From what I have read on our local bulletin board NEXT DOOR, the recent Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and now Maria as well as the earthquake in Mexico are beginning to get the attention of people. I was quite surprised at the large number of people that have nothing ready for SHTF. I have also been surprised at the number of responses from people in the area who at least know of the things to have.

Was there a point in time that you realized that you needed to be prepped?

I know for me back in the late 1950's my parents kept a supply of things on hand in case the USSR hit us with nuclear bombs. Yeah, right. We lived too close to high value targets. We might need to have been prepped for about 1/4 second. That mindset however was a seed in my mind. When the parents bought a place in the mountains one of the first things that was done was to stock it with canned and dry goods to last us two weeks if we were snowed in. In 2001 my wife and I bought our own place in Big Bear as a weekend/vacation place.

I can say that we were not prepped worth a darn until 2010. Yes, we had some stored food up there but not enough. In January of that year there were the "storms of the century" in the local mounatins. I was a regular on the local bulletin board forum up there and was getting first hand real time info from the full-time locals.

Snow, and more importantly thte ice on the roads, kept trucks from supplying the two major markets with food. Bottom line, people were starting to get HUNGRY. The smaller markets like 7-11, Circle-K, liquor stores were reporting shelves that were empty.

Yep, January & February 2010, was the time I got us on the road to being prepped. I started with the basic 3 days food and water as well as asic medical and other emergency supplies, quickly expanding to 10 days. Then over a period of time I took "baby steps" always adding to the ant nest. Sometimes we may add just an extra few cans of food.