The video delves into the intense lifestyle of preppers in America, focusing on family man Mike Mester, who is preparing his family for an anticipated global economic collapse. Mike has taken extensive measures to ensure his family's survival by stockpiling food, learning to defend their home, and preparing a plan to bring home his son from college should society break down. Mike is motivated by a belief in an impending collapse due to unsustainable national debt and civil unrest, and his preparations include teaching his children self-defense and using home resources for survival.

Another intriguing story told is that of Preston White, who believes radiation from Japan's Fukushima disaster is starting to contaminate the United States. As a "prepper," Preston has amassed an enormous collection of vegetable seeds to grow radiation-free food and has devised a highly adaptable survival plan centered around biosphere tents and unique home energy solutions. His extensive preparation efforts aim to shield his family from radiation exposure while ensuring self-sufficiency in a contaminated environment using innovative and adaptive solutions.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. armageddon [ˌɑːrməˈɡɛd(ə)n] - (n.) - The end of the world or a vast, destructive conflict. - Synonyms: (apocalypse, end times, doomsday)

The experts will assess their extreme preps and decide if they have what it takes to face armageddon.

2. logistician [ˌloʊdʒɪˈstɪʃən] - (n.) - An expert in logistics, the planning and carrying out of complex operations. - Synonyms: (planner, organizer, coordinator)

My prior careers is being a logistician and understanding warehousing gives us an advantage on how we manage our stores.

3. siphoning [ˈsaɪfənɪŋ] - (v.) - Drawing off liquid through a tube, typically for transfer from one source to another. - Synonyms: (extracting, transferring, draining)

He is also teaching his son Kyle methods for stealing gasoline if necessary. This will work in some older model cars. A lot of vehicles that are out there have anti-siphoning devices.

4. metropolitan [ˌmɛtrəˈpɒlɪtən] - (adj.) - Related to or pertaining to a large urban area or its residents. - Synonyms: (urban, city, cosmopolitan)

Security is an important part of a prepper's lifestyle. If there's an economic collapse, civil unrest will most likely ensue. The metropolitan areas then spread out through the suburbs.

5. heirloom crops [ˈɛrluːm krɒps] - (n.) - Varieties of plants that maintain their original form and can produce seeds, unlike genetically modified plants. - Synonyms: (heritage seeds, traditional varieties, non-hybrid plants)

heirloom crops, unlike most genetically modified varieties, naturally produce a harvest of new seeds

6. hydrogen generator [ˈhaɪdrədʒən ˈdʒɛnəˌreɪtər] - (n.) - A device that produces hydrogen gas, often used for energy or fuel purposes. - Synonyms: (HHO generator, water splitter, electrolyzer)

Built by Colorado local Russell Priester, this is my prototype of a HHO generator and home heater.

7. electrolysis [ɪˌlɛkˈtrɒləsɪs] - (n.) - A technique that uses direct electric current to drive a chemical reaction such as separating elements. - Synonyms: (chemical dissolution, ionization, depolarization)

The HHO generator can turn water into highly flammable gas by using electrolysis to separate water's hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

8. extinction level event [ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən ˈlɛvəl ɪˈvɛnt] - (n.) - An occurrence that results in most or all species suddenly becoming extinct. - Synonyms: (global catastrophe, planetary annihilation, mass extinction)

This is an extinction level event.

9. polar shift [ˈpoʊlər ʃɪft] - (n.) - A hypothesis that there might be periodic shifts of the Earth's poles relative to its surface. - Synonyms: (geomagnetic reversal, pole inversion, earth tilt)

I'm preparing my family to survive a polar shift.

10. blast doors [blæst dɔrz] - (n.) - Robust doors designed to withstand explosions and provide security in bunkers or fortifications. - Synonyms: (explosion-proof doors, reinforced doors, safety doors)

As you'd expect from someone who makes survival shelters for a living, Riley's bunker has it all. Three years worth of food supplies, 1500 pound blast doors, CCTV cameras, ham radio equipment, and the odd domestic touch, too.

Nine Meals Away from Anarchy (Full Episode) - Doomsday Preppers

Across the country, ordinary Americans from all walks of life are taking whatever measures necessary to prepare. I'm preparing my family for the total destruction of the power grid. The Yellowstone supervolcano. A financial collapse. And protect themselves. And survival's the goal. It's into the spider hole. Go. Fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. Go, go, go. From what they perceive as the fast-approaching end of the world as we know it. I'm gonna use like, these. Awesome. Next, we go inside the lives of three committed preppers who have devised extensive plans. I have just over 11,000 types of seeds on this floor. Gone to great lengths. Stop, Ross. You're crazy. Great. And made huge personal sacrifices to ensure their very survival. Shoot your thumb off. Oh, this is a bomb. This could be a bomb. Burn 'em down. The experts will assess their extreme preps and decide if they have what it takes to face armageddon. Honey, I'm home. Look at this. This is great. And to survive. This is doomsday preppers.

Mike Mester is a contractor living in a suburb near Atlanta, Georgia. He has a loving wife, a brood of kids, two dogs, and a spacious home in a quiet development. And we're preparing for civil unrest caused by a global economic collapse. Prepping it's just become a way of life for me and my family. Y2K certainly had an impact on myself. And then the game changer for me was 911. All of our children understand why we prep. They see what's going on in the world. They see what's going on in our country. There's a storm brewing out there. It's brewing all over the place. The way the United States economy works today is not sustainable. We were once the greatest creditor in the world. Now we are the greatest debtor. Where will the money come from? Look at the news. Look in the papers. Police departments, cut. Fire departments cut. What will you do when there's no one there? Mike believes that as the global economy falters, the US will fall deeper and deeper into debt. Banks will close, power will go out, and basic services will grind to a halt. If the grocery shelves are empty, you're only nine meals away from anarchy. What will happen then? Will you be prepared? We have a saying. Five minutes before the prom is not the time to learn how to dance.

Mike and his wife Lisa have been prepping for over a decade. They devote at least an hour a day to making their suburban home a family fortress. We do key preps throughout the house. We keep them in the storage area, in our garage, closets, in our basement. But as his children grow older, Mike is facing new challenges. While most preppers agree that staying together is key to family survival, Mike's oldest son, Ryan, now lives at college around 250 miles away. Mike conducts regular video conferences with Ryan. So how's college going? Not to talk about grades or tuition, but to discuss their family plan to survive the end of the world as we know it. You guys are trying to keep your gas tanks at least half full at all times? Oh, yeah. I always make sure my truck is half full. You've been watching the news. What's going on over in Greece and everything else and down on the border and. Yeah. Hey, mom wants to say hi to you. Hey, Ryan. How are you? To my wife and I, our home is our family. That's why we want to ensure that we get all our children home. When things collapse, we will go to any extent to ensure their safety.

We've provided them with a get home bag. Aluminum foil, duct tape consists of water, food, things to help you, protect you from the element sources of light, and a lantern. With extra batteries, there's enough here to support them for four days with about 1500 calories. With everything that's here, heaven forbid, our oldest boy can't make it home. That's why we have plans to retrieve him in 30 days. Mike believes that after an economic collapse, rioting will spread from urban centers in waves, with violence cresting in the first few weeks. So 30 days is a key timeframe for braving the road that retrieval of our son will involve a minimum of two of us to take our gas stores and travel down to college. And we'll find them there in his dorm room. Ready? All right, take care. Love you, too. Mike fears that an economic collapse will cause a run on gasoline, making it difficult for him to quickly fuel his car and retrieve Ryan. So we got 45 gallons. We just need to go fill that last one up there, and we'll have our 50-gallon stores on hand. The 50 gallons Mike keeps in his garage is enough to take him over 800 miles, or three times the distance to his son's campus. Gasoline has a shelf life between nine months to two years. So Mike goes to the gas station and replenishes his stockpiles every three months. Just to be on the safe side, a little bit of time today, rotating our gas stores out. But what happens when fuel is not available? Just having that extra fuel on hand could become a lifesaver. If you got to go get somebody that's out there now we're just going to transfer fuel out of this five gallon. Fill up the other one over there. All right, we're almost there. We'll swap it over. He is also teaching his son Kyle methods for stealing gasoline if necessary. This will work in some older model cars. A lot of vehicles that are out there have any anti-siphoning devices. You can't get it down there, or if it comes down to it, they have two and a half gallon gas cans. They use that and just the regular punch off, put the can underneath the car, punch a hole in it, and just let it drain in. Pretty much if you're going to get out of Dodge, you're gonna do what you need to get out of Dodge.

Mike isn't just prepping for his wife and kids. There are two other members of the family that he's also looking out for if things get bad. We do have preparations for our dogs as well. He's even equipped them with bug out bags. A lot of people don't think about their pets. We have over a quarter ton of dog food for our two german shepherds. Well, I guess he doesn't want a bug out and shelter in place, so good boy. It's amazing. Our own government tells us about having at least a three day supply of food and water on hand. As a prepper, it's gone a little bit further than that. Two chopped onions. My prior careers is being a logistician and understanding warehousing gives us an advantage on how we manage our stores. Seven cases of refried beans. Right now, our estimates are we have two years of food for ten people. Having one well stocked pantry is standard for a prepper. But Mike has dedicated three rooms of his 4500 square foot house to food storage. Mike stores thousands of cans, sometimes for years past their expiration date. Expired food may not taste good, but Mike knows it could keep his family alive in a crisis. There's a difference between shelf life and life-sustaining. In third world countries, they use rancid cooking oil. Certainly it will not hurt you. Believe it or not, this is meatloaf. We can meats like beef, chicken, bacon, sausage. It's not pretty looking, but it's actually quite tasty.

For the mesters, the looming threat of an economic collapse touches every aspect of suburban life. Every autumn, while the other neighborhood kids rake and dispose of dead leaves, Mike has his kids gather and save them. They'll use them as a prep to survive a winter without fuel or electricity. One of the fuel sources that there's an abundance of in suburbia is newspaper. We're basically going to take this and we're going to take some natural materials. This is just some dried leaves. We're going to mix this together and we're going to soak it for about five days. Let's start filling up the mold first. Mike has challenged his kids to make 6000 of these briquettes, enough fuel to keep them warm for three to four winter months. So once we compress it, we have kind of like those logs you buy at the grocery store. Many third world countries use this as an alternative heat and cooking source. After pressing the water out of the slurry and a week of air drying, the briquettes are ready to go. Colleen, how's that looking? Okay. 345678. The living room fireplace is a gathering spot in many homes. But few families in Georgia huddle around an arctic stove like Mike's, which can burn even at subzero temperatures. One briquette will get about a 25 to 30 minutes burn time.

Stocking the Mester compound with years worth of food is a start. But to survive an economic collapse, Mike believes his family will need to learn how to defend themselves. So he is getting the whole family combat-ready before the suburban streets are overrun with chaos. Suburban dad Mike Mester believes global economic collapse will ignite civil unrest across America. He stockpiled mountains of food and taught his children how to harvest fuel from the backyard. Now he must teach them to defend their preps by whatever means necessary. Security is an important part of a prepper's lifestyle. If there's an economic collapse, civil unrest will most likely ensue. The metropolitan areas then spread out through the suburbs. Downtown Atlanta is only 45 miles away. We don't know how fast that civil unrest will get to us, but we certainly will be prepared if it does. We have weapons for every individual in a house. Twelve gauge shotguns, high powered rifles, civilian versions of military firearms, sidearms, and plenty of ammunition for all of them. Give me those and just take them out. That's headed to range. Once a month, Mike and his kids load the family arsenal into the SUV and head off for practice. Shooting ranges located in residential suburbs are popular destinations for prepper families, in part because they offer the opportunity to fire at human-shaped targets. If you don't practice, you can easily lose that skill set.

The average attacker can cover 21ft in 1.5 seconds. So preppers looking to defend themselves must evaluate a threat and terminate it within a fraction of a second. If there was a threat in the house and I wasn't available, I would expect them to do whatever they need to do to defend themselves, and hopefully the dogs would do it first. Two german shepherds, Storm and Thunder. They're part of our family, and they're also part of our security. The final part of Mike's security preparations is turning the family's two house pets into defensive weapons. These two german shepherds may look friendly, but each one possesses a natural fight drive. Proper training works to pull the maximum attack instinct out of each dog. We want to get them a little more aggressive should the time come for the need. What in particular are you looking at for training for your dog? Well, one of the things that I'd like to see if they're capable of is providing a little bit more security. It's the training that makes the difference. It makes or breaks the dog. It actually makes or breaks the relationship with the family as well. Come on, come on. Here, here, here. The first step to making the master pets combat-ready is running them through a series of agility tests and obstacles, challenges beyond the usual walk around the cul de sac. Navigating this obstacle course trains the master children to give commands in a uniform way. Consistency among family members is a critical element of protection. Dog training. The male, he's pretty big. He can knock me over. But if he comes up to you and knocks you over, he'll roll over and watch you to scratch his belly. Today, Mike is getting a look at a highly trained attack dog, something he and his family hope Storm and Thunder will become.

These dogs bite pretty hard. It's not something you want to take without anything on. So in real life, you can lose something. Stop roasting my dog. Roasting my dog. Look at that. Okay. Just stomps on her. Command down. A dog, you can call back a dog, you can't call back a bullet. I got it. That was incredible. Thank you. You're crazy. Brave sky frosting my dog. I don't think anybody's gonna be bothering her while she's walking. If you think the government's gonna be there, are you gonna sit back and wait for the cavalry? They may never come. So what are you going to do about it? Why don't you start to prepare? Because it's your personal responsibility, Mike. The experts, practical preppers, have determined that you are extremely knowledgeable and well rounded in your preps. Your food storage is sufficient to sustain you through a long period of civil unrest. Additionally, training your german shepherds is an excellent way to strengthen your security and ensure that your children will be safe in the event you are called away from home. However, if civil unrest spills, over into the suburbs.

Your whole family may need to evacuate and seek safety elsewhere. You need to establish a bug out location stocked with supplies that will last you for an extended period away from your home. Yeah, we understand that we need to find a secure alternate location and put some stockpiles in there. Also, you need to put your leadership skills to use in your community. Getting your neighbors aware of and involved in your prepping will only make your family more secure in a crisis situation. Certainly one of the things that we've learned as we prepped is the fact that we can't do it alone and we have been reaching out to neighbors to network with them. At first we were very quiet about it. We kept it very low key. But we soon realized that there's no way we're going to make it on our own. Hey Naggio, just to give you a quick update on our preps, after our evaluation, we've decided to remove some of our lawn area in our backyard and create about a thousand square foot garden based on a square foot gardening concept. We've got an addition of ten new puppies, about a month old. Five of them are slated to go to people we prep with. So that was a nice little addition to the prepping family for us there. We'll give you updates as we move along. And thanks for the opportunity. We'll talk to you later. Bye.

What are the odds of a global economic collapse actually occurring? Although economic turmoil in the eurozone does not bode well internationally, the World Bank has predicted minor growth at around 2.5% for the year 2012. The possibility of a global economic collapse, however, cannot be completely ruled out. Next, web developer Preston White will go to any lengths to protect his family and friends from the nuclear radiation he believes is raining down on the US. In March 2011, a devastating tsunami crashed into the northeast coast of Japan, decimating towns and villages. In the path of this gigantic 49-foot wall of water was the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Three of its six nuclear reactors went into meltdown, leaking massive amounts of lethal radiation into the ocean and atmosphere, the traces of which have been found as far away as California and Alaska. Radiation you can't see, radiation you can't touch. People are going to die. Die within months. You have to get ready. There's no other way but to prepare if you're gonna survive.

Preston White is a mild-mannered web developer living in central Colorado. But the recent disaster at the Fukushima power plant in Japan has also made him a prepper. My life has changed. Being a prepper because I'm concerned about things. You're seeing the water change into fuel and come out as a flame. Some people think I'm obsessed with what I'm doing, but look what's happening in the world. Preston believes that a cloud of deadly radiation from Fukushima is heading towards the mainland United States and will soon contaminate food and water supplies. Whoa. What is that? People need to know. Japan should be evacuated. California, Oregon, and Washington should be evacuated. And Preston is not alone in his fear for the worst. Just days after the meltdown, thousands of Americans began stocking up on potassium iodide pills to prevent radiation poisoning. This is an extinction level event. All the breadbasket of California has been saturated with radiation, and they're finding it in the animals. They're finding it in the water, they're finding it in the food, but they're saying it's safe levels. Believing that radioactive fallout from Japan will contaminate the American food chain, Preston is creating a seed bank, a store of fruit and vegetable seeds that can be used to grow radiation-free food. In a post-apocalyptic world, there's 400 different types of corn, 750 different types of pepper seeds. To last longer than ten years, seeds must be kept at below 40 degrees Fahrenheit and away from moisture. And today, he and his friend Shane are taking a complete inventory of every seed variety in his massive collection. Let's see how much we got. Roma tomato, 540. 512 ounce bulk. Tiny Tim tomatoes, 700. Sir. Yes. I have 340 different types of squash, 200 different types of peanuts. I have just over 11,000 types of seeds on this floor.

A non-prepper might look at my supplies and say, are you kidding me? But if something happens, I win this game. People that aren't prepared, they lose this game. Preston has spent three years and tens of thousands of dollars building up his collection, and today he's looking for more. I'm in a race for the seeds I would need for doomsday. Right now. We're going over to a hydroponics store in town, and they have some organic seeds that I was missing. So what are you looking for today? Are you growing, or are you just collecting? No, I'm growing now, and I want to grow food that gives me seeds too. So if you don't do heirlooms, sometimes you can't get the seeds from the plant, correct? Right. Yeah. Today, Preston's looking for organic heirloom seeds, known to preppers as survival seeds. I don't have three sisters. Tomatoes. heirloom crops, unlike most genetically modified varieties, naturally produce a harvest of new seeds. Is that going to do you today? Yeah. I'll get these. So what are you doing with all these seeds? Fukushima. The four power plants that were over in Japan, they're sending radiation around the earth. That's gonna really mess up things.

Okay. So I'm trying to save seeds for food, for maybe this town. I'd like to save the world, but it's too big. See you next time. Okay. I'll feed the town. I'll give them some seeds, and I'll give them a shovel. I think it's great to have people like that in our community, you know? So if something does happen, we have seeds down the road. Hey. Hey. Make space. I brought a big one back at the house. Preston is working with a team of like-minded preppers to plant his seeds and create a radiation-free farm. Is this a horseradish? Yeah. So far, they have managed to plant over 100 of his 11,000 varieties. I'm tired of being afraid, you know, there's so much going on in the world right now, I just feel like doing something about it. Hey, what's up, guys? I'm very worried about Fukushima because it's getting into the food chain. It's polluting the Pacific Ocean, all those fish. But before creating a new garden of Eden, the first step on their agenda is to protect their food supply from one of the world's most common natural occurrences, rain. Right now, about half or more of that radiation from Fukushima is still floating around in the atmosphere and will eventually settle. It'll eventually come down.

Nuclear radiation is spread through fallout, literally radioactive particles that fall from the sky in rain. Or. Dustin Preston and his team are worried that contaminated seawater from Fukushima will be evaporated into the atmosphere and become deadly rain. So today, Preston and Shane are starting a new project that they hope will protect their plants from the harmful radiation. Wow. Nice to see that. Hey, come on, guys. Our exciting new project is the biosphere system. It's a perfect preppers kit. If food being sold in American supermarkets does become contaminated by radiation, these tents will act as a barrier to potentially dangerous fallout while still allowing enough light in to grow food all year round. This is the living quarters. Then the other tent's the greenhouse tent. The biotent they allow us to grow food and grow seeds inside of it that are radiation free. Beautiful. That's the way it's done. And then we've added a second tent that we live in. Look at this. It's safe for your family. How long to put up ten minutes? Ten minutes. Lettuce and garlic. From here on out, everything grows inside these units. Out of the rain, hopefully out of the air. Preston and Shane chose tents rather than a more permanent structure because they believe it will give them the flexibility to bug out quickly if life in town becomes too dangerous. If hits a van, we gotta be ready in case we have to leave the house. And you might have, I don't know, ten minutes. Preppers believe that in order to be sufficiently prepared, not only do you need a bug out plan, but you need to practice that plan as regularly as once a month. Today, Preston and Shane are seeing if they can pack up their hundreds of thousands of seeds in under five minutes. You ready? Yes, sir. Okay. Three, two, go. Too slow that time. We're too slow. Once they have perfected their bug out plan, Preston and Shane believe that the seed bank and biosphere tents will give them the ability to set up house anywhere in America.

That's independence. That's something you can pick up, throw in the back of your car, and wherever you can find a little nook to drop it in, life will go on. But if dangerous radiation seeps into the soil and water supply systems, Preston knows his biosphere tents may not be enough. What's that? So he has a secret weapon that he hopes will change everything. This could be a bomb, right? Wow. Preston White is convinced that the United States is currently facing a nuclear apocalypse caused by the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan. He's collecting hundreds of thousands of vegetable seeds so he can grow radiation-free food for his friends and family. How long do you think we'll have to grow food with all the radiation and stuff lying around? The rest of our lives protected inside a biosphere tent system, they hope they will survive widespread radiation poisoning. Look at this. This is great. But in order to survive months inside a tent, they know they need access to energy and clean, radiation-free water. So they have a doomsday trump card. Built by Colorado local Russell Priester, this is my prototype of a HHO generator and home heater. The HHO generator can turn water into highly flammable gas by using electrolysis to separate water's hydrogen and oxygen atoms. It can literally turn water into fire, two hydrogens and one molecule of oxygen. So they call it HHO, turning water into gas. HHO technology has become increasingly popular with plans to build home generators readily available on the Internet.

You're seeing the water change into fuel and come out as a flame. This is actually my virgin flame. First time we fired this up. Wow. Turning water into fire. Isn't it great? Wow. You can use it as a cutting torch, a welding torch. This is a bomb. This could be a bomb, right? Bomb. Wow. Absolutely. This is not stuff you mess with. While impressive, having the ability to create heat from water is not the main reason that Preston and Shane have brought in an HHO generator. We chose hydrogen because it's the Swiss army knife of survival. It can produce fuel to run our generators. Additionally, we believe the two hydrogens and the oxygen reduce radiation at a very rapid rate. Preston and Shane hope that this technology will allow them to purify not only the water for their plants, but also the oxygen they will breathe inside the canvas tents. Any incoming water or air we're going to process through this system before it comes into contact with the tenants in here. Like most preppers, security is at the forefront of Preston's mind. While he is happy to give seeds to those in need, he knows the size of his seed bank could make him and his family a target. You have to protect what's yours. They'll take it from you. They'll take it with force. The only way you're gonna stop them is a weapon. If you're a prepper, there's four guns to have. You got a 300, six, a kill, a deer, a shotgun, a 22 rifle to protect your home, and a nine-millimeter pistol, a sidearm for close contact.

The guns I chose, I chose for defense. And recently, Preston's defenses were put to the test. So I post an ad on Craigslist. I'm looking for a garden partner. I get a phone call. So this guy seems to be an expert on gardening. Yeah, not much more than that. We talked for weeks. Okay. Preston believes that he made the mistake of giving too much away. I think that they could have been after anything. In my prepper outfit, they were probably after the seeds. Soon his new contacts wanted to visit. He's on the phone sitting out front of the house. He's telling me that he's got a car stuck 2 miles outside town that I gotta go help him with. I'm nervous. Alarm bells are going off. I reach into my drawer, pull out my weapon, just for safety's sake. Preston got in the cardinal with the mystery gardeners just as dusk was turning into night. I proceed to get driven just outside of town. About 2 miles, we pulled off into the field, and the other subject was waiting for us. I wanted to get out of the car, so I wasn't cornered. They're trying to draw me that direction, further into the darker part of the field. It's too dark for me to go further.

I'm turning around, look back. I take two steps backward and fall down in the ravine. He shoots his weapon. I pull my weapon. I fire it. My first shot goes through the tree and hits a suspect in the hand. I am now running this direction and shooting at the same time as I'm calling 911. The suspects are attempting to flee. I stopped them. Although Preston's alleged attackers were subsequently apprehended, as of December 2011, no charges had been filed due to contradictory stories and lack of evidence to support Preston's version of events. Still, for Preston, the shooting was a turning point. I was faced with death, decided I wasn't going to be a victim. It changed my life. The way I live tomorrow, I can affect my picture. And that's what you do by prepping. We all want to change something in this world, I hope to do something significant. The experts, practical preppers, are impressed by your extensive collection of seeds in a nuclear catastrophe. This will help you sustain life and barter for what you need. That's what I was hoping for. But your biosphere system still needs a lot of work and currently does not guarantee a radiation-free environment. Yes, it's a great concern for us, but we're working on it. Shane and I didn't quite work out. I wish him well, hope he does good in the future. The bio tent worked out great. It's working out great right now, and I'm hoping in the future to pick up a motorhome and make it into a really good bug out vehicle.

What are the odds of Americans being exposed to radiation from the Fukushima reactor? The radiation from the Fukushima reactors reached the United States in March 2011. Exposure levels were small and did not cause any fatalities. Colorado Welder Riley Cook has invested his life savings into a bug out shelter that he hopes will protect his family from a catastrophic polar shift. But will he be able to get there before the extreme weather takes hold? Riley Cook is a foreman in his dad's welding shop, located in the tiny rural town of Silverthorne, Colorado. My family's been in the welding business for 40 years now. In most aspects, I'm a very typical American. I have a full-time job, I'm married and have children. We go to work, and we get our paycheck at the end of the week, and we look forward to a vacation. We got to dress up warm. But one of my primary concerns as a father and as a husband is, will our American dream be there in the near future for our children and for ourselves. I'm preparing my family to survive a polar shift. When a polar shift happens, when the north and south poles are going to shift, they could shift anywhere, all the way up to 180 degrees.

Riley believes that during his lifetime there will be a catastrophic polar shift of movement of the earth's north and south poles along the earth's mantle, and that this drastic geological change will unleash a litany of natural disasters. You can imagine the natural chaos that the earth would be in. There's going to be tornadoes, earthquakes. We're going to have up to 300 miles an hour winds. What will things look like when your neighborhood is under fire when your town has had a major earthquake go through it? Your home has been totally and completely destroyed in a matter of seconds. Expecting chaos of truly biblical proportions, Riley and his wife Sarah began to seriously prep five years ago. In the last five years, we've really taken a conscious effort to be more prepared with the food storage, with clothing, go bags, bartering items. We have spent approximately $300,000 in prepping. And Riley's prepping has begun to creep into other parts of his life too. His family's welding shop used to specialize in railings and ornamental staircases. But recently, they've become known for a different kind of metalwork. We've recently become a disaster shelter building business. Current government guidelines suggest that for any disaster from a hurricane to a nuclear war, being underground dramatically increases your chance of survivability. So Riley has started to build customized underground bunkers that he guarantees will see you and your family through the end of the world. In a small town of about 3500 people, big chunk of steel like this, looking like a giant pressure cooker in the middle of their town. It's been quite the talk of our area for the last several months. Today, local Kirk Mikkelsen has dropped in to see what all the fuss is about. My curiosity got the best of me. I've driven by and seen you guys bring it in and was curious if you could just tell me what you were doing. Yeah. Do you have 10-15 minutes? We can go on a quick little tour.

When a pole shift occurs, you will not be able to survive in your conventional built home. That particular shelter is designed for four people to be under for 90 days. So what type of natural disaster are you thinking? Possibly a pole shift. The north-south poles of the earth are going to shift. Rotate. A pole shift? I've never heard of such a thing. I'm kind of sensing that you're a little skeptical about the whole situation. Well, look at the thing. I know it looks funny, but when it's all underground, you won't see any of that. It's a small community, so there's been a lot of comments about it. Watch your head coming in. Wow. You've got hardwood floors and everything. Wow. This is incredible. Inside, this is a refrigerator and a freezer, and they are designed to run off low voltage. Back here is your communication station. It's important to know with your equipment here of what's going on outside, and it's probably not always safe to just open the hatch and take a look. You can have CTV cameras set up out there as well on trees or rocks or whatever. And if anyone is brave enough to try to break into one of Riley's shelters, he has devised a unique and final deterrent. One of the options that we have on our shelters is that there's simply a button that we have at our communication station that will incinerate an intruder. Someone that's coming in, trying to harm you. Simply push this button right here and eliminate that threat. A torch, fire chamber. Just burn them. Burn them down. Yeah. That's what you get when you combine a prepper and a welder. It's a concept I've never even considered a pole shift, but I have a family. If something that extreme were to happen, I definitely want to keep my kids and family safe, you know?

A bunker buried at a distant bug out location is only effective if you can get to it. Riley expects that the catastrophic nature of a polar shift will cause severe fuel shortages. So he has used his expert welding skills to solve the problem of transportation. His latest prepping tool is a custom made cook original that he hopes will allow his family to carry supplies without needing a car or truck. Someday, this just might be our new Cadillac. This is the Cadillac of a cooked future. When a polar shift happens, we're not going to have the fuel supply that we're accustomed to. Our vehicles are going to be worthless. Therefore, the hand cart is a critical element in order to get ourselves from A to B. This 100 pound, handcrafted aluminum cart allows Riley to haul almost nine times his body weight by distributing loads in the same way as a horse and cart. Except in this scenario, Riley is the horse. When we first made the hand cart, we wanted to test it out, and I put 1200 pounds in the hand cart, and I pulled it myself for almost 20 miles, so I know it works. The unique thing about the hand carts is that they float like a boat. They're watertight. So regularly we try and go out and test the hand cart and make sure that we're all comfortable in it, so that in the event that we do need it, they'll just think it's another little family activity. This is just all part of our preparedness kit so that we can have transportation. The way that we educate our children and our prepping needs is basically show them ways of preparing for events and natural disasters that are going to take place, that have been taking place. So, like with our food and our go bags, this is our cart to get us around when there's no fuel. We just want to educate them on being prepared and being responsible as we paddle across the Rio Grande.

But before Riley has to resort to the hand cart, he has stockpiled enough fuel to get his family to their own underground survival shelter, 11,200ft above sea level in the Colorado mountains. But will a test run end in disaster? Could the car slide off the road? Riley Cook and his wife Sarah, will do anything to protect their family from the onslaught of natural disasters that they believe will follow a catastrophic polar shift. When the polar shift happens, we are nothing planning on wasting any time around here. We plan on getting to our shelter as soon as possible. Believing that a normal home will be no match against earthquakes, tsunamis, and superstorms, they have custom built an underground shelter hidden 11,200ft up in the Colorado mountains, 10 miles from the nearest form of civilization. A bug out location for us is just a place where we can go to be safe, be away from populated areas, and could sit through the transition period of whatever it is, the natural disasters, the social chaos, the polar shift. So we're going up to the cabin. We gotta dress up warm. Riley believes that one of the consequences of a polar shift will be extreme weather patterns. So he's keen to practice bug outs to their shelter in severe weather. And today he is in luck.

Pretty significant storm come in last night. It's dropped about a foot, foot and a half here. At our elevation, about 8600ft. We're going up to 11,000ft. There'll be heavy rains, there'll be heavy snowfall. If it's in the winter, those are kind of the first signs of a pole shift taking place. This is kind of a good practice run, going up with this much snow. Okay, let's go. Emergency preparedness experts suggest that you practice evacuating your home at least twice a year and plot alternate routes in case roads become impassable. But the remoteness of the cook shelter means there is only one route they can take by car. This particular highway is snow packed and icy for a good eight months of the year. It's kind of our lifeline, if you will. It's our route to our shelter, so it's a constant concern of ours. I mean, the hand cart would work and could work. It would be a little more intense. Yeah, a little more intense. So, obviously, the way we want to get there is with by vehicle. But if all else fails, we'll have to take the hand cart. Depending on the severity of the weather conditions, it would take Riley at least 12 hours to transport his family to the bugout location in his custom designed cart. The cooks have already been on the road for two grueling hours, and the most difficult part of the journey is still ahead of them. Driving up a completely unprepared plowed mountain pass. Right now we're at approximately 9600ft in elevation. Anyone who's not accustomed to this elevation, they are definitely going to start feeling some headaches and feeling thirsty and feeling a little bit nauseated. Could the car slide off the road? Not with daddy driving at 10,000ft. They still have another fifteen hundred feet to travel through the heavy snow. Still climbing. It looks treacherous here, but when the pole shift happened, this is where we're going to be the safest. We're there.

Despite the long and difficult journey, Riley is confident that the prepping benefits of a remote shelter outweigh the drawbacks. All the water up here is fresh. It's mountain runoff. There's a lot of food up here as far as elk and deer. If we ever had to resort to obtaining our food from that, that's the route we would go. Honey, I'm home. As you'd expect from someone who makes survival shelters for a living, Riley's bunker has it all. Three years worth of food supplies, 1500-pound blast doors, CCTV cameras, ham radio equipment, and the odd domestic touch, too. Another important reason for us of having the shelter designed the way that it is looking like a home is that my wife didn't want to feel like she's living in a tank. Okay, we got to bring some warm clothes up. Why? Because. So that we cannot be naked. This is a little window that we have that reminds us of the time that we spend together as a family outdoors. And whatever period of time we're down here for helps keeps us a little sane. Riley, the experts have determined that you have a highly secured underground shelter. However, your shelter is too far away, and in an emergency, or disaster situation, you may not make it to your bugout location. I am going to spend more time escape, especially in our ways of getting to this location and maybe moving over to the other side of the past. There is some scientific evidence that a true polar shift occurred 800 million years ago. But scientists believe that because our continents are now separated, such an event is almost geologically impossible.

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