‘Doomsday Preppers’ Sneak Peek: Record High Score Achieved This Week

Doomsday Preppers upcoming episode features a self-reliant couple who earns the highest score ever on the NatGeo series, a tactical inventor, and a teenager who has just begun his journey into preparedness. Last season there was a slightly higher score, but the scoring system used was geared specifically to building projects – a concept included for just the one season.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Doomsday Preppers is focuses on a “back to basics” approach this season and featuring preps which will fit about any budget and offer some educational insight in the process.

Survivalist gardener and bestselling author Rick Austin and his wife Jane are featured in the first segment of Thursday night’s Doomsday Preppers episode. Jane, is affectionately known as Survivor Jane in the prepper community. She created the viral Twitter hashtag – PrepperTalk and recently published her first book for female preppers and those who love them. Rick and Survivor Jane achieved the highest score to date on the Doomsday Preppers series.

NatGeo’s Doomsday Preppers showcases three different people or couples each episode – but Rick and Jane truly could have filled the entire hour easily all by themselves. The couple lives in the mountains of North Carolina and are the key organizers of the much anticipated Prepper CampTM self-reliance weekend in Saluda, North Carolina next month.

Survivor Jane had this to say about why she decided to finally appear on Doomsday Preppers:

“The reason for my hesitancy was pretty much the same as so many others preppers, opsec – operational security. The cries heard around the world by most preppers; including me, watching or who have watched Doomsday Preppers in the past is, I can’t believe they are showing everything they have!” or “I don’t have the money to buy all those things!’

Now, I’m not sure why they do it (show everything)? Maybe it’s because they get all caught up in the excitement of having their home overrun for three-days – with hundreds of feet of cords and wires, cameras, lights, equipment boxes, and hearing “Now say it again, but this time …” a hundred times a day – that they totally forget that they are actually in control of what they reveal and say on the show? I personally am all for sharing, just not my actual preps – just my knowledge.

After years of ‘Are you interested in coming on the show this year?’ posed each season, and after watching the development of the series go from good to bad, to worse and good again, I finally relented and agreed to appear – but only after being told that the focus of Season 4 was on less extreme prepping i.e., no elaborate underground bunkers, no huge military-style bug-out tanks or vehicles, no big mac-daddy firearms, and no storerooms chalked full of thousands of dollars’ worth of food stores. All of these to most viewer equates to people spending a lot of money on preps. Prepping has never been about money for me, instead it’s about planning ahead and knowledge. So, with the ‘Back to Basics’ theme of the new Season 4, I was in. Ready to show the world what prepping was really about – positive prepping.”

Before becoming an inspirational force in the prepper community, Rick and Survivor Jane were successful professionals living an extremely non-self-sufficient lifestyle. Ongoing current events and Jane being carjacked in broad daylight with no one offering to help, prompted the couple to reevaluate their lifestyle choices and move to the hills. The pair are not hunkered down, living in fear of a power grid failure. They are thriving in a beautiful locale many would love to visit and dream of building a retirement retreat.

The healthy attitude and always eager to learn mindset of Rick and Jane shines through during the Doomsday Preppers episode. Rick’s bestselling Secret Garden of Survival and his follow-up hit, Secret Greenhouse of Survival, form the basis of the couple’s food security plan.

The desire to learn and teach others motivated the pair of authors to embark upon the first hands-on and interactive Prepper Camp event. A plethora of survival and self-reliance experts will be teaching classes and offering presentations which are geared to appeal to both seasoned preppers and newbies alike. If the early tickets sales and campsite bookings is any indication, Prepper Camp 2014 will be the first of many such events held at the Orchard Lake Campground in North Carolina.

Rick Austin had this to say about his experience on the prepper reality show:

“The crew did a good job, they were nice people. We had a lot to shoot,but there is just never enough time to get it all in. It’s disappointing that so much was left out. There was so much more of the secret survival garden that was not included. There is a lot I could have shown in the greenhouse as well. I am pleased with how it was put together though, they did a nice job and I don’t regret being on the show nor am I disappointed with anything in the episode. A lot of the information about the garden and greenhouse is in there and hopefully people will get a lot out of the show. In-depth details about everything shown on the episode are highlighted in my videos – and of course in my books.”

The second segment of Doomsday Preppers features a creative man named Jim who routinely carries more preps on his body than most people do in their homes. Jim is a product tester for multiple companies and inventor who has crafted many of his own preps. One of the most intriguing of Jim’s preparedness inventions showcased on the NatGeo show was his fire balls gun. The science behind the non-lethal weapon is simple yet extremely effective. When Jim demonstrates his fire balls to a novice prepper he is helping to educate, he begins to rethink the non-lethal label placed upon his inexpensive home-made weapon. Jim declined to be evaluated by Practical Preppers – no reason was given for the decision. Like the new record high score Rick and Jane received, the refusal to be evaluated was also a first for Doomsday Preppers.

The final featured prepper in the episode is a young man named Jack. The teenager became a prepper after he, his mother, and brother returned home from a trip and found his father deceased on the couch. Jack is working on becoming an Eagle Scout and said that he fully realized how unprepared he was after the loss of his father. Learning how to become more self-reliant has helped Jack cope with the loss of his dad, who had spent many years teaching him how to hunt, fish, and maneuver in the woods. Jack, who has developed a teenage prepper group, faces some obstacles when demonstrating his preps, but he soldiers on, learning from the problems and planning ways to overcome the issues.

Do you feel the back to basics approach to Doomsday Preppers this season has been beneficial to viewers who watch the series in order to become more self-reliant?

Practical Preppers owner Scott Hunt, who just released his first preparedness book, shares his thoughts about Prepper Camp

Have you worked anything showcased on the NatGeo show into your own self-reliance plan?

[Images Via: National Geographic]