Last week, our boat was broken into while in storage ‘on the hard’.
We’re currently nearly a 1000 miles away from the boat, traveling by van and staying with family in the St. Louis area.
As we were settling in for the evening to watch a cop show (ironically), we got a motion alert on our Blink cameras we left behind to monitor things.
We had actually been getting these, usually just a yard cat getting aboard and checking things out. So we decided to pick up our phone and say good night to the kitty.
Much to our surprise, we saw a skinny dude on our cockpit looking for a way into the boat.
Just about as soon as we saw him, he rips the camera off the wall and throws it to the ground.
Our first thought was… IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?!?
Then it was CALL THE POLICE.
Soon after one of our inside cameras started reporting motion and we saw the intruder head first thing to the fridge, before he saw the camera and turned it around too. But our cameras are wireless with two-way audio.
Chris very sternly said ‘GET OFF OUR BOAT – The police have been called and are inbound’.
But in reality, we hadn’t yet figured out how to even contact the local police.
We knew that calling 911 from our cell phone would reach the dispatch local to us currently (that’s how 911 is programmed). So we thought it best to try to call the police department local to where our boat was.
I googled the town’s name and found the number. With shaky hands, I dialed it.. and got a recording that said ‘If it’s after midnight, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you after 7am – or if this is an emergency or crime in progress, call 911’.
It was currently 1am on the east coast, where the boat is.
We weren’t sure yet this was an emergency worth calling our local 911 for, but we knew that was an option.
We also called the boat yard, in case in they had any after hours emergency instructions – they did not.
In searching around, I learned that each local dispatch actually has a real 10-digit phone number that e911 is programmed to forward to. It actually has a name – PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point).
But that number isn’t always readily available to the public – sometimes it’s a closely guarded secret only available to top authorities.
In fact, the tip I kept encountering was to obtain that number if you feel you might ever have need to reach 911 from outside the area – such as for calling for help for a loved one, or cases like ours.
So I went to the next resource we have at our finger tips – a social media following.
I posted to our Facebook Page asking for help on how to reach 911 for a locality you’re not currently in. A lot of fellow late night folks chimed in – everything from ‘call the non-emergency number’ (umm.. already did?) to ‘Call your local 911, they can help’.
Meanwhile, Chris kept hunting for a direct dispatch number and thought he found one. He dialed it, and it turned out to be for a city of the same name in a different state. The dispatcher was super friendly and said this happens ALL the time. She had the direct county dispatch number at the ready – and gave it to us.
And that got us through, and a Sergeant from the police department nearby our boat was on the phone with us in minutes .. and they were onboard to find no one there and no visible damage.
It seems Chris’ firm warning to the intruder that the police were on the way worked – and he fled the scene.
Lessons Learned
In the course of the evening, we learned a few things:
- If you’re leaving property behind or have loved ones in different cities than you – obtain the PSAP for the local dispatch center. Just in case. Call the non-emergency number for the local police or sheriff’s office during regular business hours and explain your situation – and maybe they’ll give you the number. Trying to find this information in the heat of the moment is extra stressful.
- If you find yourself in such a situation and can’t locate the direct dispatch number, it seems the general consensus is that calling your local 911 is acceptable. They might be able to help get you in touch, as the national PSAP directory is available to all law enforcement agencies. But it can be hit or miss by dispatch center if they subscribe to the directory, or are willing to look it up.
- Several emergency workers who chimed in on our thread indicated that if you think it’s an emergency, it’s an emergency – and you should call 911 or dispatch.
- Having a remote monitoring system was definitely worth the small investment. We had just recently purchased a 3-pack of Blink cameras on Amazon Prime Day. We left them running connected to one of our cellular data plans during Hurricane Dorian, and when we decided to take an extended RV trip. They also can give us temperature alerts, which is great for monitoring Kiki’s comfort when we’re away. The two way communication was enough to get the intruder off the boat .. at least in this case.
- Boats are notoriously easy to enter, even while locked up, without damaging anything.
The Outcome
After we had confirmation from the police and had a case number, we sent everything to our yard manager – including the footage recorded from our cameras.
He apparently read it even before arriving to work the next morning.
We were awoken first thing to another motion alert to see the manager on board checking things out and putting our cameras back in place. He gave us a video walk-thru of the boat – nothing is missing, and the intruder did no major damage (he did pull down an exterior light, probably thinking it was a camera).
A few moments later, the manager called us – with news the intruder had been apprehended.
He had distributed our footage to the entire yard crew, and one of them spotted the perpetrator still hiding out in the yard and the police were called back out.
He was apparently just looking for shelter – and we feel sad that any human soul should have to resort to breaking into property for that.
We’re thankful no damage was done, and no one’s personal safety was at risk. This could have been much worse.
And we hope our experience might help others be better prepared than we were to handle a similar situation.
If you have tips to share about reaching emergency services after hours, please do share in the comments. We however will be removing comments with suggestions on personal safety and weapons – we feel that’s a highly individual choice.
Here’s our video version of this – basically the same thing reported above:
Very helpful information. Thank you.
Thank you so much for sharing this important safety information! Not just for those of us fulltiming in RVs, Boats, Buses, etc. but also for any of us that have family members that might need us to call 911 for them in an emergency situation. I had never considered that and I have been a critical care nurse for almost 20 years. You may have saved someones life (and definitey property) today. So thankful your boat wasn’t hurt. So scary!
Sorry to hear about this incident; glad it was not worse. I appreciate your writing about it to highlight these issues to others. You mention that you linked the Blink to your data plan; how did you do that? The Blink only has a wifi connection so seems the only way would be to leave behind a cell hot spot just for this purpose. In addition to the cost of the additional device, seems most if not all of them are battery operated so one would have to leave it charging all the time which may not be the best thing.
Thanks in advance for your response!
Dan
We leave behind cellular embedded routers in each of our vessels for remote monitoring – we don’t trust consumer level mobile hotspot devices to be reliable enough for such purposes.
Glad everything worked out! We are looking to do the same thing and also found the mobile hotspot to be unreliable. What cellular embedded router do you recommend?
We’re constantly testing them as part of our day job, here’s our guide to them: http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/routers
Glad nothing was harmed and the lesson learned was good. I like the lesson there our other cams not so visible.
Indeed.. some clearly visible cams are important as a general deterrent. But not-as-visible ones are important too.
YIKES! So scary! Thanks for the info about the 911 direct lines — I will put it to use. Glad nothing was damaged!
Wow, never thought about this one – you guys are always so informational and we love reading anything you post.
Wow !!! How concerning. Glad the boat and contents are okay. Thanks for the great information. The situation must have been very scary at the time. I actually never thought that someone would try to enter a boat in storage. Good thing they caught the guy.
Take care and be well,
Just used your link and put these in my wish list. I also want to find something to put on floor near my home water heater to alert of a leak when we are camping. Suggestions?
Thank you very helpful information. Glad all was okay.
We bought the Blink cameras last year but I didn’t know they now come with 2-way audio. Thanks for the post and I’m so glad nothing worse happened and he was caught. That would have been so scary.
As usual, interesting & informative post! I really like the idea of getting that direct 911# just in case I need it for my 85 yo parent while we’re off ”gallivanting ” as he calls it!
Wow! Glad this turned out OK…we have thoughts of this stuff happening when we store our rig. Many thanks for the great tips. – Tim and Linda of “CasaRoll”
What kind of cameras are you using? As my RV is in storage, so i can monitor what’s going on. Thanks glad things turned out well.
Blink – just as linked twice in the post.
Oh my gosh! So glad no major damage was done and all turned out in the end. Thank you for sharing this information, it is SO good to know about reaching the correct area law enforcement.
I have called 911 and had them transfer me to 911 in a nearby city. That worked for me but I don’t know how far away it works.
Thanks for the story. It gave me some ideas for when we have to leave our rig unattended. Glad that your story ends well.
Safe travels and may all you camping sites be level.
Thank you for sharing. Being prepared for an unexpected event is important, but sometimes you don’t know what it will be. Possible post for you in the future. We travel with dogs. When we were in the Southwest I was concerned about rattlesnakes, distance to a vet and the lack of cell service in some areas. Before I left I made a list of vets and did some research on rattlesnake bites. I felt I was armed with some knowledge of what to do and had a list of vets so I wasn’t at a loss of trying to find phone numbers.
Kiki was actually bit by a rattlesnake a few years back… she did a post about it then.
Thank you for sharing and making us aware of something we need to look into before we begin our travels.
This is a sad story… so glad it worked out ok. Great information. Thank you for sharing.
Glad there was little damage and the guy was just wanting food and shelter. Maybe you need some seriously hidden cameras too. Boats probably mean wealth to many.
We had many other cameras he didn’t find 🙂