New Jersey man giving 'doomsday' supplies to Puerto Rico
MEDFORD, N.J. (WPVI) -- For 45 years, survivalist Joe Badame of Medford, New Jersey, has been preparing for doomsday.
The architect and his late wife built a bunker in their basement that could accommodate 100 people. It has a lead-lined bomb shelter and is stocked with barrels of non-perishable food.
Sadly, Joe just lost his house in foreclosure but something good has come from his bad luck.
"These people are dying. They have nothing," Badame said.
Instead of trashing dozens of barrels of dried food and supplies that didn't sell at the estate sale, Badame is donating them to Victoria Martinez-Barber and her husband Anthony, who run a local food truck.
Tori plans to send the food to her family in Arecibo, Puerto Rico where they are flooded out, homeless and without food.
"This is saving their lives. My grandmother has nothing right now, she lost it all," Martinez-Barber said.
The barrels each weigh about 300 pounds and are packed with items like rice, beans and flour. Just one of these has enough food in it to feed 84 people for four months.
"There is nonfat dry milk, there's powdered eggs. Most of the stuff I bought is for long-term storage," Badame said.
"It's a miracle it's a miracle this is exactly what they eat, rice and beans and sachitas which are our Vienna sausages and there's just tons of them," Martinez-Barber said.
Through family connections Tori was able to arrange for the supplies to be flown to Puerto Rico by a private company. The first shipment goes out Monday.
"And that's a one-day turnaround, and then a week later we are shipping the rest of about maybe 62 more barrels," Barber said.
"This is a divine intervention that we are able to have all this food and not just have the food but have the means to get it there," Martinez-Barber said.
For Joe Badame, the supplies have always been about survival.
He just didn't know until now who he be saving.
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