PBS NewsHour on preppers

I promised "more news about the anniversary later." I'm working on it, but first here's a video clip about preppers that I found while searching through PBS NewsHour's YouTube videos about Hurricane Sandy one year later: Survivors of Sandy ditch N.Y. to prepare for doomsday.

Some Hurricane Sandy survivors have begun to study up on "doomsday prepping" in case another environmental disaster hits. City slickers by day, survivalists in the NYC Preppers Network head up to the Catskill Mountains on the weekends, armed with just the basics to practice living off the land. Paul Solman reports.

Solman is right; these people and those like them are easy to make fun of.  In my case, I would have felt like a rusty former expert on the skills they were learning, based upon my experience backpacking with the Boy Scouts in my youth.  I did all of the things they were doing when I was 12.  I could have taught them, just like I was taught by the adults in my troop, most of whom, including my dad, were ex-GIs.  They had to know this stuff to survive in the Army.

Solman was also right about the positive moral of the story.  The people in this group had to learn how to survive through the power of community.  That's something I hope they take back to NYC with them.