Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Doomsday Prepper Review

Last night NatGeo aired a new series called "Doomsday Preppers". I wanted to see if it was going to be lame or helpful so I watched and took notes. I do this review knowing full well that my preps are not where I want them to be and my physical condition will not allow a lot of walking or hand to hand fighting. I don't find fault to poke my finger, I find fault to help others improve their lot in the prepper scene.

Episode One

Family 1

This 2 person family lives in some stacked up converted shipping containers. More power to 'em. Great idea. Problem is they bullet proof tested this shelter with .22 long rifle rounds as that is the most common cartridge. Uhh, what about all those guns that shoot 5.56 and 7.62 rounds? They do have a lot of food stored away. In an uninsulated, unconditioned container. I have been in those containers in the summer. They are extremely HOT. Which is not good for food storage. Conversely they are very COLD in the winter which will lead to frozen food and broken jars. They are prepping for a polar shift. If this leads to an earthquake all his food will fall off the shelf and the containers will break. If all their food is ruined, I saw no means of gardening or other food production. Finally, they are the only two living there. They made mo mention of plans for others to live with them in a TEOTWAWKI situation. So they have to provide for all safety and security as well as tend to their property. Not good.

Family 2

Chris Nyerges

This guy has been around the survival scene for years. He used to write articles for the old printed "American Survival Guide" magazine. He portrayed a single person living off the land in the Hollywood area. Finding and eating various plants and herbs he found on stroll along a river, he showed that a person could live well of the land. Come on Chris, how long is all that going to last when the population of the LA region is trying to feed their selves and kill you for what you have? He unloaded his survival pack and showed the contents. Most of the bag space was taken up with knives. Really, he had 12-15 knives in that little pack. I prefer to think he was practising good OPSEC and just showed that even in an urban area you could find something to eat and not showing this was how he intended to survive.

Family 3

Single Woman

She likes to party. She wants to survive in her disaster world caused by a global oil crisis. As millions of people do, she lives in an apartment. She, and I say she because no significant other is ever shown even though she uses the plural "we" often. She has enough food and such to live in her apartment for a couple of weeks. She had seed packs but no plan or experience in planting or growing. Then she will hit the road on foot for the nicer environment of MEXICO! She has it all planned out, when she runs out of food in her pack she states that she plans to whore herself out to survive. Great plan. Live a life of degradation, disease and violence and call it surviving. She claims to exercise 4 hours a day 6 days a week but she is not toned and is rather uncoordinated. Everyone I can think of that gets that much exercise is very fit and coordinated. She does have some firearms and does get training in their use. She is also taking hand to hand combat instruction. Congratulations on that. She runs and hikes through night time Houston with a full pack in short shorts and an abbreviated exercise top. Hand gun hidden deeply in the pack. She did show that she has a knife available to her. But can she use it? Is she willing get face to face with someone and use a knife on them? The after show interview with her revealed that she has cancelled her Mexico plan and has enlisted in the military.

Show notes
I noticed that the .22 rimfires, the centerfire rifles and handguns and the shotguns all sounded the same. Canned sound I guess.

Episode 2 notes tomorrow. n

2 comments:

Watchful said...

Good overall review and I agree with your assessment.

I think that NatGeo has to have a few "nutcases" thrown in for shock factor (wonder when they are calling me?).

However the second episode that they showed right after the first one was much more reasoned. The gourmet prepper lady was fascinating and I actually learned some stuff from her (how to long term store my chicken eggs).

One thing that pleasantly surprised me about NatGeo was they recommended that the herbs and weeds guy get a firearm for protection. That was a shock and I had to rewind it to make sure that I heard it right.

Dean Carder said...

Thanks Watchful! I agree the sexond was better than the first. I guess they had to put the most contoversial ones on first to develop interestlike all the other "reality shows". But thanks to the fallout from the show I will not be reviewing them any longer. I don't want to give Nat Geo the attention.