New York hardly seems like a natural location for what has become known as the prepper movement, but in fact the city’s prepping community is not only large and remarkably diverse, its leaders say, it’s also growing rapidly. To the unprepared, the very word “prepper” is likely to summon images of armed zealots hunkered down in bunkers awaiting the End of Days, but the reality, at least here in New York, is less dramatic. Local Preppers are doctors, doormen, charter school executives, subway conductors, advertising writers and happily married couples from the Bronx.

From marketing literature for "luxury bunkers." Terravivos.com

"Non-Discrimination - The APN only wishes to partner with groups that are open and willing to accept members regardless of their age, gender, race, religion, economic status, orientation, nationality, political affiliation, etc.....Prepping is for everyone. Divisive topics should be kept out of the meetings..."

"Regarding Militia groups. The APN strongly supports our 2nd amendment rights, however, the groups that we are helping to organize deal specifically with preparedness and sustainable living, not National Defense. A militia is simply off topic to the venue of our website...

A Basic 3-Month Prepper List Compiled from many sources. See SHTF.com "50 Best Prepper Websites." - Three months or more worth of canned food for each family member, as cans have long shelf life, do not require cooking, are easy to store, and contain water. Many cans of beans and cans of vegetables, packed in just salt and water, makes a simple but nutritious diet. Four or five twenty pound bags of rice and the equivalent in bags of beans from Walmart or Costco will have you better prepared than 90% of the population, but will require cooking (see indoor heat below.) - Ten large boxes of powdered milk, to add a complete range of proteins and vitamins to meals. Can be sprinkled onto food or hydrated into milk, with clean water. - Large can of cooking oil, rotate so won't go rancid. - Boxes of iodized salt.. - Stocks of spices like turmeric, cayenne pepper, black pepper, to add variety to meals. Some, like turmeric, improve immune function. - Various vitamins. When living without fresh fruits and vegetables it will be a good idea to take supplements. - Water is a critical component of survival. You can go much longer without food than you can without water, and you cannot assume that you can always drink what is coming out of the tap. Two gallons of water per person, per day, is a safe basis for calculation. A simple method is to keep filling used plastic gallon jugs, which are made of low-leaching plastic, and stacking them in layers in a closet or corner of a room, using cardboard or plywood between layers. Brand name "Aquatank" water mattress bladders stow neatly under beds. - For a longer term water solution, there are many excellent water purifiers on the market. Respected brands include Berkey and General Ecology. The problem with backcountry camping filters is that, although they remove living pathogens like bacteria, they do not remove heavy metals and common chemical pollutants. Similarly, mere boiling or use of iodine or bleach kills bacteria and viruses, but does not remove industrial pollutants. Other purification methods, such as distillation and reverse osmosis, require significant energy resources to generate relatively small amounts of water. For the minuscule investment, it is hard to argue against the purchase of a Lifestraw, a small "personal water filter" which will take out most bacteria from a relatively unpolluted source. (Discussion on water purification.) - The Elements - In cold climates, one must consider the possibility that if electric power goes down, and there are no heating fuel deliveries, there may not be any heat in the house. Having cold weather gear such as snowsuits, long underwear, and heavy blankets will be life-saving. Coveralls of the kind road and construction workers wear during the winter can be bought for around $60, and are made for warmth in seriously cold weather. For sleeping, outdoor sporting goods companies make sleeping bags rated for 0 - 20 degrees for around $50. Children under 12 can double up in one sleeping bag. - For headgear, critical to staying warm, the warmest style is the goofy ear-flap hats you see hunters wearing, or a fur hat. Regardless of what PETA says, few materials have matched the warmth of fur. The body preserves cranial temperature at all costs. Outdoorsmen say if your feet are cold, put on a hat. - Heating indoors using other than a heating system that was intended for it can be dangerous. Never run a gas campstove indoors for heating, as these generate large amounts of deadly carbon monoxide. Most deaths during cold weather power outages are due to people burning charcoal briquettes indoors, and dying of CO poisoning. Kerosene heaters work well but require adequate ventilation, and kerosene cannot be stored indoors. Wood or coal-burning stoves must be professionally installed with proper ventilation. Get a CO detector if you don't already have one. It could save your family's lives. One relatively safe method of emergency heating indoors is alcohol, which must still have ventilation, but gives off relatively low levels of carbon monoxide and burns at a low temperature (the cans of sterno caterers use to keep food warm is basically alcohol.) One option is alcohol heaters made for boats, with anti-slosh and spill mechanisms, such as Origo. Another alcohol burner brand is Trangia. In an emergency you can make an alcohol stove/heater out of a couple of paint cans and paper towels. Denatured alcohol is cheapest and best, and can be bought in large quantities at Home Depot. When using fire indoors always have a fire extinguisher, gallon of water, or box of baking soda nearby. It is a combination of winter sleeping bags, warm clothing like thermal underwear and winter coveralls, combined with a minimal heat source in your smallest room, which will allow your family to survive the cold snaps. Prepper knowledge: How to start a fire with steel wool and a 9-volt battery - First aid items, like gauze pads, gauze wrapping, first aid tape, and iodine. During an emergency when hospitals may be closed or overfilled you cannot afford an infected wound. - Bottles of hard liquor, even if you don't drink. Can be used as barter, and disinfects wounds. - Soap, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, baking soda. - Seeds, Miracle Gro (even organic gardeners admit that to get a sprout to take hold a little cheating at the start might be necessary.) - Plastic sheets. You can conserve heat by taping off just part of a room with plastic for a sleeping quarters. - Duct tape - Matches, lighters, a flint and steel, 9-volt batteries for fire (see above video "How to start a fire with steel wool and a 9-volt battery") - Hand-wind, rechargeable flashlights. - Hand-crank radio, walkie talkies. - The long and wondrous range of items that preppers like to endlessly discuss and debate over, ultralight handsaw, solar and bicycle generators, essential oils and old-timey basics like pine pitch (removes splinters.) Guns and ammo are a separate discussion to some prepper groups but integral to others. See SHTF.com "50 Best Prepper Websites."

After years of being associated in the public mind with backwoods communities of paranoids preparing for economic and social disaster, "prepping," as the art of preparing for calamity is called, has found its way into cities and is ever-popular.National Geographic Channel's Doomsday Prepper series is the highest-rated series in the history of the channel, and the website Survivalblog.com claims 130,000 regular readers . The New York Times reports that the typical profile of the prepper might surprise some. In "The Prepper Next Door" the ultimate mainstream newspaper says that:In 2011, CNN Money reported that sales of "luxury bunkers," fully stocked for one to two years of underground living, were up by 1,000%. A leading prepping authority featured in the Times article, Anton Edwards, reveals that prepping first took root in the Black community. Edwards gave classes in disaster preparation at the National Action Network, Rev. Al Sharpton’s civil rights group. Edwards, himself Black, said: “Obviously, because of our history, black folks know that bad things happen.”But what is "prepping," exactly? And what constitutes a "prepper?"Some might argue that their grandmother who experienced the Great Depression, and still keeps cupboards stuffed to the gills with food, is an instinctive prepper, without saying it or giving it a name. Those who have seen society go from prosperity to bread lines in a matter of days need less convincing that the financial system can be fragile.Others associate prepping with militias armed to the teeth, with pungee stakes buried in the ground around veritable fortresses, waiting for zombie hoards to come loping through the woods.As usual, the truth is somewhere in between, with a typical prepper no more than a fairly normal person you know and like, who sees no downside to having a few months of food, water, and a rather interesting array of items on hand - just in case. A prepper will argue that you can't go wrong having simple, non-perishable food, since you can always eat it during, say, a period of unemployment, or other lean times less dramatic than the End of the World.Even the US Department of Homeland Security's website now recommends at least some measure of preparedness, not much, but a nod in the direction of those who say everything might not always be "okay."The advent of the website Meetup.com has made preppers finding other preppers in their area easier than ever. Meetup is a social networking website which allows people with common interests to "meet up" locally, over a beer in a corner of the local pub, or in someone's home. Meetup is perhaps the Internet's attempt to get people who spend far too much time behind their computers, out from behind their computers.One national Meetup consisting of a collection of local chapters, American Prepper Network Meetup (APN,) divests itself of all political associations and opens with a non-discrimination clause:To dispose of fears that one might be joining a militia, the mission statement says:APN has stripped so many connotations from its Meetup as to render it about as threatening as a church dinner. Other city prepper Meetups have names like Massachusetts Preppers (Cambridge, MA,) Kansas City Preppers , and New York City Preppers Network And what if nothing ever happens? Preppers point out, quite reasonably, that something always happens. Hurricane Katrina showed that people could literally die awaiting a government response, and Hurricane Sandy, which struck the heart of the Eastern Seaboard including New York City, showed disaster could happen anywhere. It was little reported that city-slickers hit by Sandy - in large swaths of NJ and NYC - went weeks and even a month without power, and sat in darkened apartment lobbies at night guarding against looters.This cuts to the heart of the prepper message: No power, no stores open. No stores open, no food. During the Los Angeles riots, truckers refused to deliver to supermarkets because it was too dangerous. People living day-to-day who have consumed the limited amount of food they have begin to get desperate, and, in the case of a massive or multiple disasters, government assistance may or may not be forthcoming. Indeed, the government itself may be the problem.Some preppers' analysis of economic and political events leads them to the conclusion that the economy is again on shaky ground, especially when it comes to the dollar, and that a hyperinflation and resultant large-scale social disorder, including food riots, could be on the horizon.With Russia one of the top five holders of dollars as a reserve currency, and the US doing about everything it can to tick off Putin , some fairly smart money says watch for Russia to start dumping dollars. This is viewed as the trigger which will precipitate a run from the dollar, possibly followed by China and Iran.Washington's drunken sailor debt spending spree on foreign adventures and bank bailouts will eventually have its credit card shut-off faster than Junior's, just-out-of-college and trying to impress girls.Hyperinflation has ample historical precedent, Post-World War II Argentina for instance, as proof that terrible management of a currency, including printing it indiscriminately to pay the bills, has consequences. During a hyperinflationary period peculiar behaviors kick in. When the price of a loaf of bread, or a jar of peanut butter, begins to go up by the day, doubling and tripling in short periods of time, consumers begin to "anticipate" that it will go up again and clean out the shelves, leading to shortages and further upward pressure on prices. Stores with nothing to sell close their doors, leading to panic. This is a fair example of the popular acronym SHTF And therein lies the true value of simple 3-to-6-month horizon prepping, say preppers. A moderately prepared society will not devolve into food riots at the first sign of meltdown of the currency, but will have a buffer which will buy time for economic systems to recalibrate, and communities to adjust by, for example, learning to grow more of their own food, without the frightening specter of legions of desperately hungry people looking for a bite to eat.The zombie hoards are us.Whatever one thinks of preppers, it seems the hobby is here to stay. A "hobby" is just how some preppers urge those fearful of admitting that something might actually go badly wrong some day, to view it. Many grown men and women spend hours and large sums making things like replica airplanes, doing Civil War re-enactments, or sewing quilts. The difference, preppers say, is you can't eat any of those hobbies if the supply chain breaks down. Prepping is one of the few hobbies that will fill your stomach in a bad time. DHS training video for 'zombie Apocalypse'Stewart Rhodes, President of Oath Keepers, "How to Prepare Your Community for Disaster"The Ugly, Scene from Cormac McCarthy's The Road