Review: After Armageddon

After Armageddon is a program produced by the History Channel, and presents a hypothetical end of the world scenario (pandemic), as experienced by one family, with commentary from a wide variety of experts. While it was broadcast some time ago, it is available for download from a variety of sources.

The family in question is portrayed with little or nothing in the way of prior preparations, and possess no exceptional skills, other than that the father is a paramedic. It runs through an escalating series of crises, from the beginning of the pandemic through a ‘bug-in’ phase to a bug out scenario and finally a rebuilding scenario.

Interspersed with the dramatizations are commentaries from various experts that give basic survival information, speculate on how various scenarios might develop, and give examples from recent disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. It is nicely balanced between the commentary and the dramatizations, so neither bores the watcher.

There are some incidents portrayed in the dramatization that will make the longer term prepper wince, and I know the overall lack of preparedness by the family made my teeth grind as almost anyone can be better equipped than this family just from what is around the average house, but overall it is a decent show, and likely a good way to introduce family or friends to survivalism and preparedness.

I was also pleased to see that the psychological aspects of coping with such a crisis were not neglected in the show, and there was also some decent discussion about what form a rebuilt society might take.

As this is Preparedness Week, it might be worth sitting down to watch this and role play through the show. Look at each crisis that occurred in the show and assess whether or not your preps are good enough to cope. Dissect each decision that the family makes in the show and see if there was an alternate case of action that would have served them better.

Overall, After Armageddon is a decent exploration of the SHTF scenario. I can recommend it without any caveats except this one:

After you watch the show, get off your butt and make Preparedness Week a real high point in getting further along in your preparedness.

Next week we'll return to the Apartment survival series.

Originally posted May 01, 2011 @ MPN