Survival camps cater to new fear: America's political unrest
Send a link to a friend
[December 23, 2019]
By Andrew Hay
FORTITUDE RANCH, Colo. (Reuters) - Aiming
an AR-15 rifle across a Colorado valley dotted with antelope and cattle,
Drew Miller explains how members of his new survival ranch would ride
out an apocalypse.
The former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer said his latest Fortitude
Ranch community, under construction below mountain forests, will shelter
Americans fleeing anything from a bioengineered pandemic to an attack on
the electricity grid.
For an annual fee of around $1,000, members can vacation at the camps in
good times, and use them as a refuge during a societal collapse.
"If you've got a lot of weapons, if you've got a lot of members at guard
posts, defensive walls, we don't think we're going to need to fight,"
said Miller, crouching on top of a fortified position on the camp
perimeter.
The expansion of Miller's camp chain underscores the growing mainstream
appeal of the "prepper" movement long associated with anti-government
survivalists.
In recent years prepping has overlapped with millennial interests in
renewable energy, homesteading, minimalist living and concerns about
climate change.
Then there is politics.
Increasingly, Miller said, clients fear sharp political divisions will
deepen around the Nov. 3, 2020 U.S. presidential election.
"There is growing concern that after the 2020 election there could be
massive, long-lasting civil unrest if people say, 'Hey, I don't buy the
new president, I don't recognize him or her,'" said Miller, who has
added "civil war" to his risk scenarios.
Skeptics said Fortitude Ranch was preparing for catastrophic events that
were unlikely and possibly not worth surviving.
There is a rational level of readiness for natural disasters or power
outages, said New York University Professor Robyn Gershon, and then
there is "hyper-extreme" preparedness.
She predicted a bad ending for anyone holing up in a compound with
strangers to make it through a global pandemic or nuclear war.
"The quality of life will be degraded to a point where, for modern-day
people, it probably won't be worth living," said Gershon, a clinical
professor of epidemiology.
AR-15 OR SHOTGUN?
The solar-powered camps cater to middle-class Americans worried about
their vulnerability in cities and suburbs. Unlike traditional
survivalists, many are not schooled in off-the-grid living, and some
have no idea how to hunt. Besides the annual fee, the main requirement
for members is an AR-15 style rifle or pump-action shotgun for defense.
The camps stock about three months of food and have goats and chickens.
In a collapse situation, members would follow orders from camp leaders
like Miller. Tasks would include collecting firewood and nuts, killing
game and growing vegetables. Everyone would do guard duty.
Miller expects marauding gangs to pour out of cities if law and order
breaks down. He expects his ranches to have superior firepower. The new
Colorado camp has a .50 caliber rifle to take on armored vehicles.
[to top of second column]
|
Anthropology professor Chad Huddleston said such fears sounded like
“apocalyptic fiction.”
"The research around the world shows that communities come together
first, before anything else," said Huddleston of Southern Illinois
University, Edwardsville, citing studies on the aftermath of
disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
Fortitude Ranch has around 175 members from all ethnic groups, many
with business or military backgrounds, and most distrust the
government, said Miller. He asked that exact locations of camps not
be disclosed.
If he can find investors, Miller hopes to expand communities from
two existing locations in Colorado and one in West Virginia to 10
more states.
"A SPECIAL GROUP"
Members like health insurance professional Kiki Bandilla, 53, of
Castle Rock, Colorado, worry about over-dependence on modern
technology and see the ranches as survival insurance.
"We all need to have a certain level of preparedness," said Bandilla,
who runs Denver's Self Reliance Expo showcasing everything from tiny
homes to body armor. "I see it becoming a little bit more
mainstream, because I believe what's happening in our government, on
both the right and the left, is chaos."
Tom, a 52-year-old who runs a Maryland housing business, fears a
2021 economic meltdown and wants a place to take his girlfriend and
children.
"You're going to have a lot of people who are going to want to give
up, but most of those people are not going to be at the ranch," he
said, asking that his last name not be used.
Just how many Americans are prepping is hard to measure as most keep
their activities secret. People within the industry, including Roman
Zrazhevskiy, chief executive of Ready To Go Survival, said interest
is growing.
Zrazhevskiy said sales of his survival-kit bags and gas masks have
doubled or tripled on demand from "liberal preppers". "They're
concerned about what Trump is doing," he said. "The whole civil war
thing isn't that implausible."
Some within the movement say private survival communities may not be
for everyone.
"It would be a challenge, I think, to throw a hundred people into a
compound without really knowing each other," said Don Rodgers, who
runs Rocky Mountain Readiness, which trains families in emergency
preparedness and sells gear.
"It would take a special group and a special leader to hold that
together."
Miller believes Fortitude Ranch is that group: "If you've got to be
here, then it means it's really, really bad out there, so where are
you going to go?"
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Colorado; Editing by Richard Chang)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |