Among the Preppers

"Over the past four years, Stevens has witnessed something of a renaissance, coming out of retirement to hawk an expanded edition of Basics and a water-filtering system that's so efficient, he tells me, it could make urine taste like bottled water. The product has netted Stevens and his partner $1.5 million in profits in just over a year. And he's far from the only one making a living off the coming collapse of civilization. Sites like Revolutionary Realty and Survival Realty list rugged properties with amenities such as a "defensible hillside location." There are no fewer than three prepper dating sites—Survivalist Singles ('Don't Face the Future Alone') boasts 4,000 members, mostly male. Both the National Geographic Channel and Glenn Beck TV have gotten into the game with their reality shows Doomsday Preppers and Independence USA. The preserved food company Shelf Reliance reported a 708 percent explosion in revenues over the past three years. Overall, the size of the market for Americans expecting major disruptions caused by hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorism, pandemics, price shocks, gas shortages, civil unrest, martial law, nuclear disasters, and/or the Rapture is estimated to be $500 million.
"Welcome to the doom boom."

In Mother Jones, Tim Murphy spends some time with survivalists.