BOB Question

A BOB is a great idea and I’m sure we all have one (or are putting one together) I see them as a short term thing as you can’t carry enough for long term survival (unless your BOB is a panel van) I see them as a way to get away from a disaster area be it nature or man made for the duration of the disaster. How do you go about protecting your main survival items that you had to leave in your home when you bugged out? I would guess that the breakdown of services and the lack of law enforcement people to protect property as they will be busy saving lives (as they should.) will result in people breaking into homes and scavenging for food & supplies. When I return I want my stuff there for me, not some low life criminal that broke in my house. How do you hide or protect your survival items?

Heck I could even seeing the government wanting to take what you put away as to them it’s all stuff for the common good. You would be seen as hording and could easily be arrested if you don’t let them have your stuff.

It may be good to keep it out of site all the time and not be talkative with your neighbors

I seem to recall a thread on using the space between studs in interior walls for canned goods. That may be an option for those concerned with confiscation or limited storage space if you own your residence.

So what do you define as survival items, you will keep at your home? I really wouldn't know why you would first leave and than return, before the situation is safe and stabilized again.

And secondly, what kind of disaster are you preparing for? Anything stored in a house is worthless if it's under 30 feet water, contaminated with hazardous materials or when the house is totally collapsed.

I can't imagine anyone taking your tins of food and axe when there are shops full of electrical goodies and cars. Hide your real valuables and come back as soon as you can. Even Katriana was a matter of days till the Feds got there. If any poor souls are stuck there so long the shops are empty; they are welcome to empty my kitchen.
By the way does anyone know of a time in the US when this oft quoted 'arresting of people for hoarding' has ever happened? I didn't hear of it in katrina. By what law would they justify this?
The Sock

Hoarding laws are on the books. Authority for seizure of hoarded goods are in Presidential Directives.

Can you give me the location of these laws? And these presidential directives that allow someone to seize private property?
Do we have a lawyer on the site?
The Sock

I think to some extent, the grabbing of the BOB to flee is a decision to protect that which is most valueable, your life.

When you flee, the best thing to have to protect what may be destroyed, stolen or otherwise lost is insurance.

After I consider what I can insure, one fo the things I next want are things I simply cannot replace, those with sentimental value. For me, some of those thigns are photographs of the ones I care about, and I think that it is very possible to use modern technology and have digital copies created, so you can distribute some to friends and family outside of your area and also pop some onto a memory card.


If you want to hide items for a possible return, then I think the best hiding places are those you create. A good shovel may help if you have a yard. Some 5-gallon plastic containers buried in your yard could hold almost as some BOBs. Bury a few, and you have a lot more saved. Bury bigger containers, like a 55 gal. drum, and you have lots of stuff stored.

Some things can be hidden too in plain sight because people may not know of their uses. Amaranth is a seed that is like, if not, a grain. It's a big ornamental flower, that you can shake seeds from and eat the seeds. Since many will not know you can eat amaranth and some who do won't know what it looks like, you might be able to hide some food in plain sight.

I think that when you think of returning to something after a disastrous event, you are in all likelihood going to be trying to put pieces of a life back together, if it got so bad that people were looking to steal your survival supplies. After Katrina, some of the first things people took were in large part luxuries. But, if you imagine walking back in after a Hurricane, the tools and things to rebuild a life might be those which are most important. So, you may want things like a whole bunch of nails, so you can repair your home. If you think about possible situations that may affect you, then I think your decisions about gear and supplies you hide to leave behind or use if you bug in may change.

I've heard there are hoarding laws as well so it just depends on how the word "hoarding" is determined.
I keep shelves with rebbermaid containters stocked full of food and water and print off those ready.gov brochures and leave them in the conatiners to show that I'm just doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
If you do have to bug out chances are you can take more than just your bob. The Katrina evac for example, load up as much of your supplies as you can in your vehicle before you go. My BOB is more of a way to organize gear or something to grab if I would wake up to my house on fire but any situation where I had more time then more supplies would go as well.
Anything else is replaceable, keep everything inventoried, keep the receipts in a safe as proof and keep insurance, if looters take my tv then I turn it in to insurance and get a new one.
It helps to keep things organized, anything you wouldn't want to leave then make sure its easily takeable. Family photos for example, I'm not going to carry 20 photo albums if I bug out so I've scanned them all and will take my 3lb laptop and/or backups.
Wife's heirloom jewelry, store it in small jewelry roll in your bob.

I think another desparate person stealing your canned goods or even a local cop doing it, is more likely than an organized effort from on high. Still, if I had bugged out, and someone was there starving, help yourself to my cans.

If I went back into the disaster zone, while it is still lawless, I'll be sneaky, packing firearms, esp. my Remington 870, and I won't be counting on any canned goods to be there waiting for me. But if things are that bad, I really do not foresee going back in.

Citation of Executive Orders against Hoarding

This appears to be someone else's effort to compile a list of executive orders that tend toward anti-hoarding rules.

From here, you could look up the orders directly and see the content and make your conclusions.

If you want to read Clinton's Order of 1994, consolidating prior executive orders, see: http://www.disastercenter.com/laworder/12919.htm

Here's yet another compilation: "Your Handy Guide to US Martial Law". I'm surprised there hasn't yet been written a Martial Laws and Hoarding for Dummies

Montana does have a hording law:

Section 4. Unconscionable pricing prohibited. (1) During a declaration of a state of emergency or a finding of an abnormal market disruption, a person may not offer for sale at an unconscionable price an essential good or service, at retail or wholesale, within the affected area.

(2) A price is prima facie unconscionable if it is 10% or more above the average price charged by a person for the essential good or service during the 30 days before the declaration of a state of emergency or the finding of an abnormal market disruption.

(3) If a person did not offer for sale an essential good or service, at retail or wholesale, within an affected area during the 30 days before the declaration of the state of emergency or the finding of an abnormal market disruption, it is a prima facie violation of subsection (1) to charge a price that represents a gross disparity from the price at which the good or service was readily obtainable in the affected area during the 30 days immediately before the declaration or finding.

Section 5. Hoarding prohibited. During a declaration of a state of emergency or a finding of an abnormal market disruption, a person may not engage in hoarding an essential good or service.

This section would be the one that appropriate, but they say only the hoarding of "...essential good or service."

I wonder if it's by design that a definition of "hoarding" quantity-wise is omitted (at least as cited) so as to maintain flexibility. I've seen, in some contexts, anything over a 30-day supply.

I've read that more than 3 days of supplies in a household constitutes hoarding!

Time to turn in my Costco card then.

Unless you were depriving those around you by doing so (ie: Buying every bottle of bottled water, canned good, etc) I can't see how this would be an issue.

Unless you were trying to sell it or flaunt it.

Hiding only means they will go to greater lengths to find it. If an agency like this suspects you have something, usually either by informants or by casing your mo over time, they will come in and tear the place up until they find what they are looking for. It's not much different than when someone like the DEA or ATF decide a residence has contraband on it, whether they have real proof or not, it is their level of certainty, also known as reasonable suspicion, that gets them in the door with the metal detectors and the ground penetrating radar and the sniffer hounds and they will tear up everything, inlcuding the back yard and the walls of your house, until they either find what they are looking for or by process of elimination determine it simply isn't there. Oh and once they are done demolishing your house, they might apologize, pack up, and leave. Good luck making a claim for damages then. You are not likely to receive any remuneration whatsoever.

I don't think the DEA or ATF is going to be coming looking unless you give them some reason to. The news stories of this happening are usually people who are suspected of doing something illegal anyway and OTOH you always hear news stories of someone finding a cache hidden in a house from where someone that lived through the depression mistrusted the bank and stashed away money or coins or gold. It seem to me that caches tend to get found by the next owner of the house rather than some .gov agency looking for it.

Why would the emergency services bother with that, during a crisis? Getting trucks loads of food, equipment, etc. from other places in the country is by far more efficient in personnel, cheaper, doesn't acquire legal issues, no issues with compensating the owner and you get what you ordered. During crisis the emergency services want to do things as efficient and as easily as possible.

I don’t know that there would be any real legal issues, those with the guns make the rules & laws. It’s not against the law for them to take whatever they want.

> How do you go about protecting your main survival items that you
> had to leave in your home when you bugged out?
>SNIP<
> When I return I want my stuff there for me

I think there's a disconnect in your comments. If you are bugging out, I don't think you'll have much to return to. People have mentioned Katrina in this thread, and I think that's a good reference point. People _still_ haven't returned to New Orleans. Long term survival in New Orleans did mean looting for food and clothes for those people too poor to get out. If I have to bug out, my thinking is that there won't be much to return to if I even get to return.

In my area (the San Francisco Bay Area), our emergency officers are telling us that if we have a major earthquake and my hometown is destroyed and burned (likely in an earthquake), don't expect it to be rebuilt. Some rebuilding will be done, of course, but they promise the town will not be restored to its former glory.

I won't get the chance to bug out in an earthquake - we won't know it's coming. If you live in an area where you'll have the opportunity to get out of town, you might expect your home to be destroyed while you're gone; if not, major damage. If not major damage, then some. When you come back, you'll have to wait for insurance claims, building permits (depending on the extent of the damage), and you may not have access to supermarkets, stores, and the like for some period of time.

My personal take is that having any contents left is a surprise. If the emergency lasts as long as Katrina, I expect most people to be hitting the stores for food and supplies, not private homes. But if I've left long term, and people are reduced to breaking and entering so they can eat, I'm not going to complain when I get back. I'll be grateful I had a place to eat and sleep.

Frankly, I expect to be one of the people abandoned in place while emergency services providers try to ship us 18-wheelers full of ice.

You can down load the book "How to Hide Anything" here

I live next to a oil refinery, they have had fires in the past. One big one in 1979 shook every window in the house. I’m close to the tank farm; I could walk up to the fence in under 1-min. Its 200-yards away. So I could easily see moving away from it if there was a very big fire or explosion, or threat of one. It may not take out anyone’s house, but you never know. The 1979 explosion & fire had smoke that could be seen in Lima Ohio (80-miles away) it was contained after a day of fireman fighting it, but could have been much worst. So I don’t see it as detached to want to bug out because it could go big and at the same time expecting the house to still be there when the fire is over.

I'd also worry about confiscation of weapons.

I'm sure many of you have seen this, but...
Gun confiscation during Katrina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-taU9d26wT4

So no one can give an example of anyone ever being arrested for hoarding, or knows where these 'laws' are. Sounds like a myth.
The Sock

They are not laws they are executive orders and they do exist. Can I give you an example of when they were actually used? No but they do exist. Here is a link that tells a little about it.

http://members.aol.com/poesgirl/storing.html

IMO, hoarding laws target sellers trying to make windfall profit from a bad situation by holding back necessary items to run the price up. I don't see FEMA raiding homes of private citizens/end user/consumer to take their meager food supplies for distro at a shelter. Being an end user, I stockpile, I don't hoard -- there's a difference.

Bingo!!!

I don't see many individuals at risk of arest, during an emergency situations. An LEO has bigger thigns to think about than arresting you, if he is looking at your stash of food to take it and distribute it. I think the risk you have is from someone taking your stuff, and if anything else harming you. There's not likely to be time that someone wants to spend detaining you or caring for you afterward. They'll just take the stuff, and incapacitate you, if they need or want to do so.

Prosecution for hoarding will not come until there is an up and running system, courts, cops without bigger problems, etc., and then it will most likely be fines.

No one is less of a fan of Dubya than me; but this ludicrous fantasy you cite as evidence is preposterous. Dubya a dictator? He has a lot of faults but if Kerry got one more vote in 2004 he'd have left.

The Socki

> So I don’t see it as detached to want to bug out because it could go big
> and at the same time expecting the house to still be there when the fire
> is over.

I agree - as I said, my concern is earthquakes where I don't expect the house to survive in a big earthquake/fire. My question then is who do you think would go in and take your stuff during such a fire? Again, my perspective is long-term abandonment with people in long-term survival mode. A refinery fire might be days?

Plan and equip your BOB to fit your situation. It is hard to define what or what not to include. Individual circumstances are too varied to cover with a list.

I don't see confiscation as a major hazard. Small groups of people with alternative supplies are not an issue. It is seen as just a few people who won't need assistance so more for those in need.

That isn't to say that you get to live like kings flaunting it and lording it over people or make a killing selling bread to the starving masses. Doing that is crass and inconsiderate. You can expect to pay a penalty if you make too much of an ass out of yourself. Even if they don't prosecute you they might just drag you down to the station for questioning. Meanwhile your stash is unprotected. Problem solved.

In other words, use some common sense. If your so inclined, help where and when you can. If you can't, don't flaunt what you have and if you do sell things keep the prices reasonable.

I also wouldn't worry too much about firearms confiscation. Reading accounts of police in NOLA many of the people who had guns confiscated were flaunting their guns and sometimes threatening people. Removing the guns eliminates the risk of having to come back for a shooting.

Very few people who kept a low profile had their weapons collected. One really good reason being that the police didn't have the time or manpower available to hunt for weapons. If there weren't complaints or didn't see them there was nothing to confiscate.

Just on the surface of it, it looks like collection of goods when they are abundant is not illegal, and really not likely to be seized. What appears to be called 'hoarding' is really 'scalping', selling goods at inflated prices.

When someone goes to a disaster area and sells water, a basic human necessity, for $10 a gallon, that's scalping. It's making a large profit from a survival situation.

To respond to the original question of this thread, a BOB is a portable container of goods for an emergency, designed to save your life or make it easier to survive until you can get to a certain place. It's not intended as a long-term collection of goods.

If you have to run away from home (or sometimes, you're just trying to get home from somewhere else), you take the necessities so you can survive the chlorine leak from an overturned tanker or something, or a threat that doesn't materialize. As soon as possible, you want to go back to your large supply of goods, as long as they are still available (not burnt up, covered with mud or water, etc). Even if your house collapsed during an earthquake, much of the stuff you had stored is still probably there, so you just have to work your way to it.

You do the best you can with what you have.

Sue