Dear Omar
‘Will This App Prepare Me for the Apocalypse?’
The Harbor app promises to aid reluctant preppers
Welcome to Dear Omar, a weekly Debugger column from tech expert Omar L. Gallaga answering all the gadget and technology questions you were afraid to ask.
Panic as a lifestyle choice became a mood in 2020. Suddenly, it began to feel like doomsday preppers were making a good point.
As Covid-19 caught the country flatfooted and as stores ran out of toilet paper and other essentials, basement-stocking and bunker-building began to gain more mainstream attention. The preppers were kind enough to share their knowledge and not add, “Told ya so.”
What I have wondered, as I’ve been browsing survivalist websites like The Prepared (sample review headline: “Best emergency candles”) and to take stock of what’s out there to keep my family alive in the event of a cataclysm (another cataclysm) is this: Would I survive an apocalypse? Do I have what it takes? With the help of an app (even in the end times, there will always be “an app for that”), I decided to find out.
My conclusion is that I would make a terrible doomsday prepper for several reasons: I do so much comparison shopping and online bargain-hunting that by the time I stocked even a fourth of my bunker, the apocalypse would have already happened. I’d be using the last ounce of electricity on the grid to put in an eBay bid on a used Honda generator. Swift decisions are not my thing.
I’m also bad at being ruthless. I’d collect water-purifying tablets only to lend them all to my neighbors who are trying to make disaster margaritas. Look, even when it might be the end of the world, I don’t judge.
But I do care. I saw last year how quickly a single virus can upend our entire way of life, how quickly we…
