National Preparedness Month: Why Most People Still Aren’t Ready

National Preparedness Month: Why Most People Still Aren’t Ready

September is National Preparedness Month, but despite years of warnings about hurricanes, power outages, winter storms, cyberattacks, supply chain disruptions, and other emergencies, millions of Americans are still unprepared.

In this episode of The Prepping Academy Podcast, Forrest Garvin looks at why so many people put off emergency preparedness and, more importantly, how you can start preparing without spending thousands of dollars or becoming overwhelmed.

Preparedness isn't just about stockpiling food. It's about water, emergency communications, medical preparedness, financial preparedness, home security, transportation, practical survival skills, and community.

You'll also learn five practical things you can do during National Preparedness Month to make yourself and your family more resilient — including building a two-week water supply, strengthening your emergency food storage, creating a family communication plan, keeping emergency cash available, and connecting with other preparedness-minded people.

Whether you're brand new to prepping or have been preparing for years, the goal isn't perfection. It's progress.

Preparedness is a lifestyle built one step at a time. The best time to prepare was yesterday. The second-best time is today.

Tags: National Preparedness Month, preparedness, emergency preparedness, prepping, preppers, prepper, The Prepping Academy, Forrest Garvin, PrepperNet, survival, survival preparedness, emergency planning, disaster preparedness, emergency supplies, food storage, water storage, emergency water, family preparedness, family emergency plan, emergency communication plan, communications, grid down, power outage, blackout preparedness, cyberattack preparedness, supply chain, financial preparedness, emergency cash, home security, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, survival skills, preparedness community, emergency kit, disaster survival, hurricane preparedness, winter storm preparedness, tornado preparedness, flood preparedness

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Hey, welcome everyone to the Prepping Academy Podcast. I am Forrest. Thank you for joining us this day. Today we're going to be talking about National Preparedness Month, why most people still aren't ready. We have a whole month, the government, I know, has set for us to be prepared, to get prepared. And it's called National Preparedness Month. That is in the month of September. And it's been it's been that way for years. But every year, FEMA, emergency management agencies, the government, countless organizations spend millions of dollars encouraging people to be prepared for emergencies and disasters. They remind us all month long, over and over through emails, through expos, even through radio ads, television ads. And the problem is very few people actually do it. I mean, this might be one time the government is okay with telling you what to do. Suggesting, we'll say. Most Americans know they're supposed to prepare, they need to be prepared. They weren't prepared last time, but they never get around to it. They wait until the hurricane comes, they all pile in, go to Home Depot, buy everything they need, go to the grocery store, board up their house. And these are known, you know, like hurricanes and things like that. You can't do that really with earthquakes. But they they wait till the last dang minute. Then they go, it's too, it's too expensive to prepare. I mean, we went to the grocery store. I mean, what that's because you're buying everything at one time, and that's not the way it should be done. Pete, I mean, that's that is like a teachable moment. That's the I mean, if you did something or didn't do something, and your parents told you to do something to be prepared, they would kind of let you experience the pain a little bit, so you would learn the lesson. Am I right? They're like, okay, let's let them burn, you know, you know, learn the lesson a little bit, experience the pain. But this pain comes too quickly, too suddenly, and you still still don't learn. It's insane that they don't even really care, and they don't really do anything about it. And it's been how many disasters do we have to have for this to actually happen? I mean, I mean, how many times? So, National Preparedness Month was created to encourage all Americans to prepare before disasters happen instead of reacting afterwards. Every year is the same pattern. Every year we have National Preparedness Month. Hurricanes head towards us. People all of a sudden go to the grocery store. They can't get some things, they do get some things. The grocery store shuts down, snowstorms come, they all go get bread and milk and eggs, and it disappears overnight. The power goes out, and everybody's looking for generators, batteries, and flashlights. This happens all the time. People say you learn from history. No, no, they know that's not a true statement. People don't prepare prepare because they think it's too expensive, or they think it's overcomplicated, or they'll get it before the next disaster comes. And so preparedness just for a hurricane and earthquake, that takes time, a little bit of knowledge, a little bit of like planning out, and they can be disastrous. You could lose your job, your your company could close down. There's there's many things that you need to be prepared for. Imagine how do you prepare if you lose your job? One, have skills, have your resume ready, have some cash, months worth of cash to pay the bills, get out of debt. There's so many things you can prepare just for a job loss. Or medical emergencies, make sure your insurance is good, make sure your car's in good condition. You know, take the right vitamins, be healthy. How about extend power outages? I mean, have some batteries, I mean, have a way to cook food, have a way to purify water, cyber attacks. Well, they won't really affect me. Well, they will affect you when the bank shuts down and you can't get your money. Because the cyber attack on our grid, you know, banks are going to shut down their doors a little bit and protect the money. Economic instability. I mean, gosh, we're getting close to that right now. But I think I think America can get through that a little bit easier than most people than most people think. But I I believe that we can right now with what's going on. But we just need to think through all these things. So, what you need to do is put up get a piece of paper, write all these kind of ideas that you can be prepared for. The great thing is, being prepared, a lot of the same preparedness steps and actions and items will cover most of these things you're writing down. A train derailment, cyber attack, you know, earthquake. A train derailment could be like a gas spill and you have to evacuate, and you're like, wait, what? Oh yeah. Could be, you know, a hurricane, a tornado comes through your neighborhood, doesn't hit your house, but all I mean, you're still gotta be ready. But one of the busy the one of the main reasons people don't is the normalcy, the normal biasy. Normalcy bias. Where they they just can't fathom that actually something will happen that affects them. People naturally believe tomorrow's gonna come, and it's gonna be just like today, and nothing bad's gonna happen, and nothing bad will happen tomorrow. History tells us this is not true. And oh gosh, we need to have a name for people like that. People that look at history and they don't believe it will repeat. There needs to be a name, needs to be almost derogatory. You get what I'm you you smelling what I'm stepping in. That's what my friends used to always say. But a lot of people believe it costs thousands of dollars to be prepared, and that is not true at all. It will cost a little money, but you spread out spread that over time, over months, over a year, and it's very doable. Preparedness is built one small purchase at a time, and so I mean, yeah, so make it a a plan, not an event, like a one-time event. Buy two cans of something instead of one, buy some extra rice, buy some extra beans. You can get like a 20-pound bag of rice at Walmart. I kid you not, for like I don't know, five bucks. I know a 50-pound bag of rice I can get for like 30. So let's say a five-pound costs 10 bucks then. I don't think it costs that much. But rice or or even elbows or noodles or angel hair pasta, that stuff is dirt cheap. Get some ramen noodles. I mean, I usually don't eat them, but they're very tasty. I remember they were very flavorful, flavorful, flavorful, and uh and you know, get a way to you know heat some water up, get a little stove. You can do it in the kitchen, little you know, little gasoline stove, not gasoline, but the alcohol stoves, even a butane. If you're gonna just cook for five, ten minutes. I mean, it's not recommended to do indoors, but everything's possible, right? I don't recommend it either. My lawyer just said, told me. Well along with water. Get just get I mean, save some buy some water bottles, buy you know, a case of water, which is what three, four dollars, and build up like ten. And just set them in the corner and rotate them as you drink water anyway. Just keep ten cases on hand at all times. And get the rice and the beans and some chicken noodle soup and you know, some canned tuna, some canned chicken. Get some, oh, I got some canned pears this weekend. I'm gonna see how they are. I I've always liked canned pears, not pears, sorry, peaches. So I had some real peaches, and they were amazing because it's peach season right here in North Carolina, South Carolina. Amazing. And I saw this this can of peaches, and I'm like, I'm gonna get them because they have the good syrup in them, you know. Oh my goodness, yummy. So, anyway, you know, get away maybe a little some solar little panels that you can buy for $40 or less on Amazon to charge up your devices, to charge up your phone, charge up battery packs, then you can charge your phone up because you don't want to be out there in the sun holding your phone. So charge up the battery pack that then we'll charge your phone at night. You don't need a bunker, you don't need a bunker. Bunkers are to protect you from people these days, they're not to protect you from nuclear warfare. But spend a few hundred dollars on some freeze-dried food, which is really good these days. I mean, they're really good. I I recommend Legacy, which is what I literally sell myself to everyone. I've sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of Legacy food over the last 10 years. I've been a reseller, have a website. I think you go to prepperfines.com, there's a link there. But so how how it works, I buy it wholesale, which means I'm supposed to sell it for double that price to you. But because of prepper finds, we're counting that as a membership. I'm giving you 25% off. You don't have to buy from me, but I like legacy long-term food because it's the best. I think it has less crap in it, it's all a lot of all natural and all this kind of stuff, and it tastes great, okay? But you don't have to buy that. You can buy some Mountain House, buy some, yeah. Not a big fan of the Patriots, my Patriots. I've I've tasted like three or four, and I'm like, gosh, they need to taste Legacies, what they need to do. But, you know, whatever your preferences, so go buy some extra food. Matter of fact, in my book, I always say, hey, double your pantry. That's the first thing you do. You're everything you buy every single week that is like, you know, dry that can store well or can, just double it. And then the next month, double it again. And and all of a sudden, you're building this literally not even a stockpile, you're just building a food system that you can actually, you don't have to go to the grocery store every single week or every other week to get food. You have it in-house instead of having you know three cans of chicken noodle soup. Now you got 12. And so when the grid goes down or something happens, you're good to go. Yeah, you can put toilet paper in there. Yeah, I know. Everybody, gotta get me some TP. Don't wait in line for that. But you need food, water, some medical supplies. Everybody should, you should always have medical supplies. Here's my what I put in my book. If your doctor won't give you 60, 90, 120 days of medical supplies, get a new doctor. Literally ask for a new doctor and tell him, say, hey, I'm gonna ask for a new doctor because I would like to have some of these in my house in case something happens. And I'm gonna get a new doctor if you don't do it. And he'll go, oh, well, they'll do it. Most of them they can, they have the ability to do that, they have the ability to give you more than you need. So, but have some flashlights, you know, way to power your phones or whatever, because your phones could be your only communication device. Get a ham radio so you can listen to other people talk. Build community. That's one of the biggest things to do is build community. But I will say, in a natural disaster, so when it comes to like a grid down, yeah, communities, yeah, they're gonna turn on you in a heartbeat. But if you're in like a natural disaster, hurricane, tornado, communities come together pretty good because there are a lot of outside people that come in and help you, and then your neighbors will be very helpful. If the grid goes down, oh, it's uh it's it's on. It I mean, it's on. I wouldn't trust many of my neighbors, but building community is absolutely very important. So preparedness is also more about, I mean, I mean, there's more than supplies when it comes to preparedness. Food's important, you know. Preparedness is also preparing your mind, being able to survive, have the mindset to get through this, be able to cook the food that you do have. You gotta have light, you gotta have, you know, like solar power, you gotta have maybe some alcohol stoves or some butane or some propane way to cook your fuel. But it's also the know-how of how to make these so your family doesn't like throw up or and you gotta make it fun if you have kids. Like, hey, let's just pretend like we're camping out here and we're you know, we're surviving on a boat. You gotta make it fun for kids or they're gonna get really miserable and they're gonna cry and you're gonna hate them forever. No, you won't hate them forever. But but just communicate with your family, let them know, hey, the power went out, guys. It might be a few days, and so we're gonna have to let let let's instead of suffering through this, let's make this fun. I'm telling you, that will absolutely change. So the mindset, I mean, most people don't think about that, you know, to make it fun for the kids. So the mindset is very important for the kids. Maybe store some cash in the house. Again, credit cards. I mean, if you can get out of the affected zone, you might be able to use them. But cash, a lot of the stores will revert to cash. Grocery stores probably won't. I don't think grocery stores will open until they get, you know, power and they get credit cards because their entire inventory system runs off the you know the database. And and their pricing, they wouldn't even know how to tell you how something what something priced was priced unless they have power. So, but you need to be financially prepared, you need to be prepared with your medicals, you need to be mentally prepared and go, hey, this is not gonna be that bad. We can make this through. Or let's go to grandma's house. Let's just pack up and go. It's you know 350 miles away. That might be the best choice for you. It might not be. You gotta have communications, you gotta be able to listen to know what's going on. So you can hear the announcements, maybe public service announcements. Hey, tonight we're gonna do a curfew because there's some you know, rioting or some looting, not rioting, but looting going on. You need to know where the looting is going on, so you need a way to listen. At least listen. You need to be able to protect your home and make sure you can board it up and stop people from just coming by and grabbing a handle and walking on in. Maybe some off-grid transportation. E-bikes are amazing. I know they're expensive. Don't be going out buying all of them, but they're just crazy good. And I've seen some solar panels that you can you can take and charge them up, but it takes longer than a day to charge one of them suckers up. Depends on the size of the solar panels, of course. But but food is only one part of the entire puzzle. Again, you got transportation, skills. What I mean, what skills? You gotta have skills, not only cooking skills. What are you gonna do? Can't go out and get diapers, what are you gonna do? You can't flush your toilet. What are you gonna do? These are skills that you need, and they're easily obtained. You know, home security, communications. So just make a plan. That's the most important thing is to make a plan. That's kind of what preparedness week is. You know, preparedness month. With recent disasters, what have they taught us? Each disaster teaches us a lesson. People wait too long, stores empty quickly, gas stations run out of gas, cell phone towers become overloaded or it doesn't work, like in the mountains. There were Helena, they just stopped working, they were shut down. Government assistance takes forever. Don't don't wait, don't even expect government assistance. I'll tell you what, there'll be a guy in a truck from the Baptist men before you ever hear anything from from FEMA or any government agency. The Baptist men will be there before you know it. It's like, oh gosh, it just happened, and you're already here. So in in the southeast, what do we have in the southeast? There's there's we have flooding, we have ice storms, we have tornadoes, we have hurricanes, there's some small earthquakes. We're not in the big earthquake zone, we're not a big fire, wildfire, but we do have them in North Carolina and Georgia. We have them all the time. It gets really dry and hot here, and not, I mean, we are I don't know how to say it, maybe a little bit more prepared, especially I think in the Carolinas and the Southeast for wildfires. Um just one, because there's a lot of flat land here, and two, our govern government lets us have water. They fill the ponds. I know that's that's cut on you know the government of California. But we we are more prepared here, I believe. I really do believe that. But it still gets dry, but maybe not as dry as in California. So community is great. You got, I mean, have a couple friends in your community, maybe have some people within the town that like if a tornado hits your area, you can go and stay with them. Know your neighbor. I mean, that's huge. Know your neighbor during National Preparedness Week. Know your neighbor. Say, hey, listen, it's National Preparedness Week. Have you guys done anything? Well, we got a generator, we got some water, and you and just share. You're not going out saying, hey, I'm a prepper, I'm a doomsday prepper, and we're gonna hide my house. And if you come over there, we're gonna shoot you. No, just say, hey, it's National Preparedness Month. We're we're doing a little bit of things, and I hope you guys are too. So if something happens, you know, we'll be the ones helping other people, we won't be the ones in need. That's just a that's an easy conversation. And that's not saying, hey, I'm a doomsday prepper, I'm crazy. Not at all doomsday preppers are crazy, but it's not like that at all. It's like, hey, it's I mean, the you know, maybe we should do some stuff. What's some things we can do around the neighborhood here? Know where your mechanic is, maybe you know, a nurse or a doctor in your neighborhood. Maybe y'all could you maybe you might need to set up patrol in your neighborhood. So maybe have a quick plan that's already printed out. So people go, gosh, we need to have a plan. You're like, well, you know, I listened when they told us to do the national, you know, preparedness month, and I found this plan how to put together a you know neighborhood security plan. Here it is, and then let them run with it. Oh gosh, look at this. Oh, yeah, yeah. We need to do this. So, and you just provided the knowledge and the text from your printout, and people will take it and run, and y'all can kind of grow as a neighborhood. Preparedness has never been meant to do it alone. You're not a lone wolf, you're not gonna be a lone wolf. Lone wolf dies. History tells us that. So let's not be a lone wolf, let's bring others into the mix, hopefully, nicely, and in a way they don't think you're crazy. So five things. Everyone should do this month. Instead of trying to prepare for everything, pick five achievable goals that you can do. Here they are. One, store at least two weeks' worth of water. Find out how much water we're talking about drinkable water. I don't care if you take a shower. If you have babies and kids, maybe some water for that would be okay. But I'm talking about drinkable water. Build a pantry full of food. Double your pantry, triple your pantry, get more food of the things you already eat. When you get freeze dried food, that should be when you run out of all your other food. Okay. Create a written emergency communication plan. Create it. Write it down. And okay, that's three. Number four is set aside some emergency cash. It doesn't have to be twelve thousand dollars. Maybe start out with two hundred dollars. Maybe have a goal of five hundred dollars at that period of time. Maybe a thousand. Set aside some cash and so you'll have it. Because you know what? I I read during Hurricane Sandy, people were going down the street selling water at like five, like ten dollars a case of water. And you're like, how could they do that at that time? Well, if you need water, give the guy ten dollars and get some water. You know, people do bad things all the time and try to take you know advantage of situations. So have that extra cash. Because I instead of you sitting there arguing with the guy and getting ticked, give him ten dollars and get some water. Meet a few preparedness-minded people this month. Hopefully in your neighborhood, if you can't, in your in your re in your area within you know a few miles, talk to some friends about it, talk to some family members about it. And none of these tasks that I just gave you, the five, require a lot of money. Literally, well, putting the cash does take some money, but you know, two weeks of water. Gosh, you could get two weeks of water. I kid you not, it should not cost you more than $30. That's a lot of water. Okay, $50. Okay, that's a lot of cases of water. Okay, that's 15 cases of what bottled water at $3 a piece, which I've seen them that low. Pantry worth of food. I mean, noodles, rice, ramen noodles, you know, cans of chicken noodle soup, of peaches or vegetables. Create a written plan. You that just takes your time, okay? Set aside some emergency cash. Guess what? You should always have emergency cash, but set some aside as well. I would, whatever you think is right for you, you do you. Meet someone in the preparedness so you can, you're not crazy, you're talking to other people. Meet a couple people, could be in your neighborhood. If they're not, then fine. But but none of these require a lot of money, but every one of them makes significant difference, makes a huge difference if something happens to you and your family. Small improvements make consistency, make it small improvements on your preparedness makes life bearable in a disaster. If you're not the one that's in need, you're helping others, or you're just laying back watching whatever you need to do, and then you can take care of your family. That's the most important thing is taking care of your family and yourself first. So, progress beats perfection. Have this written down. That means just a little bit, do a little bit, do a little bit. Write everything you're doing down, by the way. Any supplies, like if you get new batteries, whatever. That way, when the disaster happens, you can go to your list and go, oh, oh, I bought batteries for this exact thing. Or, oh, we bought extra food for the this is the food we bought extra for an emergency. Write any supplies down. Then if any training that you learn as well, and you're like, why would you so any training, let's say you take a CPR class, write it down. Let's say you take a basic communication class, write it on a list. That way, when you when the disaster happens, you have it all in front of you. You see all the things you bought, then you go, Oh, okay, I do have CPR training. Okay, great. Oh, I have comms training as well. I forgot about the comms training. I have that. Write these things down, it helps remind you of the things that you're ready for, and then you and it will give you confidence. And you know, surviving with confidence is a lot greater than trying to just be scared the whole time. Just know that you never get to a destination of being fully prepared. I mean, it's not there. That that that that goal of like I am prepared, bring it. It doesn't, I mean, it, I mean, it just doesn't you never get there. I've been doing this for 26 years. You just never get there. So don't try to get there, just make progress, write down your progress. So every year your family changes, needs change. Make sure you rotate that food, the water. Just keep it up because if something didn't happen this year, maybe something hopefully doesn't happen next year, but maybe it will. Threats change as well. I mean, there's I mean, 10 years ago we never thought about rioting in small cities, or but these days you never know what's going on. But you should continue to think about this, and that's what preparedness month is for. So preparedness month isn't a month about fear, it's about becoming confident, confident in your skills, confidence in managing your family, feeding your family, having the tools to literally protect your family. It reduces stress. So it's kind of kind of like car insurance. You run off the side of the road and you go, gosh, I total my car. Then you remember, ooh, I have I do have insurance and they will take care of this. It's gonna be a pain in the butt, but the car is a total loss, but I'll get it, I'll get another car. And then things change in your thinking. If you thought that car you'd never have another car to drive again, it's about protecting your family, it's about becoming more self-reliant. Just think if all your neighbors were self-reliant and a storm hits, or something happens. Everyone kind of takes care of themselves, and all you do is go around and go, Hey, you guys okay? Hey, you guys, y'all need anything, guy? Okay, everything, everybody's good, everything, everything's fine. That's much better than the alternative. It's one step at a time, and then another step at a time, and then another step at a time. So, again, it's a journey, not a destination. And a year from now, you'd be amazed. The skills maybe you learn, uh, the preparedness, you know, the items you have, the thought process. Now, I have a book, I'm not I'm not pushing this book, but it is a great book for you guys to possibly, possibly, you know, purchase and and read, and it will help you in your preparedness journey. And it's called the Roadmap to Preparedness, and it takes a person from the first day of deciding they want to be prepared to being a full-fledged, 100% prepared, labeled as a prepper. It's called the Preparedness Roadmap. You can find that on GarvinAcademy.com. You can find that on Forrest or yeah, forrestgarvan.com with two R's, Forrest Garvin, or Amazon. It's the Preparedness Roadmap. And it's a great book I put together, and yeah, it takes you from the skills you need, the things you need to buy, when you need to buy them, movies you need to watch to help you with your mindset. It takes you through, you know, maybe some different podcasts or books to read. Everything you need is in that book, starting from zero to go to a hundred. It's in that book. So go, I'll put the link down in the description. But, you know, you know, so it's one step at a time, people. That book will get you. I mean, literally, it's like ten dollars. I don't know, it's 15, I don't know, somewhere between it's under $15, I think. It is a great so many emails I have gotten about that book saying we didn't know where to start, and we literally picked up your book, and it walked us month by month of what we need it to do. That is the preparedness roadmap. Get it at Amazon or Garvin Academy, a prepping academy might have it, and the podcast website. They might not, I don't know if it's on there or not. But anyway, hey guys, that is it is National Preparedness Month. Let's get our things in order. Let's get prepared, let's start little baby steps and let's get it done. And you can join Prepper Net and learn a lot of these skills as well, prepperNet.com. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I hope it encourages you to go and do it. I mean, listen, I know a lot of times when the government says do something, we're like, I don't know about that. But this time, let's listen. Let's listen this one time. Let's get prepared. National Preparedness Month, September 2026 could be your time you go. Hey, that's when I started my my my my preparedness roadmap. I'm gonna get there, I'm gonna start one baby step at a time, and hey guys, God bless you guys. Hope you enjoyed this. Send me an email, check out the website, prepping academy, check out the links. I'll put a bunch of links down below as well in the description. God bless you guys and have a great day.