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Doomsday prepping—making yourself and your home ready for some amorphous “stuff-hits-the-fan” event—has gone mainstream. About 20 million Americans are actively “prepping” for the apocalypse in some sense, which could come in many different forms. No matter how the world as we know it ends, the thinking goes, folks with enough food and water, gold (or crypto), and ammunition salted away will survive to help rebuild society. Or fight zombies.
A lot of doomsday prepping is kind of silly, of course. You’re probably not going to be fighting those zombies (or hordes of Mad Max-style warriors), and having a thousand cans of beans probably isn’t going to be the difference between life and death. But preparing for extended emergencies isn’t a bad idea—you just have to do it in a practical, thoughtful manner. Here’s what you should consider if you want to feel at least slightly prepared for a SHTF event.
Test stuff
Doomsday prep is big business, and there are a lot of gadgets designed to help you survive the End Times in (relative) comfort and safety. Most are uber-practical and arguably necessary, like generators or a Lifestraw, but simply buying this stuff does not mean you’re actually prepared. If the first time you actually unpack and try to use it is the day the bombs drop or civilization collapses, you’re going to be under extreme stress while trying to parse an instruction manual—and you might discover that you bought a lemon in the first place.
Buy whatever you think might be useful in an emergency, but as a best practice you should unbox it, set it up, and get it running at least once. This way you’re familiar with its operation and certain you have a working unit. It’s also a good idea to re-test everything once a year to refresh your memory and make sure nothing has degraded while in storage.
Hard copy and manual tools
Sometimes we forget how reliant we’ve become on having all the world’s information (and disinformation) in our pockets at all times. But in the event of doomsday you should probably assume both the internet and the electrical grid will be out of commission, which means it will be a huge mistake to rely on anything digital or powered. A few things to consider:
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Paper copies. You should have hard copy of any crucial information—instructions, directions, repair manuals, etc. Even if you have a plan for getting power during the apocalypse, relying on files stored on a hard drive is a bad idea.
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Manual tools. Power tools are one of the great blessings of civilization, but when civilization itself goes bye-bye you might not be able to operate them effectively. Manual, hand-powered tools and appliances (like a can opener!) will always be usable, so have at least a few basics on hand for when the power vanishes.
Renewable everything
The classic image of a prepper is someone with a stockpile of canned and dried food and a humming generator (zombie-blasting shotgun optional). That’s a fine plan for a short-term emergency like a natural disaster or extended blackout, but if you really want to be prepared for doomsday you need to think in more renewable terms. Canned food rusts and spoils, bottled water can go bad, and gasoline runs out (and also spoils), so having renewable sources of energy and food is key:
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Power. Solar or wind setups (ideally with a whole-house battery) will help stretch fuel supplies and can provide electricity long after all the power plants have exploded.
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Water. A crate of plastic water bottles will get you through a short-term emergency, but rebuilding civilization in the wake of Armageddon is thirsty work. Ideally, you want a continuous supply of filtered fresh water. If you have a well on your property, that’s ideal, but you can also have a rainwater collection and filtration system installed (rainwater has to be filtered pretty thoroughly to be safe to drink) that will guarantee a water supply unless the apocalypse is a very dry version.
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Food. You don’t want to be completely reliant on ultra-processed preserved food if you’re going into a long-haul survival period. Sure, those packs of instant Ramen might keep you alive, but ideally you should have a garden set up to feed you. A self-sustaining garden for one person can be set up in about 200 square feet, and if nothing else, will stretch your dry goods and canned food until the local groceries rebuild.
Medicines
Apocalyptic fantasies on television tend to focus on guns and video game-like action, and medical treatment usually involves a quick dash to an abandoned CVS and some instinctive knowledge of antiseptics and bandaging. In real life, you probably don’t need an entire crate of automatic weapons, but you will need some medical stuff. A few things to consider:
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First aid. Yes, you need a First Aid kit. But you also need to know how to use it, so learn first aid. Having a kit from Amazon won’t do you much good if you don’t have some basic training, including how to do stuff like applying tourniquets or setting broken bones.
There are several excellent online first aid courses (Save a Life by NHCPS is free and accredited, and the American Red Cross offers online first aid classes as well as class-based courses). You might also consider taking a Wilderness First Aid Course (like this one), as they focus on first aid and emergency medical treatment when you’re far away from a hospital or an easy 911 call. And don’t forget what we just said about hard copies: Add some reference books to your survival library, like The Field Guide of Wilderness and Rescue Medicine from Wilderness Medical Associates, or The Survival Medicine Handbook: The Essential Guide for When Help is NOT on the Way by Joseph Alton, M.D.
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Medical supplies. First aid kits are intended for rapid response, short-term solutions. If you’re planning to spend decades without a modern hospital system, you’re going to need a lot more stuff, like antibiotics, more gauze and wound dressings than you think, and other basics. You should also stock up on necessary prescriptions, because that abandoned CVS may not be opening up again any time soon.
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Medicinal herbs. No matter how well-stocked your personal pharmacy and medical supply cabinet is, if it’s really the end of the world you’ll more than likely run out of stuff much faster than expected (apocalyptic scenarios tend to be filled with sharp edges, collapsing buildings, and those pesky, hungry zombies). If you’re setting up a garden to feed yourself, consider putting space aside for medicinal herbs. Plants have been used for centuries as pain relievers (turmeric), antibiotics (garlic), and as treatments for indigestion (ginger).
Some caveats: Medicinal herbs are not “drop in” replacements for the drugs in your medicine cabinet, and you’ll need to know a lot about their preparation and dosage to safely use them. A book like the Peterson Field Guide To Medicinal Plants & Herbs Of Eastern & Central N. America by Steven Foster and James A. Duke can give a start. And not all herbs will grow in all climates, so some research into what you can and can’t grow will be necessary.
Rotate stock
Speaking of dry goods and canned food—these are not “set it and forget it” items. You can’t dump 500 cans of Spam into your basement and assume you’ll be fine, because all that food, no matter how well-preserved or stored, will eventually spoil (or be eaten by organisms). The key to a solid apocalypse pantry is rotation—eat the stuff as part of your normal, everyday meals just before they hit their expiration date, then replace them with fresh versions.
Similarly, consider the medical supplies and prescriptions you’ve stockpiled—these will also need to be checked for freshness and replaced on a regular basis. While some medicines and drugs don’t necessarily go “bad,” they do lose effectiveness over time.
Consider a community
Finally, consider your community as a resource. Most apocalyptic fantasies imagine it’s you (and your family) against the world, but in real life, your friends and neighbors will probably be right there with you, which can mean shared resources and assistance. A practical approach to doomsday prepping won’t rely on this—just in case you are all on your own, or in case your neighbors turn out to be selfish jerks—but ignoring this potentially rich source of assistance and shared supplies entirely would be unfortunate.
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