Have any of you thought about hav­ing to bug in at your work­place.  Most of the time I think about bug­ging out with my Get Home Bag and don’t real­ly think too much about what might hap­pen if I have to stay in an office for a few days, or longer.  A few days ago, I was togeth­er with a friend who is a busi­ness own­er who told me he gave his employ­ees infor­ma­tion about putting togeth­er for a 72 hour bag or bug out bag.  I thought that was great, but got to think­ing, what if there were a chem­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal, or oth­er issue where the employ­ees (or your­self) could not leave your build­ing?  What would you do?  Me, I would have been fine for a day or two, I had sup­plies, but every­one else, well, there in would have been the issue.

That said, I think this may end up being geared more towards the com­pa­ny own­er or some­one in charge of the secu­ri­ty of the employ­ee, so bear with me if you can for a bit.  Let’s assume that you work in an office build­ing, and there are 25 — 50 employ­ees on your floor.  An employ­ee comes by and said that they heard there was an emer­gency being dis­cussed on the radio and every­one should shel­ter in place, city water sup­plies are being ter­mi­nat­ed so the flow of water is stopped to slow or stop con­t­a­m­i­na­tion until fur­ther notice due to the impend­ing emer­gency.  The radio announc­er adds that if any­one leaves their area and goes out­side there is the oppor­tu­ni­ty for expo­sure to what­ev­er it is that is being dis­cussed, and any­one out­side will be arrest­ed and quar­an­tined.

It seems there is not much to do now but wait.  Hmm, when you go to the kitch­enette to see what is there regard­ing food, there are sev­er­al can­dy bars in the snack machine, the soda machine, lunch in the fridge that about 1/3 of the employ­ees brought with them into work that day, sev­er­al lunch­es that look like they have been in there a month, and about three gal­lons of water in the water cool­er.  That’s not much for hav­ing to shel­ter up to 50 peo­ple in for three or four days.  What if the emer­gency is an air­borne chem­i­cal or bio­log­i­cal issue?  What is going to hap­pen if there is also no pow­er or heat.  What if you run out of water?  What are you going to do for food for your employ­ees?

This is not a good sce­nario.  You have an emer­gency, you may be in charge of 50 peo­ple, and no sup­plies or gear that might help make a dif­fer­ence over the next three or four days.  You are going to have some hun­gry, thirsty, cranky employ­ees.  You are going to need to take charge of your employ­ees and keep them calm and col­lect­ed over the next cou­ple of days.

By the way, before I go any fur­ther, this could apply to a school, office build­ing, hos­pi­tal, nurs­ing home, etc.  I use an office build­ing because it is the exam­ple I would be famil­iar with.

Now, going on…

First, is a sit­u­a­tion like this like­ly?  Maybe.  I believe it is in a city.  While not imme­di­ate­ly like­ly, I believe it is like­ly.

Sec­ond, what can you do to pre­pare for such a sit­u­a­tion?  Well, here is a list of what I think might be a good prep list for up to one per­son in the event there is an emer­gency and you have to shel­ter in for 72 hours.  I will break it down in a sec­tion for the group and for the indi­vid­ual.

For The Group:

• Camp Por­ta-Pot­ty(s) or Buck­ets, plas­tic bags, and a big bag of lime.
• Propane Stove or Alco­hol Stove(s) to boil water and cook if nec­es­sary
• Extra alco­hol or propane
• Pot(s) to boil water and cook if nec­es­sary
• Emer­gency Radio(s)
• Water (five gal­lon water jugs (full) for water cool­er with enough water for three days per per­son)
  • I know that if there are 50 peo­ple in the office that 150 gal­lons of water could take up a lot of space.  That is three 50 gal­lon drums of water, so you may not have enough space, so you might encour­age your employ­ees to keep ample water in their desks that they rotate.
• First Aid Kit
• Soap, toi­let paper, paper tow­els, and Hygiene sup­plies
• Sev­er­al flash­lights and bat­ter­ies (recharge­able)
• Bat­tery recharg­er (solar if pos­si­ble)
• Duct Tape or 100 MPH Tape
• Plas­tic Sheet­ing (to cov­er the win­dows if nec­es­sary and seal with the duct tape)
• Paper plates, plas­tic cups, and plas­tic uten­sils
• Condi­ments (salt, pep­per, sug­ar, cof­fee, tea)
• Well Stocked Tool Kit
• Para­cord (sev­er­al hun­dred feet)
• Sev­er­al Knives such as a Mora and mul­ti-tools Like the Leather­man Wave for respon­si­ble indi­vid­u­als
  • These could be group lead­ers.  Not every­one knows how to use a knife in an emer­gency.
• Sev­er­al decks of play­ing cards, board games, note­books, addi­tion­al pens, etc. to help pass the time.
• 24 hour light sticks

For the indi­vid­ual:

• Emer­gency Space Blan­kets or Sur­vival Sleep­ing Bag Sys­tems
• MREs, Moun­tain House or oth­er freeze dried meal(s) or ER bar emer­gency rations for 72 hours.  Research
• N95 Masks (two or three for each per­son) and sur­gi­cal rub­ber gloves
• 55 Gal­lon Garbage bag
• A cus­tomized per­son­al Emer­gency Cri­sis Guide­book for each employ­ee (for the office, the link ref­er­ences one for the home)

Items you should have your employ­ee bring to the office and keep there:

• Pair of ten­nis shoes/sneakers
• Extra water
• Sev­er­al pow­er and/or nutri­tion bars (tell them they should replace what they eat)
• Change of clothes to keep in the draw­er of their desk
  • Under­wear, socks, pants/jeans, shirt and under­shirt, and a light jack­et
• Per­son­al Hygiene items
  • Tooth­brush, tooth­paste, den­tal floss, etc.

These are just my sug­ges­tions as I am writ­ing this with­out doing much research.  But it would seem to me that if I were a busi­ness own­er or the leader of an orga­ni­za­tion, I might stock up on at least the min­i­mal sup­plies to help keep every­one safe if need be.