It's better to be safe than sorry, which is why FEMA guidelines recommend stockpiling your pantry with three days worth of food in case of a natural disaster. Meanwhile, Paul Range and Gloria Haswell have enough in store to feed 22 people for 15 years — as well as enough guns, bullets and bug-out vehicles to wage a small war. The couple occupies nine steel shipping containers arranged in a castle formation outside Floresville, Texas. A system of windmills and solar panels powers the compound, and human body waste is used to generate methane, which serves as their cooking fuel.

It's all because they are worried Earth's magnetic poles might switch.

Range and Haswell are among those profiled in "Doomsday Preppers," a weekly TV documentary premiering on the National Geographic Channel tomorrow (Feb. 7) at 9 p.m., with a bonus episode at 10 p.m. following the premiere. The show takes viewers on a shocking tour of modern-day apocalypse paranoia, from Range, Haswell and their steel fortress to a Californian who has trained himself to survive off garden weeds in preparation for a major earthquake.

While the show may highlight a few of America's most extreme cases, apocalypticism — fear of the end of the world as we know it — is at a historic high point, according to Lorenzo DiTommasso, chairman and associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal. The phenomenon has experienced peaks and valleys throughout history. Right now, "we're in a peak, and have been for the last 40 years," DiTommasso said.

Read more here: http://www.livescience.com/18334-doomsday-preppers-apocalypse.html

We watched this show last night. It was very interesting.

Made East Texas go

My question is WHY? Why this program? Why now? It make me very uneasy. It is showing extreme examples of preppers. Is this to make them (us) out to be loonies? Or is it to warn those not prepping to get started? My first thought is they are once again creating an atmosphere of fear. Fear is a number 1 control tool. Whatever it is, I don't like it. But then I don't like much going on these days. BTW, the 11"s are showing up all over again; I hadn't noticed them for a while.

Ruts I believe you hit the proverbial nail on the head, they want to portray preppers as insane hoarders

Yep, my thoughts exactly. Like everything else in lame stream media - let's just show the extremes and make everyone who even considers prepping look like a nut job.

That way when TSHTF we can arrest them for "hoarding" food while "helpless" women and children go hungry.

Remind anyone of the Ant and the Grasshopper?