Reader comments
Ready for a crisis

From my experiences with these sorts of folks, i find that, rather than them being prepared because its' a good idea, they're preparing for some sort of church foretold apocalypse. That's fine, but it makes a lot of them kind of goofy, believing in short term forthcoming disaster enough to act on it. They're not reacting to good ideas. They're reacting to fear.

Good for him.

What a great guy! I admire what he is doing for his family and "neighbor!"

Ever heard the story of the ant and the grasshopper? In these tough economic times, perhaps you should think it over, grasshopper. OR if things get bad, best be nice to Ken, maybe he'll share a can of chile with you.

You obviously didn't read this article very closely. This guy has experienced the need to live on food storage. He is motivated by past experience, not craziness. And let's be honest, a food shortage alread happened temporarily about a year ago. To me, that just means it is a very real possibility that as a result of some natural disaster or weather patterns, we could easily see a 6 month to 1 year meltdown of the food supply.

I just hope you have lot's and lot's of money to pay the outrageous prices you will see when something like that occurs. As for me, I would rather buy the food while it is affordable and have the sense of security that comes with knowing that I already have the food to feed my family.

You know Ed, The Church doesn't preach apocalypse or doom and gloom, the church teaches good sense and kindness towards neighbors. I agree that someone outside of the norm can seem goofy to us but if the day ever comes, not only Ken, but his neighbors will be greatful for his foresight.

Frankly, if you look at the history of the world, of all civilizations that ever existed, it's not a question of if a major catastrophe will come but a question of when. I hope I can be a neighbor like Ken.

The key to food storage is buy what you use and use what you buy.

My parents were very successful at it. We had a large garden and a nice basement storage room. We didn't have to go to the store very often and if we would have had an emergency, we would have been okay. There was very little waste because the storage room was in a basement on the cool side of the house.

Stores only have a few days supply. If there is an emergency, they can run out quickly. Also don't forget to have water, batteries, money, and other essentials on hand.

Something's fishy here. No one was left on the San Francisco Bay Bridge for 3 days during the '89 earthquake. Even the woman who was in the car in the section of upper deck that collapsed was rescued the same day. People left their cars and walked off the bridge that day.

There was a section of freeway in Oakland that collapsed and people were trapped, some for a couple of days. In those cases the vehicles were squashed like bugs and survivors, particularly those trapped for more than a day certainly would not have been able to squirm around to find an emergency supply of food in their truck. Even so that was several miles from the bridge.

Congrats to him for having his food storage. But thumbs down for creating stories that can't be true.

Why is it that when those on the left preach the gospel of global warming and predict catastrophes if we don't do drastic things to cut our "carbon footprint" they are called insightful and reasonable, but if a religious person puts away some emergency supplies, he is a religious nut?

Since when is it crazy to put away food, to be out of debt, to keep your skills current so you can find employment, to take care of your health, to be charitable to others in need, to accept charity if you need it? To plant a garden.

All these things to me sound like prudent living. The fact that this guy has 6 years worth to me sounds like he is keeping extra and will be able to help others should a time of great need arise.

He could have bought a boat or a fancy car with that money or a motor home, but he chose this instead.

He is different but definately not crazy.

It didn't say he was trapped on the bridge for 3 days! It says that you used his 72 hour kit in his truck. A lot of people couldn't get from where they were to home after the Loma Prieta (AKA World Series) Earthquake. It is legal to use your 72 hour kit for an emergency that only lasts a day, 8 hours, or even if you happen to run out of diapers in the diaper bag while out shopping.

Read what is actually written, not what you imagine.

I've met Ken and heard him speak, and his story of being left on the San Francisco Bay bridge makes sense when you know all the details. He could have walked away from his vehicle like everyone else but knew that his vehicle would be totatlly stripped of everything valuable. He now admits that it was not very wise to stay and protect it because of the danger he was in from the looters, but he didnt't want his vehicle destroyed and knew he had enough food to last until he could get his vehicle out. If you doubt that was happening--he watched it happen to other vehicles. Next time, please don't be so quick to rush to judgement--news articles rarely give you enough to details to make a proper judgement. Ken is an awesome guy who is helping a lot of people prepare themselves for whatever may happen.

LOL. I think guys like Ed just like to stir things up for kicks.
I've heard of people who lost their jobs and lived off of their food storage for a time, it was worth it!
I am impressed with Ken. He knows there are more people who don't prepare than do. It's insightful of him to be aware of and willing to share his stockpile. That's the thing I would worry about, if I had food stored...that everyone who didn't have anything and who knew me, would run to me and drain the resources meant for my family. But...I could hardly resist helping other people out.

What about water? Everything needs water. You can have your food, but water is #1. And bad water is just that... bad water. So you boil it? Which means you have the capability to heat it. No?

Or do you do pills? Or a strainer, chemical system?
Any dried goods need........... water.

If I live in earthquake land, i would stock up. But I don't. And my community is a sharing community and we would get by long enough. We have through blizzards and tornados.

Water.................. think water..........

Its not a easy task for Latter day saints to be in this consumer/comsumption world where we want to buy anything and everything off the store shelf.Food storage,saving money,staying out of debt,living under your means are all good things.The oposite is waiting for a disaster to happen and hope for the best.For me I would rather be prepared.That is not a easy thing to do but we need to keep trying.Do the very best you can and allow God to do the rest.

"Give us this day our daily bread", the Lord's prayer reads. Not, "give us six years our food storage". The LDS go overboard with food storage. When my LDS Grandpa died, we discovered a rotten cache of food. All out of date. 55 gallon drums of powdered milk dried like concrete that none of us could lift out of the basement. I see a lot of food storage waste in the faithful elderly population. Sure, they preach rotation, but when I work at the local food pantry, we get a lot of outdated food that is not edible from food storage. I also see a lot of faithful go overboard with the "survivalist theories". They not only have food storage, but a cache of guns and ammo. The end of the world is their focus. One family I know thinks that the faithful will "blow the Gorge" (between Las Vegas and St. George) to keep Californians and Nevadans out of Utah and out of their food storage. I'm more scared of the militia survivalist agenda than lack of food.

i say way to go what an awesome neighbor you are and the bible does say love thy neighbor i am truly happy that you are so blessed to be able to stock so much in these hardest of times i wish you continued success in all you do bless you :)

i would also like to add that we recently just moved here to utah from las vegas and we do not belong to a church here as of yet would the resoures be avaialbe to non morman as well ?? thank you

Geez, how quick to judge some of the DNews readers are. Ed did read the story. Ed did not say Ken was goofy. Ed did not paint all of you who are insecure as being goofy but you seem to prove it as evidenced by your insecure reaction to his comment. Ed merely stated that in his experience, which would be very limited in relation to the thousands and tens of thousands who have any type of food supply in their homes, some people store food & supplies out of fear. I imagine that we all know someone who would store and save out of some type of fear.

Good for Ken, and good for everyone who has the foresight and means to do such a thing.

And to live elsewhere, of course people, including Ken, store water. Duh!

Way to go Ken!

My wife are going to do even more to increase our food storage.