Preparing for doom
Here are a few new essentials for the coming apocalypse, writes
ANOTHER hurricane lashes out.
A second monster earthquake jolts
Mexico. Terrorists strike in London.
Yes, the world is clearly coming to an end. But is there anything you can do to prepare?
That is not a philosophical question, or a theological one. And if it is a question that seems to beg any explication, you may stop reading now.
But if you are among the swelling class of weekend paranoiacs of affluent means who are starting to mull fantasies of urban escape following the endless headlines about disasters, both natural and manufactured, you may be starting to see a different image in your mind when you think “survivalist”. You may no longer see the wildeyed cave dweller in camouflage fatigues, hoarding canned goods. You may even see one in the mirror.
In a world where the bombproof bunker has replaced the Tesla as the hot status symbol for young Silicon Valley plutocrats, everyone, it seems, is a “prepper”, even if the “prep” in question just means he is stashing a well-stocked “bug-out bag” alongside his Louis Vuitton luggage in a Range Rover pointed toward Litchfield County, Connecticut. Here is a checklist for the neo-survivalist preparing for the apocalypse.
1. SATCHELS FOR SURVIVAL
The power grid has collapsed. Supermarkets are looted. With the city teetering on the brink of collapse, the first thing you want to reach for — after the Xanax — is a well-stocked “bug-out” bag.
These suddenly chic survival satchels, also known as go bags, are typically lightweight military-grade backpacks stocked with provisions for at least 72 hours.
Ready-made bug-out bags containing staples like water purification tablets, a 20-hour body warmer and a multifunction shovel are available on Amazon for under than US$200 (RM846).
Hard-core preppers, however, would never leave their survival up to a mouse click, which is why some sites suggest endless creative tweaks to the standard equipment.
Graywolf Survival recommends a chain-saw blade stashed in an Altoids tin to harvest firewood. Survival Life touts feminine hygiene products, even for men, to soak up blood from wounds.
“As long as the gear gets the job done, that’s what matters,” said Andrew Pontius, a marketing consultant and disaster preparedness instructor in Kansas City, Missouri, who helps run a site called Bug Out Bag Academy.
2. GO FOR THE SILVER
Two years ago, Greece was forced to shutter banks and limit ATM withdrawals to 60 euros a day during a debt crisis that threatened to shatter Europe’s currency union.
In the United States, prominent authors like James Rickards, a hedge fund veteran, and David Stockman, once the budget director for the Reagan administration, insist that an even bigger crisis will soon tank Wall Street and torpedo the dollar.
No wonder so many preppers, some of them wearing pinstriped suits, consider gold and silver to be a crucial hedge against a crisis.
While Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies make news, many preppers are quietly packing their bugout bags with rolls of pre-1965 American dimes, quarters or half-dollars, which are 90 per cent silver and available from coin dealers and precious-metals websites (silver is currently about US$17 an ounce). “My preferred form of precious metal post-financial collapse, that is, besides high-speed lead,” wrote one prepper on SurvivalistBoards.com.
Unlike gold, which is hovering around US$1,300 an ounce, these old silver coins come in small enough denominations to barter for a loaf of bread or a socket wrench in an economic Mad Max scenario. Even so, some survivalists remain silver sceptics.
“For US$100, let’s say you get five silver coins,” said an urban preparedness expert who goes by the nom de guerre Selco. “Why not buy 100 cans of soup?”
3. PADDLING TO SAFETY
Manhattanites face challenges unknown to their Western counterparts hunkering in remote desert bunkers. Their home turf, after all, is not only a prime target, but an island. In the event of a cataclysmic emergency, bridges and tunnels may be closed, or choked off by marauding mobs, forcing survivors to consider waterborne escape.
A lightweight, folding kayak like the Oru Beach LT is a savvy, albeit expensive option (US$1,299), since it weighs 13kg (easy enough to tote to the Hudson River if Lyft is offline) and collapses to the size of a suitcase — perfect for those tiny Upper West Side closets.
Sure, kayak pros counsel against newbies attempting a Hudson crossing. “There are strong tidal currents, few places to safely launch or land, and an abundance of commercial and ferry transit traffic,” said Randall Henriksen of the New York Kayak Co. But if the choice is armed mobs or choppy waters, many New Yorkers may reach for a paddle.
4. DELIVERANCE FROM ABOVE
Since the Sept 11 attacks, many cubicle dwellers have been haunted by fears of being stuck in a skyscraper when disaster strikes.
In fact, tragic images from the World Trade Center inspired a micro-industry of high-rise-escape options. There are now escape chutes (basically, giant collapsible fabric tubes for shinnying down) and small parachutes.
The SOS Parachute (about US$2,400) is compact enough to store in a cubicle, opens in about two seconds and is designed to work for the 11th floor and higher.
Granted, the parachute is exactly not 82nd Airborne-grade, and a90kg man might find the landing a little rough.
“You may twist an ankle,” said Nicolas Havett, a company executive. But in a situation serious enough to warrant a parachute, that’s a deal that many would take.
5. NO PLACE LIKE DOME
Sandy was not the first hurricane to devastate entire sections of New York. In 1893, a hurricane blew through the city with such force that it wiped an entire island — Hog Island, a glittering resort near the Rockaways — off the map.
In the event of a mega disaster that leaves parts of the city uninhabitable, survivors might require cheap, storm-proof shelter to start a new life.
In the best of times, prefabricated dome shelters receive high marks from environmentalists and penny pinchers alike because of their low cost and minimal environmental impact.
A company called Intershelter sells iglooshape pleasure domes that call to mind Luke Skywalker’s old pad on Tatooine, but cost only US$12,000 for one big enough to include a kitchen. It can be thrown together in a few hours to make an instant hunting or fishing lodge. But in the worst of times, this dome, “built to sustain hurricane strength winds or earthquakes”, makes great relief housing for disaster victims and, in theory, would make great bug-out bunkers for urbanites looking to build a survivalist compound on the fly.
The dome houses are so rugged, according the company’s founder, Don Kubley, “you could buy one today and your grandkids will be playing in it.” One can only hope.
Should disaster not strike? They make a great man cave or backyard cabana.
6. BEYOND MEDIEVAL TIMES To master archery and broadsword combat; to learn to manufacture fabric, bread, ceramic cookware and wood furniture by hand; to perfect the preindustrial arts of iron craft and tanning: Yes, there are worse things to carry into a post-apocalyptic world than a membership card to the Society for Creative Anachronism.
In normal times, this international historical-re-enactment organisation seems like little more than a harmless bunch of Renaissance Faire types playing dress up on weekends and celebrating the arts, skills and costumes of pre-17th-century Europe.
But should Armageddon arrive — say, in the form of a limited nuclear exchange, global pandemic or cyber mega-attack — these hobbies could mean your survival. In other words, chivalry may not be dead after all.
7. THE FINAL FRONTIER
There is bugging out, and then there is really bugging out. In a scorched-earth scenario where even a jet pack is not enough to escape harm’s way, preppers with deep pockets and a taste for Arthur C. Clarke might consider the ultimate escape: launching their DNA into space.
Celestis, a company specialising in “memorial spaceflights” (sending cremated remains into space), recently introduced “genetic spaceflight”.
For US$12,500, for example, the cosmologically minded can send their DNA (a mouth swab or hair sample) into space on a “true mission of exploration”, aboard a spacecraft on a “permanent celestial journey well beyond the moon”.
Who knows — some ultra-intelligent alien being may discover it in the future, and use your genetic code to reanimate a race of humans on a distant planet. Let’s just hope those humans don’t choose to blow themselves up.