Original subtitles

Narror: Jeff bushaw is preparing for the

volcanic winter he fears will folw

a super-eruption

of the massive yellowstone volcano.

A self-described shoestring prepper,

he alws onhe lookout for a bargain.

Jeff bushaw: The 20 to $30,000

that I've spent prepping is a very

significant amount of money uh, to my family.

We want to make sure that, ah,

that we get the best value for our dollar.

Narrator: Today, he and his son, Hayden,

have spent $500 a ressesd storage locker

at auction in the hopes of discovering

some valuable prepng splie

Jeff bushaw: I will go to those auctions and

purposely look for uh, units that look like they

will produce items that are good for prepping.

All right son, let's see what we have in here.

Here's some blankets.

Hayden: Just what I've always wanted.

Jeff bushaw: That'll be good.

Ah, arrows.

Nice, I hope the bow's in here!

That's a welding mask.

Not every item in this storage unit's

going to be good for directly using foprepng,

but what we can do is we catakehe

valuable ims a we catradthose items for

prepping items or we can sell em a

then buy prepping items with them.

Oh, oh please.

We have a lockbox, we got a lockbox.

It is locked.

Just our luck they left the

key right in the unit.

All right, the moment of truth.

Oh and that's how the cookie crumbles.

Hayden: That's lovely.

Jeff bushaw: Well, maybe there is one

in there that is full.

Oh, we have a rifle!

Oh, wow.

It's camouflage, that is nice.

That's a good find.

You're going to want to put this in

the truck right away.

Hayden: All right.

Narrator: A black powder rifle alone can cost

hundreds of dollars, so Jeff and Hayden

think spending their entire $500 budget on

this one storage unit was worth it.

Hayden: It was fun to find all the uh

interesting little stuff in there like

we found a lot of medical stuff.

So it'll definitely help in the long

run with our prepping.

Narrator: Jeff's finds are kept with the majority

of his other preps at an undisclosed location.

So today, he and Hayden a donng

bulletproof vests, packing up first aid supplies,

food, water, guns, and ammo,

and running an evacuation drill.

Jeff bushaw: Alright, let us go.

If the ash cloud is coming ts wa

we plan to take our bug out bags and

make our way to the nearest airport.

Narrator: Jeff's taking pilot lessons in

the hope he will be able to outrun a

yellowstone super-eruption.

Jeff bushaw: If the super volcano erupted, uh,

the roads would be really overly congested

and you might not be able to travel.

There could be total gridlock on the freeway's.

So we may have to go out on foot.

Pilot: Good, good flying day.

Jeff bushaw: Yes.

So you know I'm preparing for the uh

yellowstone super volcano

and that, uh, that's to our east.

So we wouldn't want to fly that way.

Um, if the ash clouds are in the atmosphere,

they're blocking out the sun and causing some

climactic cool down, we wouldn't fly north

where it would be even colder.

Um, we can't fly too far west because

of the ocean out there,

soe'reonna want to go south.

Alrigh

pilot: let us go flying.

Narrator: In today's lesson,

Jeff wants to learn the skills he believes

'll ed ihe s to out-fly a

yellowstone eruption.

But he might wind up dead long before

the volcano ever blows its top.

Jeff bushaw: Oh, my goodness.

Pilo thiis a emergency landing.

Jusmigh not make it.

Narrator: Jeff bushaw fears he may one day

have to fly his family to safety through

an enormous volcanic ash cloud.

A super-eruption of the yellowstone volcano is

likely to be at least 1,000 times

more powerful than the 1980 eruption of

mount St. helens, which put 520 million

tons of ash into the air.

The massive amount of airborne volcanic ash

could not only make it impossible to see

where he's going, it could also clog

and stall Jeff's engines.

So Jeff wants to make sure he's able to

land his plane in any flat field,

and be able to do it without power.

Pilot: Let's brief how we're going to do

this soft field landing.

The most important thing is we don't want

the nose wheel to touch as long as possible,

because if we hit a pothole or

a gopher hole or a stick or something and

the nose wheel collapses, we're going to flip.

Jeff bushaw: We don't wanna do that.

Pilot: We don't wanna do that.

Okay, so we don't have any power here.

We've got to make this.

This is an emergency landing.

If we can make the field we know we've got room.

There's houses at the end.

If we, we land long, someone's not

going to be very happy with this.

We just might not make it.

We got a tree we goa wah oufor.

Get the nose off the ground.

Nose off the ground, nose off the ground!

Beautiful landing!

Beautiful.

Jeff busw: The, m, volno

evacuation drill went really well.

The uh, instructor said that he felt

very confident that I could handle myself

in an emergency uh, under the certain

conditions that we practiced for.

If I had to bug out, uh, after today's practice,

ah, practice run, I think that we

could absolutely do it.

Hayden: I was very proud of my dad today,

very proud.

One day I believe I'm going to be

a prepper like my dad.

I'm going to learn a lot from him and

that I can prepare to keep my family safe

in a case of something like this.

Narrator: Jeff, the experts,

practical preppers have assessed your preps.

Your water storage is inadequate.

It's essential that you save more water

and have a way to purify it.

Jeff bushaw: I agree with their assesent

on our water storage, we definitely need to

do something for our home location.

Narrator: You have virtually no way to

re-supply yourselves after your food stocks

have been depleted.

You should store seeds and grow your own food.

Jeff bushaw: The idea of a seed collection is a new

concept to me, uh but it interests me and

uh I think that uh that might be something

that we um look into in the future.

Narrator: Practical preppers has scored

your preps in five categories

of 20 points each.

Food: 11 out of 20 points.

Water: 11 out of 20 points.

Shelter: Bugging out is your only

long-term solution: 12 out of 20 points.

Security: 8 out of 20 points.

In addition your ability to pilot a

small plane gives you 15 x-factor points.

Overall, you get 57 out of 100.

If you're able to reach your bug out location,

your initial survival time would be six months.

Jeff bushaw: I agree with the assessment of

needing more water for our home location.

I disagree with the length of time that they

give us to survive because me and my family,

we'll survive anything, anywhere, anytime.

We've taken a lot of their suggestions to heart,

and we've made a lot of changes.

We've moved out to a three-acre piece of

property on the outskirts of the city.

There's a creek that runs along the backside

of the property, which should be a

great source of fresh water.

And I got this great barn for storing all

our extra food stores.

Narrator: The yellowstone super volcano has

blown its top three times in the

last 2.1 miion ars;

roughly once every 600 to 800,000 years.

Its last super-eruption was about

640,000 years ago.

Buscieistsnly givet a in 7,000

chance of erupting in any given year and

they don't know if it will ever erupt again.

There are an estimated three million preppers

scattered all across the United States.

Many of them prefer to live in quiet,

isolated areas, or plan to bug out,

away from crowded towns to secluded hideaways.

But this town in southwestern Missouri

is home to not one, but two families of preppers

who are instead planning to stay put, hunker down,

and ride out the apocalypse.

To their neighbors, Allen and Franco may

seem like typical family men,

but behind closed doors they are

heavyweights of prepper ingenuity.

On one side of town is Allen,

an electrical engineer and veteran prepper

who's spent the last 30 years, and

more than $30,000, preparing for doomsday.

Allen: There may be some neighbors that

think I'm crazy.

Everybody's entitled to their own opinion.

I think the crazy people are the ones who

don't do any prepping at all.

Narrator: Allen worries that the economy is

failing, and that as the dollar's value declines,

food prices will skyrocket out of control.

Allen: I'm preparing for an economic

decline of the U.S. economy.

Narrator: Just a 15 minute ride across town

is master electrician Franco.

A relative newcomer to prepping,

he's only be at forhree years,

but he's already spent close to $20,000.

Franco: Am I paranoid?

No, I'm not paranoid.

Some people may think I'm obsessed.

It depends on who you ta to.

Narrator: Franco fears that a backlash

against genetically modified food could

soon leave Americans facing empty

supermarket shelves and widespread hunger.

Franco: I'm preparing for the rise of food cost,

food shortages, and the corruption of

our food supply through big business.

Narrator: Although they have different fears,

both Allen and Franco believe the same

disastrous endgame looms on the horon:

Anarchy following the complete collapse of

the nation's food supply chain.

Allen: The things we value and

use will become more and more scarce.

Franco: People will riot with the food shortages

that are going to take place in this country.

Narrator: Both of them dread what life

will be like if most Americans suddenly

find themselves without food.

And neither wants to be forced from

homef doomsday comes.

But they're not content just stockpiling canned

or dried food in pantries.

Instead, they've each turned their

one-and-a-half acre backyard into an

elaborate method of food production.

One not for the casual prepper;

this is the Cadillac of preps.

This is aquaponics.

Franco: Right here we have some lettuce.

I have basil growing.

I also have cucumbers growing.

Cantaloupe.

I have onions, I have some celery,

I have Swiss chard back here.

Narrator: In aquaponic systems,

fish and plants are grown together in a

closed environment where the fish waste

is converted into food for the plants.

The fish excrete wae an

ammoa in the water.

That water is pumped into the grow beds

where bacteria convert the waste into nitrates,

which the plants use as fertilizer.

As the plants use the nitrates,

they filter the water, which is then sent back

to the fish tanks, completing the circle.

Allen: The water gets pumped from the

fish tanks, comes in here and this one

trough up here we've got water hyacinth.

Heree'veot the duckweed.

They both filter out the fish waste and

ammonia and nitrates and so forth

that the fish produce.

The fish can eat it.

It's a high protein source,

and if hard times come,

I can eat it too.

It actually doesn't taste too bad,

kind of like lettuce.

Narrator: Aquaponic systems rely on

creating a delicate balance of nutrients,

which is a challenge to maintain,

even for experienced preppers.

Allen's system took one year to set up,

and still requires daily maintenance.

Allen: It's not easy.

There's, there's a fair amount of work to it.

It's a biological living system.

And if you get something out of kilter,

you're going to have some dead fish.

You got to plan on being a fish murderer.

You got to kill some fish before

you learn the ropes.

Narrator: In 2011, allerais mor

than 200 pounds of fh.

Allen: I've got engh od tfeedyself

and immediate family for an excess of two years.

We do thtilaa, causthe tilaa

are pretty easy to grow;

they grow fast.

They're prolific breeders and

they taste fairly decent.

They don't have a real strong

fishy taste naturally.

I've got about 140 of them.

There we go, that one's a little fighter.

This one could be dinner tonight.

Narrator: Advocates of aquaponics say that

by re-circulating water, it uses 95% less

water than traditional farming.

But to have enough for himself, his wife,

two children, and all his sh aer dmsda

Allen's been banking a reserve supply.

Allen: If the poop hits the fan,

I've got 3,000 gallons of water storage capacity now.

Narrator: Across town, Franco believes his

aquaponic farm may be the only source of

fresh food he, his wife, Amy, and

their two children will have,

if Americans revolt against genetically

modified ingredients

and the nation's food supply chain collapses.

Amy molea: I honestly can't,

I can't raise a plant for the life of me.

I kill everything green that I touch.

So I'm glad that I have a husband

who is doing that for us.

Franco: I have about 2,000 gallons here

worth of water storage.

In aquaponics you get a lot of evaporation.

So I really need to get about four to

6,000 gallons of water at my disposal uh,

for my family and for my garden and

for my aquaponics.

Why don't you go feed the fish a little bit, okay?

Narrator: With so much on the line,

Franco spent 30 hours a week customizing

his own system.

Franco: Welcome to my

interpretation of aquaponics.

What I'm doing here is I'm growing vegetables

in the same manner using grow beds.

But I use a different method than Allen,

that's called a bell siphon.

Narrator: A bell siphon operates as a drainpipe

for each grow bed, preventing excess water

from building up and drowning the system.

Franco: The reason why I like mine a little bit

better is because my grow beds drain individually,

not all at once.

So if there's ever a problem with one

grow bed, I can address it and

not have the whole system shut down.

Amy molea: They definitely but heads on

which system is better and

which one operates better.

Allen comes over and checks out our system.

Franco goes over and checks out his system

and then they both work and see who can ramp

it up a little bit better you know.

Franco: In your system what happens is,

is that you go a problem with the whole,

with the system, then the whole thing

has to shut down.

Amy molea: It's great because they cooperate

and assist each other even though they've got

theiown ndset about what's best.

Naatorwith7 mo years preing

experience than Franco, Allen is confident

he'll be better prepar to rviv

doomsday than his neighbor.

But lately, the rivalry between the

two has been heating.

And in the quest to outdo each other

they may have taken advice about having a

bug-out plan a little too literally.

Bella molea: Eww!

Narrator: Allen and Franco are neighbors,

friends and highly competitive preppers

living in Missouri.

Each one believes the nation's food supply

will soon be impacted by a catastrophe.

And each of them has responded with

the same elaborate prep.

Allen: Franco and I've got kind of a

rivalry going on with our preps.

We've both built our own aquaponics greenhouses.

He's got a little bit different style in his.

Amy molea: Franco and Allen,

they've got a really friendly rivalry going.

But it's great.

It's friendly competition.

Allen: He's my friend,

but I'm a much better prepper.

Franco: Who would survive longer?

I would.

I would, definitely.

Narrator: Allen's and Franco's fears of an

America ravaged by starvation and anarchy

has driven them to drastically alter

their once normal,

small town lifestyle to prepare for hunger.

Allen: This is my maggot mansion,

where I'm trying to raise black soldier fly larva.

The female black solider flies will come in,

they're attracted by the putrid smell of the

rotting vegetables and corn mash

and so forth.

They lay there eggs in here,

the eggs hatch out,

drop in there, become maggots.

After that they go to my fish to

provide fish food.

These guys are supposed to be high in protein.

In some part of y'know third-world countries,

uh supposedly maggots are a delicacy.

Uh, they're not to me quite yet, but who knows?

If the poop hits the fan,

who knows what one might eat?

Franco: I don't think Allen has anything

that can beat my red wigglers.

Red wrigglers are the Cadillac of worms.

They serve three purposes.

You can get compost.

You can feed it to the fish.

And if the food production all goes

downhill and there's no food,

then aa st rort.

Bella: Eww!

Franco: Have it as a protn soce awell.

Bella: That's gros dad.

Franco: It's not that bad.

Bella: Did you really eat it?

Franco: Yeah.

Franco: Well, I'm telling you that

is a last resort.

It's slightly bitter.

Bella: I'd rather drink pee.

Narrator: As their preps get more extreme,

some members of their families are

concerned their obsessions with doomsday

may be getting ouof hd.

Rachel: My father's eccentric and

kind of lives in his own reality and

is a little odd like that.

Personally I think it's all kind of

pointless unless he was to make money off it.

When my friends come over we kind of treat

as joke

cause they all kind of have the same opinion I do,

that the end of the world won't affect us

while we're still living.

Allen: I think that, ah, my daughter and my wife

and my son; On some days they might

call it obsessed.

On other days, they might be a little milder

ankind to me.

But I think for the most part,

they think it's probably a rather benign obsession.

It doesn't really hurt anything.

Prepping has made my life different.

I consider it an improvement.

I can sleep better at night knowing that family

is provided for if something should happen.

Franco: I think, uh, Allen's preps are

great for how Allen interprets prepping.

But I think mine's a little bit better.

Prepping is not a ste ofind.

It's getting out there, it's doing it.

That whe thfun.

Narror: Len d Franco, the experts,

practical preppers, have assessed your preps.

Allen, your gardens and uapoc systemre a

great asset, and you have plenty of stored

food to fall back on.

Weecomnd y pplent iby

raising other renewable food sources,

such as rabbits and chickens.

Allen: I agree.

I have full plans to start raising chickens soon,

however, the other members of my household;

mainly my wife and my daughter are

both adamantly opposed to chickens.

Narrator: Your water supply is efficient,

but in the event you are forced from your home,

you must have more mobile water storage units

and purification methods.

Allen: That wasn't so bad.

Let's see how you do, Franco.

Narrator: Franco, although you have

efficient methods for collecting water you

should also have backup sources,

because yourain catcent stem will be

of little use, if there's no precipitation.

Franco: I may agree with that one.

My goal is to get up to 4,000 gallons.

Narrator: You currently lack weapons and

have no tactical training.

Without them, you will be unable to

protect your home in a crisis.

Franco: Yeah, you're right about the weapons.

I do not possess them,

nor do I plan on possessing them.

It's not what I believe in.

Narrator: To determine how long you could

initially survive a catastrophe,

practical preppers has scored your preps in

five categories of 20 points each.

Food: Allen, 18 points;

Franco, 11.

Water: Allen, 18 points;

Franco, 15.

Shelter: Allen, 12 points;

Franco, 13.

Security: Allen, 12 points;

Franco, 3.

Allen, your abundance of fish for bartering

gives you 17 x-factor points;

Franco, your mechanical skills give you 7.

Allen, overall you receive 77 out of 100 points.

Franco your total score is 49.

Allen, this gives you 15 months initial

survival time.

Franco, your initial survival time

is four months.

Allen: I'd agree with most of that.

I like the constructive criticism,

I appreciate it.

Franco: Actually, I'm glad

I'm actually glad, because, ah,

he's been doing this for over 30 years,

and um, he deserves that one.

I'll give him that.

Narrator: Experts generally do not expect

the use of genetically in a case of something like this.

Narrator: Jeff, the experts,

practical preppers have assessed your preps.

Your water storage is inadequate.

It's essential that you save more water

and have a way to purify it.

Jeff bushaw: I agree with their assessmt

our water storage, we definitely need to

do something for our home location.

Narrator: You have virtually no way to

re-supply yourselves after your food stocks

have been depleted.

You shld sre sds d grow your own food.

Jeff bushaw: The idea of a seed collection is a new

concept to me, uh but it interests me and

uh I think that uh that might be something

that we um look into in the future.

Narrator: Practical preppers has scored

your preps in five categories

of 20 points each.

Food: 11 out of 20 points.

Water: 11 out of 20 points.

Shelter: Bugging out is your only

long-term solution: 12 out of 20 points.

Security: 8 out of 20 points.

In addition your ability to pilot a

small plane gives you 15 x-factor points.

Overall, you get 57 out of 100.

If you're able to reach your bug out location,

your initial survival time would be six months.

Jeff bushaw: I agree with the assessment of

needing more water for our home location.

I disagree with the length of time that they

give us to survive because me and my family,

we'll survive anything, anywhere, anytime.

We've taken a lot of their suggestions to heart,

and we've made a lot of changes.

We've moved out to a three-acre piece of

property on the outskirts of the city.

There's a creek that runs along the backside

of the property, which should be a

great source of fresh water.

And I got this great barn for storing all

our extra food stores.

Narrator: The yellowstone super volcano has

blown its top three times in the

last 2.1 million years;

roughly once every 600 to 800,000 years.

Its last super-eruption was about

640,000 years ago.

But scientists only give it a 1 in 730,000

chance of erupting in any given year and

ey dwill ever erupt again.

There e anstimed three million preppers

scattered all across the United States.

Many of them prefer to live in quiet,

isolated areas, or plan to bug out,

away from crowded towns to secluded hideaways.

But this town in southwestern Missouri

is home to not one, but two families of preppers

who are instead planning to stay put, hunker down,

and ride out the apocalypse.

To their neighbors, Allen and Franco may

seem like typical family men,

but behind closed doors they are

heavyweights of prepper ingenuity.

On one side of town is Allen,

an electrical engineer and veteran prepper

who's spent the last 30 years, and

more than $30,000, preparing for doomsday.

Allen: There may be some neighbors that

think I'm crazy.

Everybody's entitled to their own opinion.

I think the crazy people are the ones who

n't any prepping at all.

Narrator: Allen worries that the economy is

failing, and that as the dollar's value declines,

food prices will skyrocket out of control.

Alle I'm preparing for an economic

decline of the U.S. economy.

Narrator: Just a 15 minute ride across town

is master electrician Franco.

Ahe's only been atr it for three years,

but he's already spent close to $20,000.

Franco: Am I paranoid?

No, I'm not paranoid.

Me pple y think I'm obsessed.

It depends on who you talk to.

Narrator: Franco fears that a backlash

against genetically modified food could

soon leave Americans facing empty

supermarket shelves and widespread hunger.

Franco: I'm preparing for the rise of food cost,

food shortages, and the corruption of

our food supply through big business.

Narrator: Although they have different fears,

both Allen and Franco believe the same

disastrous endgame looms on the horizon:

Anarchy following the complete collapse of

the nation's food supply chain.

Allen: The things we value and

use will become more and more scarce.

Franco: People will riot with the food shortages

that are going to take place in this country.

Narrator: Both of them dread what life

will be like if most Americans suddenly

find themselves without food.

And neither wants toe foed fm

ho if doomay comes.

But they're not content just stockpiling canned

or dried food in pantries.

Instead, they've each turned their

one-and-a-half acre backyard into an

elaborate method of food production.

One not for the casual prepper;

this is the Cadillac of preps.

This is aquaponics.

Franco: Right here we have some lettuce.

I ve basil growing.

I also have cucumbers growing.

Cantaloupe.

I have onions, I have some celery,

I have Swiss chard back here.

Narrator: In aquaponic systems,

fish and plants are grown together in a

closed environment where the fish waste

is converted into food for the plants.

The fish excrete waste and

ammonia into the water.

That water is pumped into the grow beds

where bacteria convert the waste into nitrates,

which the plants use as fertilizer.

The plants use the nitrates,

they filter the water, which is then sent back

to the fish tanks, completing the circle.

Allen: The water gets pumped from the

fish tanks, comes in here and this one

trough up here we've got water hyacinth.

Here we've got the duckweed.

They both filter out the fish waste and

ammonia and nitrates and so forth

that the fish produce.

The fish can eat it.

It's a high protein source,

and if hard times come,

I can eat too

it actually doesn't taste too bad,

kind of like lettuce.

Narrator: Aquaponic systems rely on

creating a delicate balance of nutrients,

which is a challenge to maintain,

even for experienced preppers.

Allen's system took one year to set up,

and still requires daily maintenance.

Allen: It's not easy.

There's, there's a fair amount of work to it.

It's a biological living system.

And if you get something out of kilter,

you're gna he me dd fish.

You got to plan on being a fish murderer.

You got to kill some fish before

you learn the ropes.

Narrator: In 2011, Allen raised more

than 200 pounds of fish.

Allen: I've got enough food to feed myself

and immediate family for an excess of two years.

We do the tilapia, because the tilapia

are pretty easy to grow;

they grow fast.

They're prolific breeders and

they taste fairly decent.

They don't have a real strong

fishy taste naturally.

I've got about 140 of them.

There we go, that one's a little fighter.

This one could be dinner tonight.

Narrator: Advocates of aquaponics say that

by re-circulating water, it uses 95% less

water than traditional farming.

But to have enough for himself, his wife,

two children, and all his fish after doomsday,

Allen's been banking a reserve supply.

Allen: If the poop hits the fan,

I've got 3,000 gallons of water storage capacity now.

Narrator: Across town, Franco believes his

aquaponic farm may be the only source of

fresh food he, his wife, Amy, and

their two children will have,

if Americans revolt against genetically

modified ingredients

and the nation's food supply chain collapses.

Amy molea: I honestly can't,

I can't raise a plant for the life of me.

I kill everything green that I touch.

So I'm glad that I have a husband

who is doing that for us.

Franco: I have about 2,000 gallons here

worth of water storage.

In aquaponics you get a lot of evaporation.

So I really need to get about four to

6,000 gallons of water at my disposal uh,

for my family and for my garden and

for my aquaponics.

Why don't you go feed the fish a little bit, okay?

Narrator: With so much on the line,

Franco spent 30 hours a week customizing

his own system.

Frco: Welce to my

interpretation of aquaponics.

What I'm doing here is I'm growing vegetables

theame nner ing ow bs.

But I use a different method than Allen,

that's called a bell siphon.

Narrator: A bell siphon operates as a drainpipe

r ea grobed, preventing excess water

from building up and drowning the system.

Franco: The reason why I like mine a little bit

better is because my grow beds drain individually,

not all at once.

So if there's ever a problem with one

grow bed, I can address it and

not have the whole system shut down.

Amy molea: They definitely but heads on

which system is better and

which one operates better.

Allen comes over and checks out our system.

Franco goes over and checks out his system

and then they both work and see who can ramp

it up a little bit better you know.

Franco: In your system what happens is,

is that you go a problem with the whole,

with the system, then the whole thing

has to shut down.

Amy molea: It's great because they cooperate

and assist each other even though they've got

theiown ndse about what's best.

Narrator: With 27 more years of prepping

experience than Franco, Allen is confident

he'll be better prepared to survive

doomsday than his neighbor.

But lately, the rivalry between the

two has been atinup.

And in the quest to outdo each other,

they may have taken advice about having a

g-ouplan lite too literally.

Bella molea: Eww!

Narrator: Len d Franco are neighbors,

friends and highly competitive preppers

livi in ssou.

Each one believes the nation's food supply

will soon be impacted by a catastrophe.

And each of them has responded with

the same elaborate prep.

Allen: Franco and I've got kind of a

rivalry going on with our preps.

We've both built our own aquaponics greenhouses.

He's got a little bit different style in his.

Amy molea: Franco and Allen,

they've got a really friendly rivalry going.

But it's great.

It's friendly competition.

Allen: He's my friend,

but I'm a much better prepper.

Franco: Who would survive longer?

I would.

I would, definitely.

Narrator: Allen's and Franco's fears of an

America ravaged by starvation and anarchy

has driven them to drastically alter

their once normal,

small town lifestyle to prepare for hunger.

Allen: This is my maggot mansion,

where I'm trying to raise black soldier fly larva.

The female black solider flies will come in,

they're attracted by the putrid smell of the

rotting vegetables and corn mash

and so forth.

They lay there eggs in here,

the eggs hatch out,

drop in there, become maggots.

After that they go to my fish to

provide fish food.

These guys are supposed to be high in protein.

In some part of y'know third-world countries,

uh supposedly maggots are a delicacy.

Uh, they're not to me quite yet, but who knows?

If the poop hits the fan,

who knows what one might eat?

Franco: I don't think Allen has anything

that can beat my red wigglers.

Red wrigglers are the Cadillac of worms.

They serve three purposes.

You can get compost.

You can feed it to the fish.

And if the food production all goes

downhill and there's no food,

then as a last resort.

Bella: Eww!

Fran: Have it as a protein source awell

Bella: That's gross, daddy.

Ancoit's not that bad.

Bella: Did you really eat it?

Franco: Yeah.

Franco: Well, I'm telling you that

a last resort.

'S slightly bitter.

Bella: I'd rather drink pee.

[Ranclaug]

Narrator: As their preps get more extreme,

some members of their families are

concerned their obsessions with doomsday

may be getting out han

Rachel: My father's eccentric and

kind of lives in his own reality and

is a little odd like that.

Personally I think it's all kind of

pointless unless he was to make money off it.

When my friends come over we kind of treat

it aa Jo.

Cause they all kind of have the same opinion I do,

that the end of the world won't affect us

while we're still living.

Allen: I think that, ah, my daughter and my wife

and my son; On some days they might

call it obsessed.

On other days, they might be a little milder

and kind to.

But I think for the most part,

they think it's probably a rather benign obsession.

It doesn't really hurt anything.

Prepping has made my life different.

I consider it an improvement.

I can sleep better at night knowing that family

is provided for if something should happen.

Franco: I think, uh, Allen's preps are

great for how Allen interprets prepping.

But I think mine's a little bit better.

Prepping is not a state of mind.

It's getting out there, it's doing it.

That's where the fun is.

Narror: Len d Franco, the experts,

practical preppers, have assessed your preps.

Allen, your gardens and aquaponic system are a

great asset, and you have plenty of stored

food to fall back on.

We recommend y suleme it

raising other renewable food sources,

such as rabbits and chickens.

Allen: I agree.

I have full plans to start raising chickens soon,

however, the other members of my household;

mainly my wife and my daughter are

both adamantly opposed to chickens.

Narrator: Your water supply is efficient,

but in the event you are forced from your home,

you must have more mobile water storage units

and purification methods.

Allen: That wasn't so bad.

Let's see how you do, Franco.

Narrator: Franco, although you have

efficient methods for collecting water you

should also have backup sources,

because your rain catchment system will be

of little use, if there's no precipitation.

Franco: I may agree with that one.

My goal is to get up to 4,000 gallons.

Narrator: You currently lack weapons and

have ntactal aining.

Without them, you will be unable to

protect your home in a crisis.

Franco: Yeah, you're right about the weapons.

I do not possess them,

nor do I plan on possessing them.

It's not what I believe in.

Narrator: To determine how long you could

itiay survive a catastrophe,

practical preppers has scored your preps in

five categories of 20 points each.

Food: Allen, 18 points;

Franco, 11.

Water: Allen, 18 points;

Franco, 15.

Shelter: Allen, 12 points;

Franco, 13.

Security: Allen, 12 points;

Franco, 3.

Allen, your abundance of fish for bartering

gives you 17 x-factor points;

Franco, your mechanical skills give you 7.

Allen, overall you receive 77 out of 100 points.

Franco your total score is 49.

Allen, this gives you 15 months initial

survival time.

Franco, your initial survival time

is four months.

Allen: I agree with most of that.

I like the constructive criticism,

I appreciate it.

Franco: Actually, I'm glad.

I'm actually glad, because, ah,

he's been doing this for over 30 years,

and um, he deserves that one.

I'll give him that.

Narrator: Experts generally do not expect

the use of genetically modified foods or

rising food costs to ignite a food crisis,

or lead to a complete societal break down

in the United States.