SAN ANTONIO — You may have seen shows like "Doomsday Preppers" that take prepping to the extreme. But with war, the pandemic, and dangerous weather, many people are doing emergency preps.
There are all sorts of reasons people decide to prep for the worst. Natural disasters like tornadoes and heatwaves, the breakdown of the electrical grid, future pandemics, and even nuclear war."
Because of the current war in Ukraine, Gary Lynch has been very busy.
"When Russia invaded Ukraine our phone just started blowing up literally the next morning, before I made it to the office, I was already missing phone calls because my phone only rings, you know, for certain hours," Lynch, the CEO of Rising S Company said.
Lynch's Rising S Company, located in north east, Texas builds all sizes of bunkers and bomb shelters from the size of a basic garage to a house bunker with the bare necessities or even the beast. The extreme multi-room bunker includes beds, the capacity to grow your own food underground, and a kitchen that has more cabinet space than most home kitchens. The costs for these bunkers of beauty?
"The cost to install them varies greatly depending on where it's going. But the base price of the shelter is they range from, 45,000 on up to eight, nine, $10 million," Lynch told us.
Hear more from Gary Lynch below:
But not everyone wants to go that extreme or expensive. What if you want to make sure you have enough food to get you through a few weeks? Check out a 200-serving food supply bucket with a 20-year shelf life for $144 online. It includes Tuscan buttered noodles, cheesy broccoli rice, potato soup and Italian tomato pasta."
Originating in Kerrville, there's the Hill Country Preppers started by Steve Lehman and his sister.
"Emergency preparedness has just been second nature to me the whole time. My sister and I started doing classes back in 2012, just trying to teach people emergency preparedness," Steve Lehman, the co-founder of the Hill Country Preppers told us.
They meet once a month to teach how to be prepared for any emergency. His stockpile of food, water, and first aid supplies even came in handy when Hurricane Harvey slammed Houston.
"We had 7000 refugees in town. And those 7,000 refugees emptied out our gas stations, our grocery stores and our pharmacies for a week," Lehman said.
Inventor and YouTube creator Colin Furze is from the UK. Seven years ago, he got mega creative! He quarried his entire garden and made an underground bunker below it. He can even use his flamethrowing guitar in it because the lining of the bunker is fireproof. There's even an underground tunnel system from his home into the bunker itself!
Here is a more from Colin Furze:
"I've always thought it would be brilliant if you could just go in a cupboard in the house, get on some steps and then go and get to. It would kind of enhance it a lot more," Furze told us.
So, whether its a bucket of food, supplies for a year, a beast of a bunker, or tunnels under your garden, maybe prepping for the worst isn't a bad idea.