Often times you may think you’ve gone off the deep end. Don’t worry fellow prepper, the movement is growing:

…there is a posse of self-sufficient men and women out there who make it their goal to be prepared when disaster strikes. They call themselves “preppers.”

From natural catastrophes to economic meltdowns to nuclear blowouts, the preppers’ collective goal is quite simple: to carry on as usual, even when catastrophe strikes. Think backyard fallout shelters of the 1950s or Y2K shenanigans — only circa 2010.

The whole prepper movement may seem pretty zany. So zany, in fact, that you’d think only a miniscule amount of people would actually be partaking in it. Wrong.

Over recent years, a huge community of preppers has developed. Perform a simple Google search and you’ll turn up plenty of prepper-related stuff, including the Web television portal Prepper TV, survival blogs, podcasts (such as DoctorPrepper and PrepperPodcast), and forums that cover everything from a woman’s perspective to recycling to how to handle dead bodies.

There’s even a rash of YouTube videos offering tutorials on such topics as how to construct your own nuclear bomb shelter, what firearms you should own, and how to earthquake-proof your stored food.