No panic here: KC ‘preppers’ spent years getting ready for this coronavirus shutdown
Like many of us, Mark Rinke ran to the store when society began winding down for the coronavirus. Unlike most, he didn’t have to. He already had what he needed at home.
An organizer of the Kansas City Area Preparedness Network, Rinke was able to catch a glimpse of what he and other “preppers” have long been preparing for but never wanted to see: the semi-panic of at least a temporary societal shutdown.
What he saw, and what we’ve seen play out in the news, is the sometimes chaotic runs on toilet paper and other staples while, he noticed, the think-ahead, freeze-dried fare over by the camping gear was undisturbed.
For years considered a fringe movement, prepping — taking great care to have necessities on hand in times of personal or societal crisis — will no doubt earn unprecedented and well-deserved respect in the age of pandemics.
“Most preppers in the group aren’t tin foil hat, doom and gloom, the world’s going to end,” the Olathe resident says. “It’s more of a preparing for — honestly, something like this, where you’re not able to get something for a period of time.
“I think the image of preppers has been incredibly unfair. Doomsday preppers have done nothing to help our cause. I haven’t run into any individuals that I think give prepping a bad name.”
Prepping is about self-reliance and responsibility — not selfishness or fear, unlike some of the hoarding that goes on among the ill-prepared at times such as these. Crisis-time stockpiling, Rinke notes, only reduces the amount of products available to seniors, single moms and lower-income folks who may not have the room in their homes or budgets for long-term storage.
“Hoarding is done out of fear. It’s not a long-term mindset,” Rinke says. “Prepping is more of a long-term, conscious effort so you don’t have to go to the store like everybody else during this. It’s the mindset of having what you need on hand to start off with.”
Indeed, if done right — and that takes considerable planning and networking — prepping has an unabashed altruistic side. It is the well-prepared, after all, who can turn their focus to helping others in natural, economic or public health emergencies. Rinke, like others in the Kansas City Area Preparedness Network, has already been sharing his stored goods with older neighbors unable or unwilling to risk shopping right now.
Moreover, supplies need not wait for public plights: Rinke and other preppers often open their pantries to friends in personal crises, such as flood or fire.
“I’ve been able to have friends come shop at my house for supplies they need when they’re having an issue. I replaced it over time,” he says.
And that is the key: over time. “Just buy extra of what you already buy. Don’t go crazy and do it all at once. Just buy a little extra every time you go and put it in the pantry,” Rinke advises.
It’s something our forebears knew well, but which we’ve lost sight of with the seductive but fragile convenience of freshly stocked stores. Preparedness is a flame the preppers have kept lit, with loose-knit local organizations and internet sites that describe the five phases of becoming full-fledged preppers and the five principles of prepping.
You can go as deep as you like. But if all you do is take Rinke’s sage advice to regularly put away foodstuffs and essentials, you’re more likely to be prepared than panicked next time.
In fact, peace of mind is the chief advantage of the prepper — not what’s in the pantry but in the posture.
“It’s easier to prevent panic when you have answers,” Rinke says. “Fear comes from lack of answers.
“Not having to have that fear of ‘where’s the next meal coming from,’ or ‘what am I going to do to clean my house ‘cause the Lysol’s gone’ — I think that’s the biggest advantage that preppers have had that I’ve been in contact with.”
And if preppers needed the imprimatur of government — they don’t, for the record — having a 30-day supply of food on hand would surely get a seal of approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at this point.
Especially in tornado alley, the fact that many may not have even a week’s supply of food on hand, says Rinke, is nuttier than the preppers have ever been made to look.
Notably, even before COVID-19, a 2019 Journal of Marketing Management study found that “empirical research suggests that prepping is not a marginal subculture, but an increasingly mainstream phenomenon, driven not by delusional certainty, but a precautionary response …”
Crazy? Not so much, it seems.
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
