Not every family can prepare itself; many are severely resource constrained. I volunteer at the Utah Food Bank, which functions as the central distributor of donated food in Utah, supplying many, many smaller food banks in the state. One of the warehouse workers recently mentioned that the facility was turning over more food each week than was normally distributed in months. There is great need for shelf stable foods here, even with relatively low unemployment.

For those of us that can afford to prepare, though, it’s imperative that we do so. We cannot and should not expect the government to have the capacity to come to our rescue in every crisis. And the benefit of being prepared means constrained resources can be directed to the neediest when those crises inevitably come.

Bonus of having lots of canned goods on reserve: you can donate anything unused to your local food bank if there’s sufficient shelf life!

(Delivery services are a good alternative for this within the last few years, but here in the developed world, remote shopping has been remarkably unreliable at getting all the items you requested due to supply shortages.)

In addendum, one does not need to go overboard in their prepping, or even seem like they're prepping. When my wife and I started prepping 4 years ago (before pandemic, before etc. etc.) we just began buying a little bit extra in our weekly shop. Cans last forever, sugar lasts forever if kept dry. Nobody's going to notice if you buy a big cube of toilet paper one week, then another the next week, and suddenly you have a 3 month supply.

Watching the news is honestly optional, and for me only brings anxiety. There's always going to be crap going on in the world and it's always going to be sensible to have some extra packed away.

If you happen to live in the USA, the Mormons have what they call Home Storage Centers, where I believe you can go in with your own food and use their equipment to preserve it, or you can buy food from them already preserved. Ask your Mormon friends, they're taught to prepare.

P.S. Some other, non-world-ending reasons to have a stash: Friend calls and tells you they're in desperate need of food, you can raid the cupboard and take over an emergency hamper without having to spend. Rains cut off your only bridge to town for a couple of days (happened to me recently). Floods, fires or drought in other parts of the country cut off supply chains for a couple of days, and while others are stripping the shelves bare, you can stay at home and avoid the doorbusters. Lots more reasons, and you don't have to be worried about world events to have it make sense for you.

This meme where if you prep at all, you must be worried about the zombie apocalypse is harmful. I do quite a bit of basic prep, but I am fully aware that in a total collapse situation it may not matter much.

I prepare because I have been in situations before where a buffer is helpful. I've been without power for 5 days before... and I live in a reasonably dense area, not the rural backwaters, a storm just hit me three different ways and there were repairs blocking the necessary repairs. I've been unable to get to the store for a couple of days. My furnace has gone out in the middle of winter. I've been in a "boil water" advisory. Who knows what else may happen? I don't prepare to live my life unchanged in these scenarios, but because I prepared I was not uncomfortable, and no social resources had to be expended to bail me out.

I particularly think every socially-aware person ought to have basic prep on hand for that last reason. Be ready to live in your own due to some disaster so that the people who really need the help can get it.

Having a couple of weeks of food,a few days of water, backup heating plans, and whatever else you need to survive for a couple of days is not paranoia. It's preparing for things that have happened all the time, and will continue to happen. Don't pass up on cheap, basic, pro-social readiness because you're worried someone will accuse you of being crazy and worrying about the Alien invasion. Be reasonably ready. Be reasonably resilient. Don't be totally dependent on a day-by-day basis on everything going perfectly that day.

That's all. This is cheap, easy, effective, and very likely to be helpful at some point.

It isn't about the survivalist fantasy of society crumbling into pieces over night, it is the idea of being prepared for those outlier systemic failures. A power failure for a few days, a flood, short term shipping delays etc.

As an aside, one thing they like to stress the most is, the single best thing you can do to be prepped is to be in as good of health as you can manage. If something goes down and you drop dead from a stress induced heart attack, all the other stuff is pointless.

But, really, my "prepping" was mostly around avoiding stores as much as possible and being able to handle broken supply chains and potential short-term disruption to utilities. I was actually without power for a couple days in June but that was because of a wind storm.

Rice, beans, water, propane stove. Nothing major, but I could shelter in place for a month or so, if I had to.

My neighbor had supplies and was generous enough to share them with me. While we wouldn't obviously wouldn't have died without access to the rest of the world for 3 or four days, it would have been very uncomfortable to endure without any food or water, and that's relative to the discomfort we already had without heat, wherein we literally spent large swaths of the day under every blanket we had, huddled together for heat we also didn't have without electricity.

The next house I bought had a fireplace. We stock wood to be prepared for the unlikely catastrophe of having to endure prolonged absence of electricity.

We put fire-specific extinguishers in our kitchen, our garage, and our basement to protect against the unlikely catastrophe of fire.

We keep 10 gallons of water in the basement to protect against the unlikely catastrophe of losing electricity, and the usage of our well pump.

We keep first aid kits with bandages and neosporin in the bathrooms of our house to protect against knife cuts, or puncture wounds, or glass breaks that draw blood.

We keep a few days worth of canned goods to protect against food shortage.

We keep charcoal to protect against the inability to use our stove, and I have fire-making equipment (ferro rods, a high carbon knife, flints, emergency matches, birthday candles, charcloth) for use while camping or backpacking, but I always maintain an abundance -- just in case.

Many people do much of the above: Almost everyone has a fire extinguisher, or a first aid kit, some canned goods. The government recommends these things, in fact, and there's a run on things like these (and generators, and foodstuffs) before every natural emergency. Many people also maintain gardens for sustainability.

Whether or not those things make people "feel safe" is not even in the same category, but I'd argue that it makes many people feel safe to know that they have their own food and water and heat should the system demand it. You're arbitrarily drawing a line at guns and shaming people for wanting to protect against unlikely catastrophes it may defend against.

A few years ago I bought a supply of mylar bags and a heat-sealer. I can put various dry items in them, dropping an oxygen absorber or two in there (more for products that have low packing density), and they're good for a few years. Don't forget to write the contents + date on the outside with a Sharpie before filling!

Mom went through rationing in the UK during the war (they heated their house in part by the coal that she picked up along the railroad lines), and she always had a well-stocked pantry. Home canning was too much work for her though, so she just had a lot of store-bought shelf-stable food.

Fixed it for you :-)

There's nothing crazy with a little prepping, is it? Many of the practices are even recommended around here (stock up on food with long shelf life, keep clean water around, some iodine, a battery powered radio etc)

I would also advise speaking to your neighbors to make them aware of the need to be prepared. To that point, buy a little extra of everything --well, maybe food only-- so you can help a few people out during what is likely to be a difficult time. Happy neighbors are as important to safety as anything else.

I'm actually thinking of making a preparedness checklist and going door-to-door around the neighborhood to hand them out.

So I finally started and got some water storage etc.

I’m not prepping to live months in a shelter. I’m prepping so I wouldn’t be a burden on society at least for a week or two after a disaster.

>I'm advising everyone in my circle to prepare for a 30 to 45 day at-home stay and assume no stores will be open during that time. I think this is the prudent thing to do.

I think that's the paranoid thing to do. I'm stocking up a bit so that I can stay inside if I personally get sick, but that doesn't require 30-45 days of supplies. I don't even really have room for that much stuff in my tiny apartment.

>I would also advise speaking to your neighbors to make them aware of the need to be prepared. To that point, buy a little extra of everything --well, maybe food only-- so you can help a few people out during what is likely to be a difficult time. Happy neighbors are as important to safety as anything else.

>I'm actually thinking of making a preparedness checklist and going door-to-door around the neighborhood to hand them out.

You're obviously much friendlier with your neighbors than I am. If any of my neighbors did that I would probably assume they were a bit off and avoid talking to them from then on. I certainly wouldn't act on some random dude's checklist.