Prepping for Hurricane Season

Matt Black - August 24, 2020

News

NPR’s Life Kit has an article and accompanying podcast episode entitled, “It’s Peak Hurricane Season. You Should Have These Plans Ready” by Debbit Elliott. I’m not in a hurricane prone area, but some of you may be. I’m wondering what other preps you might have.

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Good article. This quote stood out to me

“I’ve always encouraged the proper mentality, which is that mindset of perpetual preparedness,” Willis says. You can do it on a budget by using what you have and tapping community resources. “Everyone doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to purchase preparedness.”

It’s the whole thing where you buy a few extra cans of soup or whatever your prep is on a regular basis. Or using coupons and settling for your second favorite brand. A little at a time over a long time and you have so much less to get frantic about. I’m still learning but I’ve tried to keep that in mind.

 

The hardest decision is whether to stay, or to hit the road to stay with friends, or hotel.  We want to believe the storm will miss us directly, avoiding all the effort to get out.  Irma was slated to hit Miami area until day 3 before landfall.  It took a jog to the west and headed toward us.

In SW Florida 5 days from Irma’s landfall was the last chance to leave if one wanted to find a hotel anywhere between SWFL and South Carolina.  By 4 days out from landfall, no hotel was available as far as North Carolina.  Why?  Because Irma was so big, the whole state was going to be in its path.  5 days was the last chance to catch a flight out of my local Airport.  By day 4 there were long lines down the highway for gasoline, and water was in very short supply.  The interstate was already congested on day 4.

Day 3 back up plan came into affect.  Stay with friends.  We had 2 cats.  Hotels were taking pets before Irma, but not anymore here locally.  All the animal shelters were full on day 4.  So, we tried to find friends who would take two humans and 2 cats.  The friends we knew who would take us had left the area ahead of us.  A friend would take us but not the cats.   There were others on my street who stayed and had to be rescued by the Redneck Navy and the National Guard.

Day 2 prepping for evacuation.  Our zone had been called to leave.  The plan was to stay through the worst of land fall and return to the cats the next morning.  We cleaned out freezer, salvaged what we could from fridge and cubbords, packed our clothes for the night, with our BOB, water, radios, phones, papers, and photographed every room with closets.  Before leaving I turned off the power, and shut off the water, shut the hurricane shutters with the cats safe in the back porch, fed them generously. That eve we moved our stuff to friends house, and shared what food we had to use up to avoid spolage.

Storm appreach day one was an exercise of waiting as the weather worsened.  That night power went out about 2 hours before the worst hit.  Tornadoes passed us a few miles away.  The sound was memorable.

I won’t bore you futher.

 

You’re not boring anyone. Thank you for sharing your experience. 🙏

Assuming you still live in the same area, have your preparations changed since?