Survivalist Gear Gets Sales Boost Across Country

• Published in: The Wall Street journal. Eastern edition
• Main Author: By Wall Street Journal staff reporters Joseph Pereira and Barbara Carton in Boston, and Kelly K. Spors in Washington
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y Dow Jones & Company Inc 24.09.2001
• Edition: Eastern edition
• Subjects: Consumer behavior; Nuclear war; Protective clothing; Radiation; Retail sales; Survivalists; Terrorism; War
• ISSN: 0099-9660

One of Neoterik's customers last week was Eviva Dubin, a Manhattan lawyer. She purchased three masks -- one for herself, her husband and her brother -- and a Baby Ranger Bubble for her eight-week-old baby for $2,000. Ms. Dubin now totes her mask and her baby's bubble in a stroller whenever they leave home. Her husband also carries his to work. At the American School of Defense, a distributor of nuclear, biological and chemical protection gear in Kansas City, Kan., owner Jade Edwards says he typically sells about 100 M-95 brand gas masks a month; he sold 1,000 last week, most of them to domestic customers. Kurt Wilson, owner of Survival Enterprises, which sells survivalist products over the Internet and at a store in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, said sales of ready-to-eat food and kerosene lamps have doubled in the past two weeks. "Business was slow for a long time," he says, "Now they call me up and say `I've got $2,000 to spend.'" During threats of nuclear war between Pakistan and India in 1989, Philip Hoag and his wife, Arlene, hand-built a 150-person bomb shelter next to their home in rural Emigrant, Mont. The shelter has several showers, a power generator, and radio receivers. The shelter has been scarcely used in the 12 years, but the couple feels the recent terrorist attacks show the need for such a haven. "The only protection against biological terrorism is intelligence," Mr. Hoag says.