Southern Arizona 'preppers' ready for the worst
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Posted 10:41 AM 5/16/2012 : Are you prepared for the worst?
TUCSON - They're prepared for a job loss. They are prepared for a natural disaster, some are even prepared for the end of civilization. They're called preppers, and they are alive and well in Southern Arizona.
"This should easily last me a month between all the rice and beans," said Avery Horton, a Tucson prepper. Horton has 3 bins in his kitchen, each with a month's worth of food. Where some may see overdoing it, he sees common sense. A farmer living in the country certainly has a pantry full of food, according to him.
" My house is basically my grocery store. The grocery store down the street, that's the warehouse," said Horton. "If something were to happen, if there was some type of breakdown of civilization, I want my life to continue."
Preppers in Southern Arizona have a Facebook page and a Meetup page, many have their own websites and YouTube channels. But the real attention has come from Doomsday Preppers, a TV series on National Geographic. The show focuses on 4 families of preppers who believe the end of the world may come at any minute.
"Most people, that's not what prepping is all about," said Horton. "A prepper could be a soccer mom. A prepper could be a business man. The way the media has portrayed preppers is 'OMG', I've got to build a bunker because the world is going to blow up. That's the extreme. And the extreme makes for good TV."
Dave Story is another prepper here in Tucson. He grows all of his own food, due to the threat of economic conditions and global warming. "If you don't see it coming, you're either going to be prepared or not when it happens," said Story. "May not even happen in my lifetime, but it is going to happen."
