Are you fully prepped? 

An electromagnetic surge knocks out America's power grid and propels civilization back to the dark ages. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attacks SouthPark Mall. An earthquake levels Charlotte. The Ebola virus goes airborne and wipes out a third of America's population in the most virulent epidemic since the bubonic plague decimated medieval Europe.

Some of these doomsday scenarios may be farfetched: Speaking off the record, an international terrorism expert tells me, "There is very little reason to think [the SouthPark Mall scare] is a legitimate threat."

Others are less improbable: Experts are split on both the likelihood and ensuing damage of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

Still others are plausible: Charlotte sits next to a fault line where a 7.3 magnitude earthquake, the largest to strike the eastern U.S., devastated Charleston in 1886.

And one, while overstated, is a credible concern: While medical experts say airborne Ebola is only a theoretical possibility, Ebola transmitted by body fluids has resulted in four confirmed cases in the United States (two were travel-associated cases).

Whatever happens, Ralph Broome is prepared. "It's a type of insurance," he says.

Broome is a prepper, one of a growing contingent popularized by the National Geographic reality TV show Doomsday Preppers. Preppers believe a large-scale catastrophe is coming, and they prepare for it by stockpiling food, water, weapons and other survival supplies.

Broome is ready, and he wants others to be ready, too. Last August, he opened the Carolina Preppers and Survivors Store at 3401-G on South Boulevard to cater to the concerned and the curious. (The store is easily located by the military deuce-and-a-half truck parked out front.)

Inside the store, Broome stocks gas masks, survival manuals, military style clothing, cans containing 7,000 heirloom vegetable seeds and dehydrated food with a 25-year shelf life. He doesn't carry weapons, but he sells ammunition and body armor.

"I sell stuff anyone can use," says Broome, a retired U.S. Army sergeant and Vietnam War veteran. "I have bug-out bags. If your car breaks down and you're stranded, this bag has food, water and first aid. It gives you three days of supplies, so you can bug-out and get back home."

Broome started prepping just before Y2K, amid fears that a computer virus would destroy the global computer network on January 1, 2000. "After nothing happened I stilled prepped a little. With the 2008 [presidential] election I saw problems coming, so I started increasing my prep."

On a trip to his cabin retreat in the North Carolina mountains, Broome stopped off in his hometown of Marion and visited a survival store. There, Broome had an epiphany. "I got to thinking, I'm prepped, but other people had no place to go. They could order anything they wanted online, but there was nowhere to walk in and put their hands on what they wanted."

After a slow start, business at Broome's store started booming. Food, protective gear and water storage barrels are top sellers. Yet, Broome says more and more people are stopping in for support and a sense of community.

"Eighty-five percent of the people who come in here want information," he says. "They want to talk about prepping to someone who doesn't think they should be wearing a tin foil hat."

Two shoppers browse the shelves. They stop by to thank Broome for opening his store. Sandra Lanigan is with her nephew Scott Coleman. Lanigan, visiting from Florida, identifies as a prepper.

"I went through a hurricane," Lanigan says. "After it hits, you think, 'I'll go buy what I need' — but you can't, because you can't spend money. Money has no value."

"I'm not a big believer in hurricane shutters, but I'm putting some in," she adds. "Not for a hurricane, but for protection."

"Even if you've prepared, the people that didn't will come and try to take what you have," Broome says, noting that he always has a firearm nearby. Lanigan has a Concealed Weapons Permit and says that she is always armed.

"I lived through Hurricane Hugo," Coleman says. "We were without power for two or three days, but we had friends that didn't have power for two weeks. You don't realize how dependent you are on electricity until you don't have it. So I have basic things like flashlights, bottled water and dehydrated food."

Coleman is a Democrat, while his aunt is a Republican. Yet he doesn't think prepping is a partisan issue.

"It's an American issue," he says.

Lanigan nods in agreement. "It's a matter of protecting your family."

A blurb about ebola

On Oct. 17, CNN listed eight confirmed cases of Ebola having been or being treated in the United States, including the first diagnosed patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, who died Oct. 8.

On Nov. 3, the Center for Disease Control's website confirmed four cases diagnosed here, including a New York doctor, who'd recently returned from treating Ebola patients in Guinea. Earlier this week, the test results of a Durham man who complained of a fever after returning from a trip to Liberia were negative for Ebola.

As for the airborne Ebola, the World Health Organization released a situation report in October that dismissed that possibility, noting that the airborne "mode of transmission has not been observed during extensive studies of the Ebola virus over several decades."

Speaking to Scientific American last September, Vanderbilt University infectious disease expert William Schaffner suggested that speculation over airborne Ebola was a counter-productive distraction: "We have so many problems with Ebola, let's not make another one that, of course, is theoretically possible but is pretty way down on the list of likely issues."