Survivalist donates his stash of 'doomsday' food to Puerto Rico

Joe Badame was feeling pretty low. The 72-year-old recently lost his wife, and his house was in foreclosure. An estate auction was underway as part of the foreclosure, and Badame watched his worldly possessions slip away.

But he didn't want to lose all the food. He and his late wife Phyllis had constructed an underground 'doomsday' bunker beneath their home (8500 square feet!) large enough to shelter 100 people. Outfitted with kerosene refrigerators, coal furnaces, and lead walls, Badame spent decades stocking the bunker with barrels of dried and preserved food. 

The day of the estate sale, Tony and Tori's food truck was on hand to feed the crowd. Badame learned that the food truck's sales were going to help Tori's family in Puerto Rico. Tori's family was safe, but homeless and hungry in Arecibo following Hurricane Maria. Badame gave Tori $100, then showed her the bunker.

He then donated all the food barrels, about a hundred of them, containing rice, beans, flour, powdered eggs, and dry milk. Each barrel holds enough food for 84 people to live for four months on 2,000 calories a day. The barrels will ship to Puerto Rico starting Monday.

So the doomsday Badame expected never arrived. But his stored food will be eaten by people thousands of miles away surviving a different kind of doomsday.