DOOMSDAY Preppers are getting the last laugh as coronavirus fears takeover the nation and West Virginia counted its first virus-related death Tuesday.
Specifically the survivalists who pay $1,000-a-year for a spot at Fortitude camp in West Virginia.
Fortitude camp in West Virginia
Guns are stored if needed in the future
The camp has enough food to last its inhabitants 25 years
The 7,000 square foot shelter and lodge features stockpiles of food, semiautomatic weapons, and underground bunkers to protect members from radioactive fallout.
Located in the Appalachian mountains and protected by four armed outlook posts, doomsday preppers have no need to worry or take frantic last-minute shopping trips to severely packed stores during a crisis.
Fortitude Ranch manager Steve Ren told the Agence France-Presse: “It’s not a bunch of crazy people with this idea that tomorrow the world ends.
“We’re not militaristic. We have no ties with militias, anything like that.”
Ren, a former Operation Desert Storm soldier, said the precautions are taken because “desperate people do desperate things.”
Some underground bunkers are supposedly able to protect members from radioactive fallout
The camp grounds are secretly located
AFP reported Tuesday that a committee, consisting of Rene and four others, would declare a “catastrophe scenario” in the case of an emergency.
All members of the ranch would be welcome to utilize the camp’s self-sustaining ecosystem.
Solar panels, radio equipment, wells, greenhouses, and locally sourced chickens, goats and cows will be on the property and available for all members to use.
The secretive community even has a ditch where contaminated bodies can be reduced to ashes.
Back in October, survivalist camp leader and former military intelligence expert Drew Miller told The Washington Post: “You know, people use the term ‘civil war,’ and that seems hard to imagine.
“But what started World War I? Some guy assassinated a minor archduke… Stuff escalates unpredictably.”
The ranch also has locations in Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin, Texas, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Vermont, Tennessee, and Indiana.
President Trump praised West Virginia in their fight against COVID-19 on Tuesday.
He said: “We have all of this equipment in stock and we’re looking at different sites and a few different locations.
“And we’re not going to need them in West Virginia, where so far, I guess they have none.”
Before today, the state has had zero confirmed coronavirus cases.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice confirmed the first case of coronavirus in the state’s Eastern Panhandle just 24 hours after declaring a state emergency.
Lack of testing was a concern for US Sen. Joe Manchin, who said Monday: “It’s no excuse when you know how vulnerable our state is.
“If it gets ahold of our state, we don’t have the health care in order to defend ourselves. It could be devastating.”
Health officials have announced that the number of Americans who have died from coronavirus in the US is now nearing 100.
The US reached the grim milestone as health officials continue to stress practicing social distancing to try and constrain the rapidly-spreading COVID-19 pandemic.
More than 5,000 people have contracted the deadly disease in the US.
