Those people didn't have access to food to store from the beginning of that era. We have plenty of food in this country right now to store whatever we want. No one will know what you have if you don't tell anyone and don't have it out in the open.
If you store nothing, then you have nothing if a natural disaster happens like hurricane, storm, tornado, earthquake, ice storm, loss of power for whatever reason, loss of water if it gets contaminated for whatever reason or is turned off for some reason. It makes sense to have supplies and food/water.
Did you read the article? It’s very interesting. These people had grain and the bureaucrats searched everywhere for it - including haystacks - and confiscated it. Perhaps they weren’t smart in how they hid their food; I don’t know. So very sad.