There's nothing wrong with being prepared. The last few years has shown us you can't even completely depend on stores being accessible and stocked with needed daily supplies in an emergency. Having extra supplies on hand because of the possibility of a flood, war, civil disturbance, power outage, earthquake, environmental disaster, or other emergency is completely wise.
If I lived in Ohio right now for example, I'd want to have a large pile of gas masks too. There are people in America who desperately want to have these supplies right now for an emergency, and the media is mocking somebody who is prepared? Say what?
I'm not 100% sure of the psychology of it, but I think that people that are deeply trusting of the government are very disturbed that preppers exist because preppers are showing that they're not trusting the government at all which I think sets off some kind of warning in peoples' heads that maybe they are wrong and they don't really know how to process that. Hence, the extreme hatred of preppers displayed in much of the media, despite their activity usually not harming anybody else.
To be perfectly fair, on the flipside there are extreme preppers who seem to have some kind of unhealthy compulsion. And despite being relatively poor, some spend much of their time and money digging out full bomb shelters and filling them with years worth of food and canned goods, which doesn't seem healthy. But if you're doing a reasonable amount of preparation, and you're reasonably well off financially to afford this modest effort, kudos to you for wanting to ensure your family has the best chance in an emergency situation.