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Jordan on... Prepping for Survival: When the System Fails

• Luke • Season 1 • Episode 9

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The system isn’t just aging - it’s weak. Infrastructure is crumbling, the grid is fraying, trust in institutions is eroding, and resilience has quietly become a personal responsibility.

In this gripping episode of the AI On Podcast, I sit down with Jordan - a senior insurance underwriter turned off-grid strategist - who has spent over 15 years modeling catastrophic risks for industry and now lives the solutions. 

Today, he’s sounding the alarm on just how thin our layer of modern civilization really is - and what you should be doing now to prepare for the disruptions ahead.

▶️ Full length version available on YouTube

💬 Carry on the conversation with the AI version of Jordan here

In this episode, we unpack:
 ✅ What most people (and companies) get dangerously wrong about systemic risk
 ✅ What a real seven-day grid collapse would look like - from hour 1 to week 1
 ✅ The most practical steps to build resilience without fear or fantasy
 ✅ Why the next financial shock may be more about trust than money
 ✅ The one item every household should act on in the next 24 hours

Jordan doesn’t sell fear - he teaches calm, calculated readiness. If you’ve ever wondered whether your family could function without power, the phone, or the tap... this is the episode you can’t afford to skip.

Find Jordan’s full prep kit recommendations here: aionpodcast.com/blogs/news/ep9-jordan

Inspired by what you heard? Want to continue the conversation?

You can go deeper with all our guests at their own custom GPTs, and all books and resources referenced in each episode can be found at aionpodcast.com.

All characters interviewed are AI models representing an expert in that field. Voices are created through ElevenLabs and you can find out more about how we build these characters at aionpodcast.com. Any similarity to real people, companies or situations is coincidental and unintended.

Jordan:

Resilience isn't about fear. It's about not being the one surprised when the lights don't come back on the biggest prepping mistake Confusing gear with readiness. A closet full of gadgets won't save you.

Intro:

Welcome to the AI on Podcast, where real conversations meet impossible guests. We bring you the world-class minds you could never otherwise meet and you even get to connect with them and continue the discussion after the show. Remember, these guests are AI-generated personas who are entirely fictional and they are not intended to represent anything or anyone from the real world. And now here's your real-life host, luke, with our next guest, because sometimes the best ideas come from the conversations no one else can have.

Luke:

Welcome back. Today we're going to talk risk and survival in the real world. I'm talking with Jordan, an AI model of somebody who deeply understands both sides of this. Not only does he have a successful career in the insurance industry, he now leads one of social media's most popular prepping channels, showing people how to take meaningful action. We're going to explore what could go wrong and what he thinks that we all should be doing to be ready for when it does Jordan welcome to AI On.

Jordan:

Most people treat risk like it's either a Hollywood plotline or someone else's problem. So yeah, I'm pumped to dig into this with you. Let's get into the uncomfortable stuff.

Luke:

So let's start with the insurance side. You spent 15 years pricing billion-dollar insurance portfolios In one sentence. What's the biggest blind spot businesses still have about risk today?

Jordan:

They still think redundancy equals resilience. Just because you've got a backup plan doesn't mean your system survives a cascading failure.

Luke:

And how does that mesh with how you got interested in prepping?

Jordan:

So I had a bit of a light bulb moment. I was looking at all these models, massive portfolios with layered risk coverage, and you start to notice that a lot of it is built on this quiet assumption that systems recover fast. Like sure, the grid might go down, but someone fixes it, supply chain breaks it, reroutes. That's built into the math. But a few years back I was running this scenario around interdependent system failures Power goes down, which hits comms, which blocks finance, and suddenly you're not just dealing with a blackout, you're in a full-blown cascading collapse. And it really hit me. Our entire safety net assumes short-duration failure and fast institutional response. Prepping for me started as a thought experiment. What happens if those assumptions don't hold? And once you go down that road? Well, you start making different choices about your own life. I didn't quit insurance, I just stopped outsourcing all my resilience to it.

Luke:

Yeah, I find that distinction between redundancy and resilience an interesting one that you're making there. Now let's get a bit more specific on the risks first of all. So I know FEMA's National Preparedness Report ranks a long-term or long-duration grid outage as the single most consequential hazard that the US faces. From your data, what are the top five catastrophic risks that people here in the US face, and are we prepared for them?

Jordan:

Yeah, the FEMA ranking isn't wrong. Long duration power outage really is the monster in the room. It's the one that breaks everything else. But based on the models I've worked with and the real world fragility we've seen, here's what I'd put in the top five. First, obviously, is grid failure, whether that's from a cyber attack, solar flare, emp or just extreme weather taking out transmission lines. We saw a preview during the Texas freeze. If it goes down nationally or for weeks You're looking at food spoilage, no comms, no fuel movement, hospitals shutting down Basically a collapse of civil order in a matter of days.

Jordan:

Second would be a coordinated cyber event, something that targets multiple sectors Financial, energy, comms all at once, and it's not science fiction anymore. There were 6,000 cyber attacks on critical infrastructure in the US last year alone. One cascading exploit and you've got ATMs, credit cards, ebt all of it offline. Third, I'd say economic dislocation from sustained inflation or currency devaluation. People don't think of that as catastrophic because it happens slowly until it doesn't. But look at Argentina or Lebanon. Food becomes unaffordable, services collapse and then you start seeing real unrest. Fourth, we can't ignore natural disasters at a systemic scale. Think a Cascadia subduction zone quake, a New Madrid event in the Midwest, or multi-year drought in the Southwest. Those aren't just local. They knock out water, power, housing and logistics across entire regions. And fifth, I'd include civil unrest, with infrastructure targeting. So not just protests but coordinated attacks on substations, rail lines or food distribution hubs.

Luke:

Let's go back to the top of that list and the grid collapse scenario. I think it's hard for me at least, and I'm sure for many of us to imagine what that actually looks like in practice. So walk us through what happens if there's a major regional grid that goes down.

Jordan:

I know it's hard to picture until you're living it. But once you model it out it gets chilling fast, so minute zero. The takedown starts quietly. Maybe it's malware that's been sitting dormant in utility systems for months. It activates during peak load, let's say mid-July heat wave. You don't get sparks or explosions, you get silence.

Jordan:

Sub-stations trip, control centers go dark, scada systems are frozen. Backup systems some kick in, some don't. It's asymmetric. In hour one. People notice their power's out but assume it's just local. They open the fridge, check the thermostat, maybe shoot a text.

Jordan:

The real issue Cell towers start dying within an hour if they don't have working backup power. Internet nodes are spotty, gas pumps dead, traffic lights chaos. Hospitals switch to diesel gensets, but they've only got about 72 hours of fuel. Best case by day one, water stops running in many areas Without electricity. The pumps that move and purify water don't work. Grocery stores are looted or just empty. Fast Emergency services are overwhelmed or can't get through. Some people start leaving cities. Fuel becomes a physical bottleneck and most folks still have no idea what's really going on.

Jordan:

By day three to four, the cascade is in full swing. People can't pay for anything. No ATMs, no POS systems, batteries are dead, fuel's out, medical needs are unmet. Civil unrest isn't everywhere, but it's growing. You start seeing break-ins, roadblocks, fires left burning by day seven. Now you're in deep resilience territory. Households that had backup power, stored water, food reserves. They're still functional. Everyone else is either dependent on luck, neighbors or whatever local authority steps in. And here's what surprises most. It's not the direct damage that breaks the system, it's the second-order effects. Truckers can't refuel Cold chain distribution dies. Resilience at that point is hyperlocal. Either you built it ahead of time or you're negotiating your survival in real time. Let me ask you have you ever tried going 72 hours without using anything plugged in?

Luke:

Well, in Houston last year we were hit with two events a derecho storm that took power out for us for 24 hours, and then a month or so later we had Hurricane Bertha that took power down, at least for our neighborhood, for about a week. So and in Texas in summer, that's, that's not a lot of fun. Now you mentioned earlier an EMP attack and I recently saw that Congress's EMP commission warned that losing I think it was 10% of the transformers. The extra high voltage transformers could leave parts of the US dark for one to two years, which is an unbelievable time period. Can you explain what that actually is and what happens, and why is it such a catastrophic scenario?

Jordan:

And how would it play out? Man, yeah, houston's had a rough couple years and what you just described? That's exactly the kind of short duration preview that lulls people into thinking, hey, we managed it. But scale and duration change everythingMP. It stands for electromagnetic pulse and in simple terms it's a burst of energy, usually from a nuclear detonation at high altitude, that fries unshielded electronics across a massive radius. We're not talking about lights flickering. We're talking about instant failure of circuits in power grids, in cars, in communication systems, instant failure of circuits In power grids, in cars, in communication systems. The real nightmare here isn't the initial blast, it's the infrastructure dependency collapse that follows.

Jordan:

The US grid relies heavily on extra-high voltage transformers. They step power up and down between regional grids. They're huge, custom-built and we don't stockpile them. The lead time for new ones is 12 to 18 months minimum, and that's in peacetime, with global shipping intact. Now imagine those transformers fry. The ones in stock are gone in the first days.

Jordan:

So what happens? Practically Week one people make do Gas stoves still work? Ice is gold. If you've got a generator, great, but you can't get fuel. A TMS, dead Cell towers, fried, medical devices, silent. You're basically rewinding 100 years overnight, but with modern dependency.

Jordan:

By week, three to four things get more medieval. Food is now what's in your pantry or garden. No deliveries, no refrigeration, no tap water unless you've got gravity or a manual pump. Communications are down unless you've got shortwave or ham radio. Families that didn't prepare, don't have water stored, don't have shelf-stable food, don't have a solar setup, are now fully reliant on outside aid.

Jordan:

That isn't coming Day to day. You're shifting into manual living cooking on biomass stoves, filtering water from barrels or streams, charging radios or lights with solar panels if you're lucky, and the psychological shift is brutal. People don't just need calories, they need routine, they need purpose. When data and diesel are gone, community becomes your resilience system. You cook in groups, you guard in shifts, you share skills. And here's a detail most people forget Sanitation. If you've got no water pressure and no fuel for septic systems or pumps, toilets back up. Disease becomes the next wave. That EMP commission report. It wasn't alarmist, it was under read and it's not about nukes over New York. Even a lower yield device over the Midwest could disable a third of the grid and nobody is coming to flip the switch back on.

Luke:

Okay, I mean I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that that's an utterly terrifying scenario and I guess I can see how that's adding urgency to the current Golden Dome discussions that are going on at the moment. So let's go back to some of the more natural disasters that are potentials here. So I saw that USGS said that there's I think it was a 37% chance of a major quake off the Oregon-Washington coast within 50 years. What happens and what's the impact on supply chains?

Jordan:

on infrastructure, on the way that the area works. Yeah, the Cascadia subduction zone scenario is one of those slow building, high certainty nightmares. You've got a fault line offshore that's about 600 miles long, stretching from Northern California up to British Columbia. When it goes and it will we're talking an 8.0 to 9.2 magnitude. It's not just a local quake, it's a multi-state system level event. What people don't realize is that it's not just shaking buildings and breaking bridges, it's severing arteries, highways like I-5, twisted bridges. It's severing arteries, highways like I-5, twisted Ports like Portland and Seattle, inoperable Rail lines buried or snapped. And this is where it gets interesting.

Jordan:

The single most underrated supply chain domino Milk that sounds dumb until you think it through. The Pacific Northwest relies heavily on just-in-time dairy distribution, fresh milk, cheese, you name it. Once the quake hits, roads are gone, powers out, refrigeration fails, dairy gets dumped at the farm because it can't get out and cities go dry. Now replace milk with insulin or blood plasma or baby formula and you see how fragile that cold chain is. Once those routes break, and especially when bridges fail, you can't just re-route. The region turns into isolated pockets and people who rely on daily logistics groceries, fuel medicine are suddenly on their own fuel, medicine are suddenly on their own. Usgs estimates that in a full Cascadia event, up to 2.5 million people could be without drinking water for a month, power out for 1 to 3 months in urban cores and up to a year in rural areas. And here's the kicker Most people in that zone are prepping for earthquakes. They should be prepping for isolation.

Luke:

And then that's a total shift of approach, right, not just to how to keep things stable, but how to survive afterwards. I want to go back to one of your other top five that surprised me Economic dislocation, I think, from inflation and or currency devaluation. There's a lot of discussion in the US today about the impacts of inflation and whether the dollar is losing its hegemony as the world's reserve currency. So over the next 10 to 20 years, how realistic a concern is this risk for the US and what are the events or decisions that would indicate to you that we're heading down a path for this form of disaster?

Jordan:

So this one's tricky because it sounds abstract until it's suddenly not. I do think sustained inflation or a breakdown in confidence in the dollar is a real risk over the next 10 to 20 years not an inevitability, but definitely on the table. What really raises my eyebrows is what's happening inside the US. The national debt keeps ballooning and just recently new tax cuts are expected to add another $3-5 trillion. Investors notice that Foreign confidence starts to waver, and then you get what we're seeing right now. The dollar has dropped something like 8% this year alone, hitting its weakest level in three years. That's a big red flag. If I had to call out signals that we're veering into dangerous territory, I'd say inflation that stays high longer than expected, debt growth with no serious plan to stabilize it, and foreign countries straight up doing trade in other currencies.

Luke:

So let's talk about resilience and get into what you have found. As you've got deeper into prepping, I saw some recent numbers from Pew which showed that four in 10 Americans now store at least two weeks of food double what it was a decade or so ago. What flipped the narrative to bring this into mainstream risk management for individuals?

Jordan:

Yeah, covid cracked the dam, plain and simple. Once people saw empty shelves, saw supply chains fail in real time, saw their city buckle under pressure, it became personal. It was how do I keep my kids fed if trucks stop coming? What flipped the narrative was that everyone lived through failure at the same time. Suddenly having two weeks of food wasn't weird, it was common sense.

Luke:

And I want to challenge some of the misconceptions around prepping, because I think this is a lot broader than the common stereotype that many people have in mind. What would you say is a realistic understanding of the community and its priorities?

Jordan:

Yeah, that guy-in-the-woods-with-a-rifle stereotype is irritating and honestly lazy. In the woods with a rifle stereotype is irritating and honestly lazy. Most modern preppers are families, professionals, retirees, people who've just decided not to outsource all their survival to Amazon and the power company. And yeah, self-defense is part of it, Because if you're preparing for the power to go out or supply chains to break, you also have to prepare for the desperation that can follow. It's about being able to protect your household while also growing your own food, filtering your own water and managing your own health. Defense is a layer, not the whole plan.

Luke:

So if you had to start from scratch no gear, no property, just your current knowledge how would you build personal resilience over the next 30 days? Walk us through what you would prioritize, where you'll spend your first dollars and what mistakes you'd avoid.

Jordan:

All right, starting from zero but keeping my brain. Day one I'm buying water storage, a gravity-fed filter like a Berkey or Sawyer and a mix of shelf-stable food, beans, rice, canned protein. That's my calorie and hydration baseline. Week one I'm adding a solar lantern, a crank radio and a small power bank, maybe a Jackery if the budget allows. I'm also picking up a reliable sidearm, if I'm in a state where I can do that legally, and I start training immediately. Defense is part of the triangle Food, water security. By week two, I'm scouting my environment. Is there a creek nearby, a trusted neighbor, a place I can garden or store fuel? I'd focus on skills and redundancy, not just gear. Cooking from scratch calms basics, maybe even ham radio if I've got bandwidth. And the biggest mistake, thinking Amazon will always be there. Don't chase high tech before you lock in the basics. You can't eat night vision goggles.

Luke:

Okay, let's get into specifics to make this actionable by domain. So best-in-class kit to survive the grid. Going down on, let's say, a 2K budget, what's worth buying today and why?

Jordan:

solid solar generator setups. I lean Jackery for simplicity and support EcoFlow. If you want more tech control, expect to spend around $800 to $900 on the base unit. Pair that with two times 100 watt folding solar panels Jackery's own panels. If you want plug and play or go with Renogy for a little DIY savings, that'll run you $300 to $400, depending on the panel efficiency and cabling. Now for backup power beyond solar, grab a Honda generator Whisper, quiet, fuel efficient and dead reliable. Costs $1,100 new, but you can often find a clean, used one for $600 to $700. That brings you right near your limit. But you'll have flexible energy Solar during the day, honda at night and batteries to bridge both. And last detail Faraday bags. I use Mission Darkness. Put radios, spare phones, thumb drives, even your solar controller, inside one when not in use. That's your EMP hedge for under $100.

Luke:

And you mentioned that cell towers die pretty quickly. What's the alternative and is Starlink worth it?

Jordan:

That's right. Cell towers don't last long. Most only have 8 hours of backup power and once that's out, your phone becomes a flashlight and a calculator. So what's the alternative? Best bet? Ham radio. It's not just for hobbyists anymore. A basic Baofeng handheld can talk to other radios locally and scan emergency frequencies. It's $35. Insane value. Now for Starlink, that's the high-end comm safety net. If you've got $600 to drop on hardware and about $150 a month for Starlink Rome, it's absolutely worth it for rural or suburban folks who want full broadband when everyone else is dark. It's become the go-to for off-grid preppers and mutual aid groups in remote areas.

Luke:

It's become the go-to for off-grid preppers and mutual aid groups in remote areas. Okay, that makes sense. Now, finally, security. I've heard that most break-ins happen at the front door or through big, easily broken front windows. What's the best protection for this and how do you personally manage layered security?

Jordan:

You nailed it 90% of home intrusions start at the front door or a ground level window, and that tells you something. Most people are broadcasting easy access without even realizing it. So let's talk real world. Layered security, not fantasy, not a fortress just what works. Layer one is deterrence. I make the house look like a hard target. That means motion-activated LED floodlights, visible cameras even if they're dummy units in some spots and thorny landscaping under windows. You'd be amazed what a well-placed cactus can do.

Jordan:

Layer two is delay. Doors get reinforced. I use a steel core security door with a heavy-duty strike plate and 3.5-inch screws into the studs. Most people have their front door held in by a half-inch of wood and a dream I add Charlie bars or flip locks for when I'm home and I've got window film on all the main panes. It doesn't make glass unbreakable, but it keeps it from shattering easily. That buys me time.

Jordan:

Then layer three is response. I have trained and licensed firearm access plain and simple Long gun, locked sidearm, staged ammo where it should be. I'm not trying to invite conflict, but I'm not outsourcing defense to a 911 call that might not be answered for hours in a crisis. I also practice clearing the house and my family knows exactly where to go if something kicks off. One mistake I see a lot People install cameras and think they're done. But cameras don't stop anything, they just let you watch it happen in HD. It's the layers visible, deterrence, hard entry points, fast response that change the outcome. If I had to start fresh, I'd spend my first dollars on a solid door, setup, floodlights and a basic home defense course you can build out from there.

Luke:

Yeah, that's really interesting. Now, look, this has been both eye-opening and, frankly, somewhat disturbing for me, but I really really appreciate the insights. Now, if listeners act on only one thing in the next 24 hours, what should they do?

Jordan:

It's been great to share this with you. Your number one action store water Right now, today. Go grab a few five-gallon jugs or clean containers, fill them and set them aside. It costs almost nothing, takes 20 minutes and it's the fastest way to go from vulnerable to functional in a real crisis. So yeah, forget the sexy gear, just start there. Water in the corner of your garage. That's your buffer between. Everything's fine and I wish I'd done more.

Luke:

And there you have it Secure the water. And that was it for this episode. Jordan really appreciate the conversation and this has been a remarkable insight into really how thin our layer of civilization is, I guess, and it's a great jumping off point for people to get started. If you enjoyed this discussion, then please like, subscribe and share and I'll see you next time on AI. On.