Peppers take a good idea, having extra supplies and tools for an emergency, and take it to 11.

I’m not a prepper, but I did read my local government’s disaster preparedness list and have everything on it that applies to my family. I keep 3 days or so of extra, shelf stable food in the house; bought a home water cooler and keep an extra jug of water that I rotate when we use the one in the machine so that we have a few days of clean water at all times, which is way more practical and safe than a camping water jug that will sit and stagnate in the basement; I have a battery “generator” that I keep topped up with a solar panel because we have a sewage ejector pump and a sump pump to stop the basement from flooding in bad weather; and I have good first aid kits for the house and cars.

The only thing not on my local government list are the emergency car kits, which is really just a basic vehicle toolkit, jumpstart kit, flares, sweater and space blanket, all in a cheap bag that lives on top of the spare tire.

I don’t live in the most disaster prone area, but we do get tornados and nasty thunderstorms that knock out power for a day or 3. We don’t exactly have the lights on when that happens, but we do have food, water, a non flooded basement, and even some heat in the winter, and both cars have something to keep you warm while you either fix the car or wait for the tow truck.

I kind of understand peppers, because planning all of this out after we lost power a few years ago for 4 days in fall was interesting, and there was just so much shit the internet was saying I needed: weeks or months of dried beans and rice, a generator for the whole house, enough guns and ammo to ward off a small army, etc. my local government list was hard to find compared to all of the forums and YouTube videos, but I’m glad I found it, it’s sensible and if spread out over months, very affordable. I highly, highly recommend you poke around your local government website for their natural disaster page, they’ll have resources of who to contact if you need help, and what you should have on hand. If it’s not on your city’s page, try your county or state government. One of them should have a page about disasters and how to prepare for them.

The issue is that you can't prepare for everything. Having extra food and water, sure. Maybe buying a generator so you can use electrical equipment, that's generally useful. But, aside from that, your preparations for a flood will be very different from your preparations for a military invasion, which would be different from preparing for a pandemic.

Also, the more extreme your preparations are, the more it matters when you pull the trigger and activate your emergency plans. If your preparation is simply having a cupboard with extra toilet paper and some extra canned food, it's no big deal to pull that stuff out if the store runs out. But, if you have some kind of bunker in the mountains, it's a bigger decision when to "bug out" of the city and go live in the mountains. You're basically quitting your job, so if the emergency is something like the COVID pandemic, when do you decide things are so bad that you can take that extreme step?

Right. "Prepper" vs. "being prepared." The former is almost like a subculture.