here wouldn't run at all gauges in there fuel sensors i call it the achilles heel of the nation's trucking fleet just three days without a working transportation system would leave america's grocery stores empty back at his farm david adds the shelled corn to his doomsday stores all stashed for the long term in 208 liter containers i have enough food and dry grains for one year for seven people now this isn't nothing that you're gonna love to eat it's basically cornbread with beans put these hand warmers in there they're the same thing as oxygen absorbers push out as much air as you can hand warmers contain fine iron filings that can absorb oxygen from the air when placed in a sealed bag they can eliminate mold and pests that rely on oxygen to survive 20 years 30 years that's good i'll be pushing up daisies before that goes bad what david can't store he plans to grow on his farm intent on making it the perfect location to sit out doomsday i'm in a bugat location we can produce more food than we can eat here so technically i have an unlimited supply [Music] so while all of y'all in new york are eating romaine noodles around here we're going to be eating a lot of ribeye steak and t-bones approximately three days after an electromagnetic pulse the panic would have done already hit and most everybody would have cleaned out the grocery stores within three weeks you're gonna have the first variety because people when they get hungry they're gonna try to take other people's food away from them to stave off hungry masses david has a three-stage security plan in place i've got several extra rolls of barbed wire then you have these yappy little dogs if the person has gone through all the trouble to get through the barbed wire and try to take on the dogs finally the last line of defense is this every gun in this house is loaded i'm a decent shot i was a lot better i used to be able to shoot the wings off of nat's ass at 100 yards not too bad for a fat guy david has taken his expertise to the small screen all right all you youtubers he regularly preaches the prepping gospel to a large online audience so we're gonna pour that into the ceramic filter he covers everything from water filtration dirty water has turned into clean water to homemade antibiotics so what i'm going to do is show you how to make your own antibiotics thank you very much communication is survival for david and he has no intention of giving it up for an apocalypse when there's an emergency the value of communication is fairly basic i mean if you don't know where the help is what good is it going to be you have to have information to know where it is all right ki4lwa i just wanted to tell you you picked the right subject about emp tonight congratulations [Applause] amateur or ham radio allows david to communicate with millions of other ham operators worldwide using only existing radio frequencies in the air it requires no phone lines no internet and can be run completely on battery or solar power whiskey charlie 2 victor uh be back in a few it's kind of neat to be able to talk to somebody not using any of the infrastructure it's something i can give back to the community my knees broke my back's broke my hands broke uh the only thing that still works on me is my mouth that goes a mile a minute you know it's like i have a little briggs and stratton motor in there even though a ham radio would work after an emp it still needs to be protected during an enp and to keep his prized possession safe david is building a faraday cage a faraday cage is a metal container that encloses the item completely in a conductive material by creating a seamless metal surface that electricity would run along but not through anything inside the faraday cage would be protected from the electrical surge caused by an emp we're not done yet but this all has to be sealed up and it's going to be wrapped in metal all the way around if i was inside i could close the door and lightning bolts could strike and i wouldn't even know they were hitting me i would probably give it a few days before i even unpacked my radios from their cages and then i would turn them on and scan the frequencies listening for other amateur radio operators there are many people that believe that they can just become hermits and that's fine and dandy but if you want to rebuild society you need to communicate if you don't know where the help is what good is it going to be you have to have information to know where it is the consultants at practical preppers are impressed by your ability to grow and store food and your communication systems will help you to build back your community yes one of the reasons i got into amateur radio is for emergency communications even though i'm in bad health there's still things that i can do as long as i'm here i'm going to do my best to help others but your health is your biggest obstacle to survival without the physical strength to 10 crops and chop wood you will need outside help in surviving an emp i've been focusing on my health i've come to a point right now where it's going to take surgery but it is what it is since the national geographic special people were filming here my health has not changed if anything it may got worse unless unless something happens that i can afford the surgery i don't have much hope in that what are the odds of an emp actually occurring extremely rare and unpredictable massive solar storms happen about every 150 years carrington-sized events which could take years to recover from happen every 500 years or so [Music] in the salt lake city suburb of orem utah colleen bishop has earned a reputation for being able to whip up gourmet cuisine in a flash and what the bubbly housewife is also known for is i am preparing for a financial collapse which will result in the end of the world as we know it i believe that there will be a colossal financial collapse i believe we're on the precipice of that right now the mortgage industry the currency value wall street unemployment etc etc it's all going to come into play as the perfect storm we have a great deal of foreign debt that could be turned over and flooded back into the system at any time there will be a day reckoning and when that happens the financial collapse will take a matter of hours before it impacts us right here in this nation i used to run a multi-million dollar business i had my bling that my husband gave me every christmas now the kind of bling that i asked santa claus for is typically the type of bling you'll see on a pressure cooker or a solar oven if we find ourselves in a world where there's been a financial collapse and it's very likely grocery stores will be empty i think i might be eating a little differently than other preppers because i'm a foodie everything i have i have for full flavor and gourmet foods if the world comes to an end i may be eating rice and beans but they will be some kicking rice and beans i'll be eating more things like beef stroganoff chicken poppy seed casserole cocoa van four cheese italian risotto i'll be eating some good stuff under a doomsday scenario i'll be the only one standing there who has another hundred pounds to lose everybody else will be skin and bones so what are we looking at then wheat wise yeah oh we've probably got uh about three thousand pounds between the two of us something like colleen and her husband scott foresee a day when money is so worthless that fuel and groceries become luxury items coco has gone up 300 percent since last christmas my worst case scenario is the value of the dollar is brought down to four cents you believe these are 25 cents to prepare for a society where a carton of milk might become prohibitively expensive colleen and her husband spend six to eight hours a day prepping and stockpiling enough food and water to last them for years this is where we store all of our yummy freeze-dried and dehydrated foods just this closet alone we have enough for about eight people for three years a protein room we're running out of room for the canned chicken this one won't fit uh there's meat stored all over the place it's like oops excuse me don't step on the meat a modified guest bedroom eight 55 gallon barrels of water what have you done to my guest bedroom honey it's a water bed no i'm not getting up on there and a comfort room so a lot of people think that this room is a little bit overkill this is where i store all the comforts such as chocolate brownie mixes and toilet paper all of our preparedness supplies that we have in the home presently um probably have a retail value of over a hundred thousand dollars just so you know i tallied the milk and we're looking at 700 gallons but i really want that to be up to 900. i think they've got a sale coming up on that too so now would be a good time for that it's the only time my wife does like to store a lot of food i'm grateful for a wife that likes to and is good at cooking okay it's something that gives you an edge in a doomsday scenario i might add just a couple pats of butter because batter always makes uh the sauce the fact of the matter is i'd go back into a burning house for my cookbooks i watch a lot of cooking shows in order to give me great inspiration for gourmet dishes from shelf stable foods it is not tough to make gourmet menus out of shelf stable foods the only tricky part is knowing how to make a food shelf stable colleen fears that electricity costs will skyrocket and she won't be able to rely on her refrigerator consequently she treats her perishable foods so they will stay fresh for years so we're actually preserving eggs today she is teaching her friend barb food preservation tricks put a little bit of mineral oil on your hands and then slather it all over the egg which is basically mimicking how they already come out of the hen not allowing oxygen to get through this goes fast it does when i get a killer deal on eggs like 50 cents or 75 cents a dozen i can buy a whole lot of them and i can store them in a cool dry place without them going bad they will sit tight for about uh 9 to 12 months there we go so i'm actually dipping hot cheese wax over hard cheeses all you do is just dip it in here nice and easy they continue to age but you don't have to have refrigeration these will keep for 20 to 25 years that's great in the event of a financial collapse i suspect that a lot of people are gonna have to just eat that nasty powdered stuff not me i am having swiss cheese on homemade naan bread there we're running out of room in here hon a fortified pantry isn't colleen's only defense against a catastrophic financial collapse if her fears are realized she's prepared to fight back so you're never more than 20 feet away from a firearm in this house one example is a small firearm and a number 10 can of peas and i remember that because it's my pee shooter so this is my everyday kind of weapon they don't make cans quite big enough for my doomsday weapons and we get all the peas off and it's not about protecting your food it's about protecting your life your comfort and even your virtue my husband and i focus a great deal on what we call our bug in plan where things are so awful outside that you really don't want to go anywhere in a doomsday financial collapse scenario we would be staying put exactly where we are tonight the bishops practice sweeping the house for intruders who may attempt to loot their food supplies [Music] being able to walk through your home without the lights on which you may not have is critical knowing the layout of your home gives you a significant advantage i navigate this house in the dark even better than i navigate my own town with a gps system we feel confident that we could take care of any potential invader we chose morse code as one of our communication strategies because we were watching one of the charlie angels movies and they're like doing morse code on each other's hands in the dark so that they know what their next kickbutt move is anyway so we thought that would be a good idea so we started using that i think having the alternative communication measures will be very important you don't always want to turn your hand and the element of surprise is one of the biggest assets that you have we want to have more than one communication means and so another strategy is learning to be fluent in tagalog hindi say young they speak tagalog in the philippines it is a rare language so it's not likely that we run into someone who will be fluent in that as well i think there are a lot of people that would think that the extent that my wife and i go to is probably let's say insane that will change certainly in a doomsday scenario if society crumbles colleen and scott plan on being a resource for others out but they won't be able to defend everything so it's right behind the adam's apple so instead they are teaching their community how to survive [Music] colleen is so passionate about the importance of self-defense she has left her corporate job to teach ordinary housewives how to protect themselves she provides hands-on training including a quick draw shooting class for women we'll have women coming in having never even fired a gun before and we will be able to teach them this skill by the end of our class you should just see their faces it makes such a difference for them to know that they can take care of themselves the quick draw is a self-defense technique you don't have time to say oh mr bad guy will you please get in my line of sight you're going to breathe in and then you're going gonna breathe out as you extend out there you go and then you do the dance and if she runs out of bullets she is also an expert in self-defense history has shown us again and again and again that when the society collapses then you have great amounts of violence specifically targeting women the first mistake they will make is to underestimate your ability to fight back i push my foot up to the ceiling i don't need to be strong women that actually take the time to learn this technique they have mentally empowered themselves so that they actually have a better chance of avoiding rape okay right exactly so it's right behind the adam's apple are you allowed to hurt maimer kill someone who wants to rape you okay awesome you want to dig your thumbs in to his eyes please don't pull out my husband's eyes okay okay this will crack or crush bone you want a top to bottom stripe all right so that wraps up our training for today in the interest of strengthening our preparedness community so that we can all be safe and strong i'm inviting you over to my house this evening for a fabulous dinner party i am so excited about tonight's dinner party i'm not gonna make a single dish with anything from the refrigerator or from the freezer perky fabulous i don't think most people would think of this as doomsday cooking she's fabulous colleen and scott are the star preppers in my estimation welcome everybody to this evening's preparedness pro dinner party everything you can make from shelf stable food i don't want you to ever think of food storage and curl up your lip like ever again okay wow this is amazing i've had a deviled egg with almonds before these must be salmon cakes right how old are these eggs they're about seven eight months so i'll do this and tell my kids at thanksgiving that they're nine month old eggs there you go here's to eating well at the end of the world [Music] the experts have concluded that your food storage is excellent and commend you for developing a varied cooking plan and for sharing this knowledge with your community your self-defense strategies will also serve you well in case of a societal breakdown due to economic collapse it is likely that others will look to you for help in dangerous times we expect people to turn to us in times of crisis in a doomsday type scenario and we're not naive we are prepared for both type of people who might want to come however while your stored water is a good start it is inadequate for a long-term bug-in you can only survive three days without water at the bare minimum we recommend you install a rain catching system so you can replenish your water supply um i'd say we've covered that bare minimum several times over haven't we backups to backups we don't necessarily reveal all our cards since um we wrapped up the show um we have added to those reserves both in terms of water and in terms of options for fuel and power so i think we're sitting just fine and the changes that we will make will be done because of our continual efforts in preparedness what are the odds of a financial collapse actually occurring while hyperinflation and severe depressions have occurred in major economies in the past most economists do not believe the united states is currently at risk kathy harrison is a new england liberal living the idyllic country life she plays soccer with her kids cooks homemade meals for her family and loves to garden except they call me the doris day of doom because i'm preparing for a black swan event like a catastrophic new madrid earthquake black swan events are those events that come out of nowhere we often say oh i didn't see that one coming but they have the potential to completely change the way we live our lives kathy thinks the next black swan will come in the form of a catastrophic earthquake along the 200 kilometer long new madrid seismic zone in the central united states the new madrid fault covers seven states it has actually let go twice before there was a big earthquake in 1811. from december 1811 to march 1812 there were thousands of quakes in the new madrid zone including around 20 that were magnitude 6.
5 or larger now things would be totally different we have major cities on that fault zone we have nuclear power plants we have communications that have to cross that it would effectively cut our country into two pieces millions of trucks crossed the new madrid seismic zone every year carrying food and other supplies if the truck stopped running we'd be out of food in three days i'm prepared for that we have chosen a place to live that can be fairly self-sufficient in terms of food water and heat we have enough carrots here we could probably feed the whole neighborhood kathy and her husband bruce grow most of their family's food in their backyard i am the supporter of the doris day of doom would you think about adding more of those currents scattered in with the flowers that might be a good idea i wouldn't say prepping his obsession i would say is just the way we live we're growing kale and peppers all of these tomatoes we grew from seed that we saved from our tomatoes from last year i never have to worry about buying seed if there's ever a supply disruption i'm good we grow a lot of tomatoes i probably put up about a hundred yards of sauce a year tomatoes are the only things that kathy preserves in a jar in fact she pretty much cans everything in sight i probably have 700 cans down in the basement i have several kinds of meat chicken ground beef stew beef peaches and pears and beautiful cherries during canning season i can easily spend six or eight hours a day over my canner all righty here we go there you go oh here comes the steam look at them boiling there you go this is local grass-fed beef this meat will stay good in this jar pretty much indefinitely if we have a power outage and our freezers are down and everything this is already cooked i just have to heat it up and it's a meal i could actually even eat a cold out of the jar if i wanted to in a magnitude 7. 7 new madrid quake it is estimated that over 2000 electric oil and natural gas facilities would be damaged leaving millions across the country without power i think we think about electricity and it's this magic stuff that's sort of always there but think about what happens when it's not always there you can't pump gas you can't purchase groceries you can't access money from your bank account if power goes down kathy and bruce have prepared a plan b a way to trade and barter for the goods they need without money you can't eat gold and you can't eat silver instead we have a number of things that we could barter if we wanted to we're gonna smoke them you want to take the top off bees have provided us with honey for um thousands of years there was honey found in the tombs of egypt and the smoke keeps these nice and gossip they'll stay right in here and behave themselves if i came down here without smoking and opened these hives they've been all over us they've been really angry honey can become very valuable it's one of the only foods that won't go bad you can store it forever and ever and ever and ever wow ah that's perfect delicious in a grade down situation those bees become not just food for us but they become honey that we can barter for they become candles they provide us with a base for salves and creams for wounds or sores those bees are the essence of resilience for us kathy and bruce are also building up a bank of skills that will give them complete independence from mainstream society my husband does the woodworking i like to sew get in there don't go too fast get in the rhythm all right all right all right we got it with wheat i can grind it and turn it into good bread for my family do you have muscles can you do this i'll need and you need oh look it i think i got it i can chop a wood i'm almost getting it i'm also thinking about who around me has a skill that i maybe don't have so that we learn to depend on each other kathy actively encourages her entire community to ready themselves for the coming doomsday by including them in her prepping activities we're already in a sort of doomsday event i mean like is hitting the fan around us our government is spending like hundreds of billions of dollars a year on weapons and the military like seems like they're prepping we've been very busy out collecting apples for doing our cider pressing how this process works is you throw them into this hopper and it grinds them you just keep turning and turning and turning you see the cider comes out the bottom here after the cider has sat for a while it will um you can turn it into hard cider or whiskey if a crisis happened we could barter it'd be very very valuable let me see how it is it's easy to feel a little left out of the prepper community if you live in new england and if you're not um fairly right-wing and conservative politically but i just don't spend my time worrying about storing guns and ammunition i think we're gonna get all this done today because our security comes not from stockpiling weapons but from having a community that respects each other supports each other and we have each other's backs keep loading keep loading some people say oh i just want to have guns and frankly i think that's pretty stupid marauding bands come i'll show them how much great food i've got i'll invite them to some sort of feast and charm them and then if i decide that they could be useful and cooperative great and otherwise i'll poison them or cut their throats in their sleep or something like that [Music] we have become a nation that expects to be taken care of we think that there is always going to be some white knight and a horse that comes into to rescue us and more and more often we're seeing that that just is not the case hello dear i suppose that there are some people who do in fact think that i'm paranoid and gloomy do me and why do i waste my time thinking about this but here's the reality because i've spent a lot of time preparing for the worst case scenario i can afford to be cheerful the rest of the time case sarasara to the end of the world by growing and preserving your own food you have given yourself the ability to survive without normal infrastructure for many years yeah i think so i think we've got enough to really take care of ourselves and our extended family i feel good about it you are well-rounded and self-sufficient in community-based skills but in a true nationwide disaster there is likely to be widespread lawlessness well it's um i'm really not worried about that we have a wonderful community that we can fall on to support you need to think about how you can secure your location and learn to protect your family with weapons that you feel comfortable using it's a place we really fall down there's no question about it it just doesn't really suit ethically who we are it's been a few weeks since natgeo was here to visit and we listened to what they had to say but we've decided not to change the way we prepare at the end of the day the people who stock up on guns and the people who support resilient communities can get together exchange notes and we'll decide who fares the best what are the odds of a new madrid earthquake actually occurring the past three were about 500 years apart but every 50 years there's a 1 in 50 chance the big one will hit [Music] dennis evers is a prop maker and inventor who lives in a colorado ranch like a typical family man he spends time with his kids grandkids and works to maintain the farm except i'm prepping to protect my family from global chaos brought on by hyperinflation as far as what i see on the horizon for this country are some pretty tough times and i believe it's going to be a fairly protracted event the cause is the government printing trillions of dollars when we don't have it to back it up if the economy collapses i see a tremendous shockwave going through our entire society they're going to be a lot of hungry people they're going to be a lot of angry people i'm concerned about how my family will survive in a world where food and basic needs are going to be outrageously priced if things go bad and the economy tanks we're ready for it it's not going to be a surprise we're not going to sit around like millions of americans wondering what happened or how it happened we're simply going to spring into action and survive when it hits the fan each of my kids has a job and an assignment and they know what to do and how to do it my oldest son tim is in charge of hunting and security my daughter jenny and her husband pat are in charge of fuel nate and betsy deal with communications ricky knows how to weld and helps me with engineering side of things johnny's currently training to be an emergency responder [Music] dennis believes that civilization will devolve into a harsh dog-eat-dog world once extreme hyperinflation hits he and his wife sandy have stored buckets of provisions and continued to build up their stocks by preserving massive quantities of foodstuffs as far as feeding your family canning is probably one of the best things there is and we've done it for years sandy's in charge of food and she'll spend days processing hundreds of quarts of fruit and it all entails a tremendous amount of work i spend all day canning there's days where all you do is get up in the morning and start canning and until you go to bed at night people might think what i do is excessive but for our application it's not even as much as i'd like to do all right we finished this bushel of peaches and it made 21 quarts these jarred peaches will last for years when we're done with the canning we need a place to put it and that's under the beds so what i've done is basically remove the box springs and put boxes of canned goods you're not supposed to stack the jars on top of each other because it can break the seal so that's a lot when you do hundreds and hundreds of jars it takes up a lot of space so underneath the bed is perfect stays cool out of the way nobody messes with it canning is only one of the three labor-intensive methods used to make large quantities of food last from six months to a year vacuum-sealed jars to preserve fruit a homemade smoker to preserve meat and a solar dehydrator that dennis invented and constructed from scraps which can be used to preserve either we've invented some things here at the ranch that helped feed the kids almost no cost whatsoever one of them is a solar dehydrator the solar dehydrator operates by using only the energy from the sun's rays a bounty of fruit from the ranch is ingeniously prepared by dennis and at the end of the process the solar dehydrator yields pounds and pounds of long-lasting food this will help me feed my family when disaster hits by having an abundant amount of food available that really doesn't cost anything other than the sun the importance of delegating labor when uh it hits the fan is no person can do everything i can only be so many places at one time pat and jenny are my fuel guys and uh they take care of our wood needs growing up when my family my dad taught us kids all many different capabilities that would enable us to be more self-sufficient firewood is a common fuel choice for many preppers because of its easy availability so in order to be ready for hyperinflation the evers routinely stock their wood pile we have a lot of implements around the ranch here one of them is kong which is a homemade log splitter which we built for absolutely nothing pat and jenny use kong a lot because it allows them to process a tremendous amount of wood in a reasonable amount of time if the economy tanked and we had a stockpile of our fuel which the boys are cutting right now we'd be able to keep the house warm we'd be able to cook food boil water and maintain some of the essentials that people find comforting and often take for granted dennis believes the economy will crumble and cause vital infrastructure public works and homes to fall into disrepair in order to maintain their ranch's infrastructure dennis has trained one of his kids in a skill that might be in short supply my dad taught me pretty much everything i have woodworking metal plumbing electrical the economy of collapsed any skill is a good skill especially metal working sturdy it's long lasting it's just it's a good skill to know ricky's a really good uh crafts person she's capable of metal work and woodwork and if i need help on my creations or if we need to maintain them or build a part ricky's got the capability to do it she's there for me and she knows what to do dennis believes that if hyperinflation occurs destructive life-threatening situations will be inescapable colorado had close to 3 500 fires in 2010 so one of dennis's youngest sons has taken on the brave responsibility of safeguarding the family johnny's in fire training right now to become a fireman which will be a nice addition to have around in the event this stuff hits the fan dennis and johnny know that in order to be ready johnny's training cannot stop when he leaves the firehouse ready set go 15 seconds okay johnny hurry up coming on 45 seconds let's get going coming on a minute buddy finish it up where was that 2 15. you got to be kidding me you're supposed to have it in under a minute 30.
so i screwed up pretty big the evers emergency food and water supply far surpasses fema's three-day recommendation for general disaster preparedness so they fear they will become a target during an economic collapse dennis has taken a more preventative approach to ensuring their safety nate and betsy are my tech team and they're helping us install security and communication devices here at the ranch we're the gizmo couple and our job is to deliver i.
