Prepping 101: Neighborhood Edition

Prepping can be a solitary path spent canning food alone in your kitchen, finding gear as a companionless online shopper, or hunting away in the woods all on your lonesome.

But the prepping activities don’t always have to revolve around a one-man show. You can also invite your neighbors in on the action. 

In fact, this isn’t just a nice gesture. Orchestrating community-wide prepping activities can be an instrumental part of your own prepping, too. It ensures that your local neighborhood is safe, sound, and prepared against whatever the future may hold.

The struggle is figuring out how to approach your local community with your prepping plans. Here is a brief blueprint for how you can do just that as you seek to transform your local neighborhood into a post-apocalyptic safe haven.

Look for the Right Neighborhood

Neighborhood prepping starts with, well, choosing a neighborhood. You might be already safely ensconced in a local community that you love. If that’s the case, focus on working with the neighbors that you already have.

If and when it comes time to relocate, though, take advantage of the opportunity to consider what kind of prepper-friendly neighborhood you want to settle down in.

This process begins with the state you choose. Prepper.com suggests ten different states that are the most prepper-friendly. These are fairly diverse, stretching from Texas to Ohio, Maine, Montana, and elsewhere. The rankings are based on critical factors like cost of living, crime rates, climate, and population density.

Once you’ve chosen your state, look for the right area to buy a house. Writing for the Survival Mom, Amy VR suggests keeping certain things in mind, such as:

• Local water supply;

• Flood zones;

• Agricultural potential;

• Evacuation feasibility;

• Terrorism and hazmat risks;

• Cell service.

Along with these basics, TSM also recommends things like considering the HOA (home owner’s association) route. This can provide local togetherness, but it may interfere with things like rain collection or other homesteading pursuits. If you look for an HOA, find one that is accepting of your lifestyle.

Finally, review the defensive plausibility of both your particular home and the local community. Are the houses stacked on top of one another or is there space to get a decent line of sight in every direction? Are there protected, advantageous areas in easy reach within the local neighborhood where people can gather in the event of an emergency?

This may seem like overkill, but these are many of the prepping factors that can save you a lot of hassle if you think about them upfront.

Alrighty then, on to more of the neighbory stuff...

Approach Your Neighbors the Right Way

When you’ve selected your living space and you know the neighborhood you’re working with, it’s time to consider how to kick off your community prepping efforts.

We strongly recommend doing this in a slow, thought-out manner. Being strategic can accomplish two things. First, it can avoid associating yourself with the stereotype image of a paranoid prepper who sees zombies and cannibals lurking behind every corner.

Second, easing your way into the prepping conversation is a good way to help your neighbors see the value that prepping can have not just for the community but for themselves. This can open up the door to cultivate future allies in your community who can help you spearhead the prepping efforts.

With that in mind, look for low-hanging fruit that you can start with. For instance, you can tackle these two popular neighborhood safety tactics to get the ball rolling:

Launch a Neighborhood Watch Program

A neighborhood watch is a wonderful safety measure that any neighbor can be interested in — regardless of their personal views toward prepping. National Neighborhood Watch offers a five-step process to launch a program that consists of:

• Recruiting your neighbors;

• Setting things up with local law enforcement and scheduling your first meeting;

• Developing an action plan after discussing your neighbors’ top concerns;

• Setting up a communication network;

• Scheduling recurring meetings and events.

If you’re looking for a more comprehensive resource, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) also offers a detailed neighborhood watch manual. It covers everything from phone trees and neighborhood maps to logistics, maintaining volunteers, home security, and more.

Set Up Community Communication Lifelines

It’s difficult to stay on the same page with your neighbors if you don’t establish healthy lines of communication before an emergency takes place. That said, a great way to bring your neighbors together in the name of safety and preparedness is by setting up local groups to keep your community connected.

This can be something like a Facebook Group where alerts, pictures, and questions can be posted. However, don’t put all of your eggs in a cloud-platform shaped basket. You may also want to gather everyone’s phone number and create a text group. Even then, if cell service goes down you could be disconnected. Consider radios, walkie-talkies, and other rudimentary communication options that you can use in the event of a blackout, storm, or other major emergencies.

Have Community Prepping Days

Next up, consider hosting “community prepping days.” These should start by focusing on truly basic prepping concepts. Don’t flood your participants with alarming or complicated information. 

In other words, don’t kick things off with a discussion about what is the best rifle to have on hand during an apocalypse. Instead, broach basic, accessible subjects. A few topics worth discussing (and which we’ve already broken down in detail in other posts) include:

• How to prep in a small space like an apartment;

• Gardening options — like urban gardening — that are space-irrelevant;

• Affordable prepping activities;

• How to cover prepping basics quickly;

• Water storage and stockpiling methods;

• Whether you should get a hatchet, a knife, or both;

• What on earth a bug out bag is.

Addressing prepping basics like these can ease your neighbors into the prepping lifestyle. It can help set them up for a more robust response to an emergency situation. By extension, it also strengthens your entire community in the event of a crisis or catastrophe.

Slowly Get More Serious with Your Prep

As your neighbors become more comfortable with your prepping program, you can begin to shift into more serious subjects.

For instance, take the time to gather road maps, terrain maps, and Google satellite shots of your local community. Then meet with your neighbors and discuss things like:

• The best local water sources;

• Where your local community can gather in the event of an emergency;

• Where you could place a community garden to mass-produce food;

• Various defensive weapons you want to have on hand if things got really serious;

• What areas of the neighborhood should be strategically defended if push comes to shove.

These are the “eye roll” conversations that would turn off your neighbors if you started out with them. However, by this point in the process, you should be able to broach the subject and have an interested and engaged audience.

Cultivate a Healthy Prepper Mindset

Along with the practical prepping activities, it’s important to get meta about your preparations from time to time. Dive into the self-analyzing conversations. Ask the tough questions, like “is this really worth it?” and “what are the odds something will really happen?”

As you talk about these things, round out the concept of just what a prepper is in the first place. For instance, our official HoD definition of a prepper is as broad as it is applicable. We define preppers as self-reliant, responsible problem solvers who are interested in things like safety and readiness in the event of an emergency. 

This definition can be applied to anything from coping during natural or manmade disasters to addressing personal crises, like getting fired or losing a loved one, all the way to, yes, surviving an apocalypse.

The important thing here is to help your neighbors grasp the fact that prepping should foster a healthy mindset, not a paranoid one. It should help them identify weaknesses and shortcomings in their own lives that they can take steps to address.

As they process the information from each meeting, they can look for ways to improve their own readiness. As they patrol the local neighborhood, they can keep their eyes open for natural weaknesses in your community’s preparedness.

And, of course, as this mindset catches on, it will only add fuel to the prepping fire and provide you with an army of willing volunteers.

Temper Expectations

As a final word of warning, make sure to set proper expectations for your neighborhood prepping activities. This applies to both you and your neighbors.

On the one hand, it’s important to remember that everyone won’t welcome your prepping overtures with open arms. On the contrary, you may encounter a very temperate response or even some antagonism.

Be patient as you go, and remember to be as diplomatic as possible. If you can be strategic, the results will come with time.

On the other hand, it’s also worth taking the time to temper your neighbors’ expectations, as well. As they catch on to the prepping passion, they may begin to expect exaggerated or dramatic results. As the seasoned veteran, you’re likely well aware that most of the prepping life is spent waiting and watching. 

Prepping also requires strategic rather than splashy preparations. After all, you don’t need to recreate Alexandria from The Walking Dead to have a properly prepared neighborhood.

Set clear expectations and achievable goals as you begin to lead your neighborhood in the direction of community preparedness.

Prepping as a Community

Prepping is a wonderful community activity. It takes the individual prepping bustle that you already invest in and expands it to a larger group of individuals who can collectively invest in a shared goal.

This isn’t just fun and exciting. It’s also yet another way you can be as prepared as possible for any emergency. As Genghis Khan put it many centuries ago, “One arrow alone can be easily broken but many arrows are indestructible.”

By bringing your community together, you provide safety, security, and comfort for everyone.