Election fears ignite ‘preppers’ already planning for the catastrophic unknown
IMLAY CITY, Mich. — Jerry Katich says he’s “locked and loaded.”
His home in a suburb of Flint, Michigan, is equipped with a generator. His cars are packed with first-aid kits, light sources and heat blankets. A collection of three-ring binders has more than 800 pages’ worth of instructions for tasks ranging from how to make bread to skinning a rabbit. And in his basement, he’s installed four freezers and is stockpiling water, canned goods and ready-to-eat meals — enough food, he estimates, to last his family five and a half years.
“I’m ready for anything to transpire, whether it’s an EMP going off,” said Katich, 67, referring to an “electromagnetic pulse” event like a nuclear attack, “or World War III.”
It’s been more than 15 years since his wife, Karen, piqued his interest in prepping — planning for natural disasters and worst-case scenarios with surplus supplies and a knowledge of survival skills — and Katich contends a curiosity among newcomers has been surging.
A private Facebook group that he founded, Michigan Preppers, has nearly 18,000 members, up from about 8,000 since the Covid pandemic. He attributes the growth to a feeling of turmoil during President Joe Biden’s term.
Uncertainty fueled by global wars, months of protests, rising costs and another presidential race — with the specter of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and now a second apparent attempted assassination of Republican nominee Donald Trump — has “preppers” like Katich especially vigilant.
Provocative rhetoric from political candidates is tapping into fears and anxiety over the future, and in Michigan, a battleground state, the prepper belief in self-reliance is meshing with the region’s history of self-styled militia groups that support individual liberties and are suspicious of government power.
“I don’t recognize this country. I don’t recognize this world,” said Michael Clark, a Trump supporter who lives in a rural community of fewer than 1,000 people near Lake Michigan. “People just want to prepare for their families and have control over their futures.”
Clark, 69, doesn’t consider himself on the extreme end of prepping; his wife has a pressure canner she uses to preserve meats.
At a prepping event in southern Michigan this month known as the Great Lakes Emergency Preparedness Expo, Clark sold dietary supplements and beauty products containing colloidal silver, or tiny silver particles in liquid, which some believe can treat infection and disease but which the Food and Drug Administration does not consider effective.
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GUNS N GEAR
Nothing like saying here it is come and get it.
I was thinking the exact thought….