From the previous post about extremes in “prepping” and being a “prepper”, I think it would be a good discussion to know why we’re here in this Community.

I don’t consider myself being into hardcore prepping, as I am mostly trying to be prepared for potential disasters that are relevant to my own area. I live and work a few Km from a major fault line, which is said to be due to move after its centuries or so recorded cycle. While I live in the midlands, I will get cut off from the city if bridges get flooded or damaged.

I am worried that the supply of food and other goods might get scarce in the event of a major disaster. Just a few years ago, a major storm wiped out an entire region, rendering millions homeless, without food, sanitation, and electricity, for months, with thousands dead.

Apart from a few weeks’ worth of food and water stores, I am trying to build a vegetable garden the “permaculture” way. I also have off-grid voice and data communication capabilities, being into amateur radio. I can communicate with my immediate family as well as my extended family who are also hams. This means we can regularly practice our comms even outside of a disaster scenario.

A few of my ham radio friends and I have also built a group of satphone users across different cities, so we have redundancies in case grid communications go down. And as you may have noticed from my posts here, I’m also into prepping for digital stuff, including privacy and security matters.

I am also part of a community of other preppers. We each have our own area of expertise, including security (active and reserve military as well as contractors), farming, medicine, communications, etc. We have people who know how to pilot a plane, as well as those who can easily identify which plants are edible. We have serious outdoorsmen in our group. We meet on a regular basis and share what we know and try to replicate our skills. I think this is a good way to be prepared for such disaster scenarios.

I know opsec will dictate that some do not share what exactly they’re doing. But my kind of prepping is mostly inclusive and mostly community-driven. Some paint us as fear-mongering, but whenever there are disasters, I feel that people suddenly take an interest in getting prepared.