Why YOU Should Be Prepping

This is a dynamic guide showing the importance of prepping in our complex modern society that is curated by all of our authors. Why YOU Should be Prepping is constantly being updated with up-to-date and accurate information, so please check back frequently.

Preparing is a basic human function. We prepare for a visit to the grocery store by making a list. Eggs, check. Bread, check. Milk, check. You can even prepare mentally without physically doing anything.

“Prepping” is an extension of these normal preparations everyone already does. That term can be considered extreme due to misconceptions. Those that use prepping to get ready for disasters or emergencies are “Preppers.”

At TruePrepper, we would like to clear the air. Prepping is not about daydreaming about doomsday scenarios, it is about being ready for probable and plausible threats. Prepping is about keeping yourself and your loved ones safe from harm and staying in control during unavoidable situations.

Reactions to terrorist attacks and natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, highlight the importance of prepping for the well-being of your family. When people understand that post-apocalyptic doomsday preppers are not the norm and that most preppers are prepared for a wide range of disasters, prepping really starts to make sense.

Basic Risks

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

Is your neighborhood prone to burglaries? How often?
Do you live in a floodplain or where wildfires occur frequently? Have you seen your home’s floodplain map?
When is hurricane season?
Do you live near a nuclear plant or a fault line?
Do you live near a train that transports hazardous chemicals?
If the power went out, what would you do? What if it didn’t come back on for a week?

Maybe you don’t know the answers to all of these, but maybe you do.

The point of this quick exercise is that these are basic risks, but aren’t even the most common!

Yet, statistically speaking everyone is extremely likely to encounter multiple emergencies and disasters from the list above!

Common sense threats are threats that are so prevalent, we hope you have already considered them. This includes the possibility of a fatal car wreck, developing a debilitating health issue, losing your job, and having financial hardship to name a few.

Unknown threats are threats not conceivable, or we have such little information on them we cannot judge the risk accurately. Don’t ignore your or your family member’s limitations, if you have them. You may have threats associated with disabilities or other personal factors that may also not have made our list.

The Grasshopper and the Ants

People have been writing about preparedness for a long time. You may recognize this popular parable from Aesop’s Fables:

In a field one summer’s day a grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. A group of ants walked by, grunting as they struggled to carry plump kernels of corn.

“Where are you going with those heavy things?” asked the grasshopper.

Without stopping, the first ant replied, “To our ant hill. This is the third kernel I’ve delivered today.”

“Why not come and sing with me,” teased the grasshopper, ” instead of working so hard?”

“We are helping to store food for the winter,” said the ant, “and think you should do the same.”

“Winter is far away and it is a glorious day to play,” sang the grasshopper.

But the ants went on their way and continued their hard work. The weather soon turned cold. All the food lying in the field was covered with a thick white blanket of snow that even the grasshopper could not dig through. Soon the grasshopper found itself dying of hunger. He staggered to the ants’ hill and saw them handing out corn from the stores they had collected in the summer. He begged them for something to eat.

“What!” cried the ants in surprise, “haven’t you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?”

“I didn’t have time to store any food,” complained the grasshopper; “I was so busy playing music that before I knew it the summer was gone.”

The ants shook their heads in disgust, turned their backs on the grasshopper and went on with their work.

Prepping ‘ants’ are more common in our society than you may think…

Reasons to Prepare

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

Is your neighborhood prone to burglaries? How often?
Do you live in a floodplain or where wildfires occur frequently?
Do you live near a nuclear plant or a fault line?
Do you live near a train that transports hazardous chemicals?
Does your neighbor feed bears for fun?

You probably have the idea by now, and we could go on for pages. Writing the threats down will help you remember them for the next steps. There are many threats to your well-being that we have not listed on this page, or ranked with our TrueRisk risk analysis system (such as bear attacks). These can be categorized as ‘common sense’ threats or ‘unknown’ threats.