'Housewife Prepper' Has Some Advice; I Have Some Questions

Bozeman, Montana, a community well away from any major American city (to its credit) is home to a different kind of "influencer," known only as "Carrie." Carrie describes herself as a "Housewife prepper," and she honestly has some decent advice - but leaves a few things out, at least in these comments:

The "Housewife Prepper" TikTok and Instagram pages were started in 2023 by Carrie, a California native who lives in Bozeman, Montana, with her husband, Colton.
Her first video was posted after last year's Chinese balloon incident when the high-altitude device flew across North American airspace. The U.S. Air Force eventually shot it down off the coast of South Carolina.
"I was like, oh my gosh, you know, this is a no-controlled situation. We need to start preparing for anything," Carrie told Fox News Digital. "We're allowing this other country in our airspace, like what's next?"

At least that was a balloon and not a nuclear-capable bomber, but one can understand Carrie's concern; a lot of people (like me) shared that concern, that the Biden administration would blithely allow a piece of Chinese tech to blatantly overfly the entire United States. Nor is Carrie alone in her concern that our society may be headed for a bad time.

But here's where I had my first question:

Growing up in California, Carrie's father always made sure the family was prepared for earthquakes. He would stock her car with jumper cables, dried food and a "bug-out bag," a travel kit packed with survival supplies in case of rapid evacuation.
A typical bug-out bag, Carrie said, should include radios, batteries, first-aid kits, clothing, water packets, freeze-dried foods, radiation meters, and other electronic devices that can still operate in the event of a lightning or electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike.

I see this term used a lot - a "bug-out bag," or BOB. What I question is this: Where would most folks bug out to?

Way back in the days of Usenet (Remember Usenet? I miss Usenet), I got embroiled in a discussion about "prepping" and "bugging out." This would have been about 1997 or so, so my memory may not be perfect, but I distinctly remember one guy who said he was from Atlanta, who, after describing the contents of his bug-out bag and the attributes of his HK41 rifle, claimed that if the poopoo hit the rotating air-movement blades, he would "head to the mountains and live off the land." The trouble most folks would have with "living off the land" is that in most places, a quick look at the lunch menu tells you that most of the land isn't all that edible and that this isn't going to be as easy as some might think.

In that respect, Carrie offers good advice. Stored food and ample water, along with some basic medical supplies, would be vital. Carrie doesn't, however, say much about people living in the major urban areas, probably because they face an entirely different problem that storing food and water won't help much with.

Here's where Carrie loses the narrative; aside from this rather nebulous statement, she does not mention what may be the most important aspect of keeping what you've got: Arms.

Carrie and Colton said personal self-defense should be the top focus for those preparing for a potential disaster.
"If you live in Oklahoma, you need to prepare for tornadoes, Florida, hurricanes, Texas, maybe the border, you know, things like that. That's when carrying self-defense on you in any form comes in handy," Carrie added.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, demand significantly increased for self-defense and wilderness survival classes, suggesting that the public is accepting some of the core aspects of prepping. Carrie and Colton agreed.

Back to that Usenet guy: One of the replies to him was on the order of "Sure, bring your bug-out bag, your dehydrated food, and your fancy rifle out to the woods. Within a week, some 70-year-old guy with a Winchester 30-30 is going to pop you and take all your stuff, and you know why? Because he's lived out in those woods all his life, and he's been shooting that old 30-30 for fifty years."

That's the great flaw in a lot of this reasoning. A "wilderness survival" course cannot gift you with the knowledge most people take a lifetime to accumulate. I grew up in a rural setting and have spent much of my life in such places. I've hunted, fished, trapped, and gardened all my life. We now live out in the woods, and I can tell you that I'd have a damn thin time of it. We could probably get by, but it wouldn't be easy.

While some of her advice is good, folks shouldn't put too much stock in "influencers" like Carrie. Her social media presence is entertainment, not information; she is performing. Good for her; she's found a niche and one presumes is making money from it. That's fine; I'm all in favor of people making money. But there's a whole lot more to "survival" than she presents.