Jerry D. Young has made a list and checked it twice. On it are 142 ways the world as we know it could end.

In a global economic crisis, or a nuclear war with Iran. In a terrorist attack or a pandemic. Or perhaps the “big one,” be it an earthquake, hurricane, volcano or tsunami.

Whatever it is, Young is getting ready. And he is not alone.

The Reno, Nev., resident is a “prepper,” a group of people across the United States, and in parts of Canada and Australia, who are getting ready for doomsday — or TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it).

The craze comes in waves, taking its roots from the Cold War days of nuclear fallout shelters, says Mike Porenta, chief operations manager at the American Preppers Network, one of the largest online forums and resources for preppers.

While it’s near impossible to know their numbers, prepper blogs and networks have exploded in popularity in recent years.

Hugh Vail, president of the American Preppers Network, says sales of survival gear and food have grown more than a 1,000 per cent since 2008, with jumps after major disasters like the Japanese earthquake.

And the movement is still spreading — particularly in the suburbs.

“The base has broadened beyond mostly conservative Christians,” says James Wesley Rawles, who wrote the so-called prepper bible, How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, and runs the Survival Blog.

“People are just preparing out of rational self-interest,” he says. “Anyone who can look at the events of the last part of the 21st century and think there are no threats is delusional. Like life tomorrow is going to go on like it is today. That there won’t be disasters. That you can expect water to magically come out of your tap every morning.”

Mostly it’s about stockpiling canned and freeze-dried food and water. Some hoard guns and ammunition and take survival courses. Others ready their bunkers for when its time to “bug out” or “get out of Dodge,” when, as they put it, WTSHTF (when the sh-- hits the fan).

Rawles has enough food and water stored to last his “large” family, including his wife and two sons, three years.

While some of his readers follow the Mayan calendar, preparing for whatever apocalyptic changes they believe December will bring, Rawles says most are regular people: farmers, office workers, housewives and lawyers, from right-wingers and libertarians to hippies.

After all, the term prepper was coined to differentiate them from the stereotypical survivalist — a gun-toting, bearded man living in a bunker in the woods.

His blog readership includes a large number of Canadians, he says. Western Canada, in particular, seems to be prime prepper territory.

And there are an increasing number of online survival gear retailers catering to Canadian preppers, says Anita Broenik, who lives on a farm near Oshawa.

Broenik says she preps for day-to-day emergencies rather than the apocalypse. But while the motivation is different, the answers are the same: you need shelter, food and a way to heat your home, she says.

Her philosophy is closely mirrored by Sarah Luker, a middle-class Texan housewife certainly more Betty Crocker than tinfoil-hat-wearing-Rambo.

Luker has been setting aside extra food for years, often canning it herself. “I call it taking out an insurance policy against rough times.”

Still, she only became a real prepper in 2008, after Hurricane Ike flooded her home, forcing her family to flee.

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Then the economic crisis hit and businesses around her home near Houston started to close. Thousands of people were laid off. Neighbourhoods of foreclosed houses emerged.

It became more important than ever to have a safety net.

Like many, she’s been inspired by the multitude of websites, books, podcasts and online stores catering to the prepper.

Hundreds of weekend courses are available in everything from wilderness survival to gardening.

Even Costco has jumped on the bandwagon, delivering survival kits in handy backpacks — enough food for two weeks, knives, a hatchet, duct tape, a tent and first-aid kit.

“I’m not too surprised more people are preparing,” says Michael Lindell, editor of the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Centre at Texas A&M University.

Hurricane Katrina really enforced what emergency managers have been saying for years — for about 72 hours after a disaster you’re on your own, he said.

But, like Y2K, this will fade away, says Lindell, wryly adding that he has complete faith in humanity’s ability to wake up at the alarm then turn over and hit the snooze button.

But it’s prepping that lets Jerry Young sleep at night.

“I prepare for the worst-case scenario so most things that happen are just an inconvenience,” says the apocalyptic fiction author and prepper blogger. “The more I studied and learned, the more reason I had to be prepared.”

Young stockpiles food and owns a dual receiver radio, first aid kit and camping gear — including a tent, sleeping bag and port-a-potty. It’s all stored in his living room, in storage bins next to the push-cart he keeps in case he needs to evacuate.

He says he’s not driven by fear or paranoia, and he admits many of his doomsday scenarios are unlikely. He’d just rather be ready than wrong.