Suburban Survivalists: 'I Just Want to Be Prepared'

April 5, 2011— -- Zoltan Hites clamped a pair of handcuffs around his wife Christine's wrists, helped her into the trunk of a car parked in a parking garage, slammed the lid and waited for her to escape.

Less than five minutes later, the trunk popped open and Christine climbed out. Doesn't exactly seem like a romantic weekend, but they were learning how to make a quick getaway.

They're not spies-in-training. They're survivalists -- people who are dedicated to being ready for and surviving the worst-case scenarios.

The Hiteses paid about $800 a piece to join a dozen or so other people at a Los Angeles hotel for three-day retreat with onPoint Tactical. Under the supervision of instructor Kevin Reeve, the participants will learn extremely advanced survival skills, such as how to pick a handcuff lock with a bobby pin.

"I'm not worried," Zoltan Hites said. "I just want to be prepared."

Hites, a tennis instructor, and Christine, a stay-at-home mom to their two children, make a hobby of being prepared for disaster.

"If an earthquake or something happens, people get scary," Christine said. "You need to know how to protect yourself and your children, and get away from the people who are there to do you harm and not help you."

They were getting tips from Kevin Reeve, who founded onPoint Tactical in 2004. His survival business offers seminars in various wilderness survival techniques as well as this course the Hiteses attended, titled "Urban Escape and Evasion."

"We have a saying in the industry that we're about nine meals away from anarchy," Reeve said. "The supermarkets are usually cleared out within the first two hours of an emergency, is typically what happens."

While his clientele used to be exclusively law enforcement and military, Reeve said he has seen a major shift in the past two years.