After a messy divorce of two dedicated preppers, who gets custody of the food, water, and weapons? That's one of the questions raised during the two-episode Season 2 premiere of National Geographic's "Doomsday Preppers."
Last season, Nat Geo turned their cameras on seemingly average people who revealed apocalyptic nightmares and subsequent disaster preparations. This time around, the popular reality series features preppers who are both dedicated and extremely quotable.
Domestic bliss (and miss) during a time of crisis
Fearing deadly F5 tornadoes, Wilma and Gary Bryant have been stockpiling supplies, including a precious supply of insulin for Wilma and her daughter. "I would reuse my needles in a doomsday situation," the concerned mother admitted.In a follow-up to their segment, Nat Geo revealed that the prepping couple has filed for divorce. Wilma Bryant said she was given custody of their disaster supplies, but her ex-husband and his friends are guarding the food and water with guns.
Husband and father Johnny O. is a firm believer in hyper-redundancy. Fearing terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants, he makes sure he has backup food, water, and survival gear for his family. He even married Lara, a woman who has a twin sister named Marisa. "I married a twin, so naturally there was hyper-redundancy," he said.
The family that preps together…
Mechanic Braxton Southwick is preparing his family for a possible biological attack on the United States. Fearing a smallpox outbreak, Southwick stocks up on food and supplies, but his family doesn't quite share his enthusiasm for "bug out" drills."Normally, when he comes to me with any of his big ideas, I roll my eyes and say 'Are we going to talk about this again?'" wife Kara said to the Nat Geo camera.
Southwick did, however, get his family out on a practice smallpox drill during his segment. The mechanic upped the ante by having the family go through a surprise military checkpoint. Clad in biohazard suits, the soldiers sent each family member through a decontamination process.
Is that number 1 or 2?
Despite disarmament treaties with Russia, songwriter Big Al has an underground bunker prepared in case of nuclear war. "[Vladimir] Putin looks like [Josef] Stalin with a suit on," he said, referring to the Russian president.The prepper even wrote a song about living the life of a doomsday prepper and doesn't mince words about having enough water on hand in his bunker. "I am not going to drink my own urine," Big Al said.
Robert Earl, on the other hand, sees the value in using urine and fecal matter to enrich the soil. "Welcome to my poop garden. Human manure is an excellent doomsday prep," Earl explained. Preparing for a sudden sea level rise due to melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the prepper learned how to handle milk and skin a rattlesnake.
"I'm Mad Max meets Rube Goldberg with a little Al Gore thrown in," he said.
Prepping on a budget
As "Doomsday Preppers" illustrates, preparing for catastrophe can be expensive. Fifteen-year-old Jason Beacham doesn't have extensive financial resources, so he has to make do. He gathers discarded materials and appropriates supplies that he thinks people won't miss.Beacham also built a "maceball bat" that's designed to repel angry hoards after an economic collapse. "I don't think I'm paranoid, just open-minded," the teenage prepper said.
