You are listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper. My Dusting. The real Ducting. It fixes everything except that decision. Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. American. From border to border, coast to coast, and all ships at sea. Here is your host, Keith.
SPEAKER_01Hello again, everybody, and welcome back to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast for July 21st, 2026. And I apologize if there's some background noise. Here in Central Virginia, we are getting hammered with a summer thunderstorm. I was able to work from home the last couple hours this afternoon, get the chicken coops buttoned up, charge all my phone banks, test the generator again, and make sure that I was ready for the power to go out here in a few hours.
Speaking of power going out, this past Saturday had to go up to Dulles Airport and do a pickup. And the trip was supposed to be probably five hours round trip tops. Well, that turned into a 12-hour round trip because of weather, flight delays, flight diversions, and a whole bunch of other headaches. So when I left about noon on Saturday, it was going to rain here in Richmond about seven. Well, dummy me, oh, I've got plenty of time. I don't need to put the mower back into the shed. I don't need to worry about X, Y, and Z until I get a notification at 3:30 in the afternoon that I had lost power. Did not get back to the house till roughly one in the morning, lost everything in the fridge, lost an entire half gallon of Bluebell vanilla ice cream. I love my Bluebell vanilla ice cream. I also love their banana pudding ice cream, but I digress. So all I had to do was wrap up a few things here at the house, and in the event the power went out, I would have been set. But no, I did not take my own advice. I assumed I would be back in time, but I was not. So moral of the story, I should heed my own advice.
Okay, what I want to talk about tonight, I want to talk about the history of prepping. So this will be prepping history class 101. So how did prepping get started? And how did prepping go from being viewed as something only survivalists, conspiracy theorists, folks with the tinfoil hats, to something that millions of ordinary people now think about. Because whether folks realize it or not, preparedness has become mainstream. And if you've been prepping for probably more than a week, you've probably done your research and you have realized that it is becoming more and more part of the mainstream. So for most of human history, preparedness was not a hobby. It was simply a way of life. Farmers stored grain for the winter, families canned food and preserved meat. Communities kept supplies in case crops failed or disaster struck. People learned practical skills because there were no grocery stores that are open 24 hours a day and no next day delivery. We do not have to go back very far, maybe a generation or two. So here in the United States, our grandparents and great-grandparents were preppers by today's standard. For them, it's just how they lived. Many lived through the Great Depression. They saved everything. They repaired things instead of replacing things. They kept extra food on hand. They planted gardens and they knew how to get by with less. They understood something that modern societies sometimes forget. Good times do not last forever.
The Cold War and the rise of civil defense. So the modern preparedness movement really began to take shape during the Cold War. In the 1950s and 60s, governments encouraged folks to prepare for emergencies. Schools conducted duck and cover drills, community fallout shelters were built, man, I'd love to have a fallout shelter, and families stored food and water just in case of a nuclear war. Today, some of these same recommendations might seem outdated, but the important thing is this preparedness was not considered strange. In fact, it was patriotic. You can go on YouTube, you can look up old commercials, civil defense, all sorts of commercials about being prepared and what to do in case of a natural disaster. And in many cases, they talked about a nuclear attack. The government itself was telling folks to prepare.
The survivalist movement did not really start until the 1970s and 80s. So things began to change when a lot of economic trouble started to take place, primarily in the 70s. Inflation was through the roof. There were fuel shortages, political tensions were increasing, the Vietnam War was winding down, and Americans were losing confidence in government institutions. This is where the term survivalist became more common. Soldier of fortune, all sorts of books and magazines began focusing on self-reliance, retreat locations, bug-out locations, homesteading, and living independently. Unfortunately, this period also created many of the stereotypes that still follow preppers today. Media coverage has often focused on the most extreme examples, people preparing for societal collapse, building bunkers, or expecting apocalyptic events. So as a result, preparedness slowly became associated with people on the fringe and fringe
beliefs. Then comes the 90s and Y2K. Millions of people were worried about computer systems and that they would fail when the calendar changed from 1999 to 2000. I remember it well. People bought generators, stored food, withdrew cash, and prepared for potential disruptions. When relatively few problems occurred, many people mocked those who had prepared. And once again, preparedness was pushed towards the fringe. So imagine the image of the prepper became the person waiting in a bunker for the end of the world. I still wish I had a bunker. Anyway, so then reality set in. The truth about preparedness did not become mainstream because people suddenly embraced survivalism, not in the slightest. It became mainstream because real world events kept proving that disruptions could happen. These disruptions over and over and over, and people finally started getting a clue.
September eleventh showed us that major events can occur without warning. Hurricane Katrina, what a mess. Katrina revealed how quickly government resources can become overwhelmed, or in many cases, not even put into play until much too late. Whole different conversation. The financial crisis of 2008, again, remember it well. This particular economic crisis demonstrated that economic stability is not guaranteed, not even for a second. Wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, severe winter storms, and other disasters reinforce the same lesson. You may be on your own for a while. Preparedness slowly shifted away from preparing for the end of the world and move towards preparing for temporary disruptions. And that was a major change in a lot of people's
thinking. And then here comes COVID, 2020. Again, I could talk about this for hours, especially in my current career. So for many people, COVID was their introduction to preparedness. Talk about getting tossed into the deep end. Suddenly, grocery store shelves were empty. People couldn't find toilet paper. I still haven't figured that one out. Medicines, cleaning supplies, and even basic food items. Millions, probably tens of millions of people experienced something that preppers had talked about for years. Supply chains are very vulnerable. They're incredibly efficient until they are not. But here's something that often gets overlooked. There is a difference between preparedness and panic. And I've talked about this before. Preparedness is what you do before a crisis. It's a steady, deliberate act of building a buffer over time. A few extra cans this week, an extra case of water next week, picking up a water filter the week after, and before you know it, you're in great shape. Panic is what happens when people who are not prepared try to do it all at once. And they try to do it in the middle of an emergency. Those long lines at the stores in March of 2020, that was not preparedness. That was reactive buying driven by fear and a lot of fear. And it made things worse for everyone. When one person buys four months of toilet paper in a single afternoon, they haven't prepared. They've simply transferred their emergency and made things worse for the person behind them in line. People who have already built some sort of buffer, a reasonable buffer at home. They didn't need to rush to the stores. They did not contribute to the shortages. They experienced a lot less stress because the work that they put in was already done. That is a huge difference. It's a lesson worth remembering. Preparedness done right is invisible. It does not create panic, it prevents panic.
So the new face of preparedness. Today's preppers often look very different from the stereotype. It may be a young family keeping a month's worth of food on hand. It may be retirees preparing for a power outage. It may even be someone learning first aid or building an emergency fund. Preparedness today includes food and water storage, financial readiness, medical preparedness, which I talked about a few weeks ago, communication plans, which is something I need to do more work on, backup power, we've covered it, community relationships, still working on those, and mental resilience, which I've spoken about numerous times. In many ways, preparedness is returning to what originally was called common sense. See what I did there? Common
sense. So prepping around the world. One thing that continues to amaze me is that this podcast is heard in 126 countries and 4,900 and some odd unique cities around the world. So this tells me something very important that preparedness is universal. I know that sounds kind of obvious, but it's true. Preparedness is universal, crosses boundaries, crosses oceans, religions, whatever. It is truly universal. The reasons that people prepare might be different, but the desire to protect your families and make difficult times just a little bit easier is something that every single person can understand. So here's three examples that I think can illustrate this. In Japan, preparedness is woven into daily life. Schools run earthquake drills, and they've got plenty of them. Families keep go bags next to the doors. Convenience stores stock emergency rations year-round. I did not know that till I researched this podcast episode. The government publishes detailed preparedness guides, and the culture treats readiness as a civil responsibility, not a hobby. In Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, Norway, and Finland, governments have recently renewed campaigns encouraged citizens to prepare for such disruptions. These range from severe weather, infrastructure breakdowns, cyber attacks, geopolitical tensions, the whole gambit. Sweden's is called If Crisis or War Comes. It's a pamphlet that's sent out to every household, and it has a very clear message. The state will help, but you need to be able to sustain yourself for 72 hours. We've talked about this before: your 72-hour kit, your 72-hour bag, whatever you want to call it. 90% of the people here in the United States do not have 72-hour kits. They cannot survive 72 hours with what they have on hand in their home. And in many developing countries, especially parts of Latin America, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, people may never call themselves preppers at all, but they save things. They repair, they grow food, they rely on strong family networks and networks within the community. Their preparedness is just built into daily life out of necessity, and it centers on relationships as much as the resources themselves.
So here's a few things that all three of these have in common. One of the biggest differences internationally is that American preparedness has traditionally emphasized individual and family readiness. In many countries, preparedness includes a stronger focus on community resilience and mutual aid, something we don't do enough of here. And there's probably something that we can learn from that. Having supplies is important, having skills are important, but having friends, neighbors, and a community you can rely on may be one of the most valuable prep because communities recover faster than individuals trying to do everything alone. Just ask the folks in Western North
Carolina. So why do I think that preparedness is coming more mainstream? There's several reasons. People have experienced repeated disruptions. Social media, podcasts, and independent voices have made preparedness information more accessible. Many people have already realized, many people have already realized that help may not always arrive immediately. And perhaps more importantly, preparedness simply makes sense. We ensure our homes, we ensure our cars, we wear our seatbelts, if we can, we save for retirement. So preparedness is simply another form of risk management. What does the future of prepping hold? So, in my opinion, I believe that preparedness will become more mainstream in the years ahead. Not because people necessarily expect the end of the world, because they recognize that disruptions are becoming more common. Weather events, cyber incidents, supply chain issues, economic uncertainty, none of these require us to live in fear. They simply remind us that we need to be ready. Preparedness is about reducing stress, protecting our families, and giving ourselves options when things go sideways. And I've closed many podcasts with this exact same thing, and I'm going to do it
again. So here's a challenge, a call to action. If you're already preparing, just keep getting it. You are on the right side of history, literally on the right side of history. If you're just getting started, pick one thing this week, just one. Buy an extra case of water. Buy five more cans of corn. Check your smoke detectors. Write down your emergency contacts. Start small and let momentum carry you forward. And if anyone gives you a hard time, just remember every generation before ours understood that good times are temporary. All right, folks, as always, please stay safe. Please stay prepared. And remember, preparedness does not have to be complicated. It does not have to be expensive. It just makes sense. Please be safe out there. Take care of one another. And until next time.
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