Hurricane Preparation

Every Floridian knows how to prepare for a hurricane; gather food, hoard water, and seriously consider buying a generator for twice as much as they normally cost.

After hurricane Hermine came through last week, I realized that my hurricane preparation game was a bit lacking.  I have since updated my hurricane preparation list.  The updated list is below, and I hope it helps everyone who uses it to be a bit more comfortable after the storm.

Preparing for a Hurricane

The Basics

• Gather Water:  If you rely on a well for water, the power to the well, and therefore the water from the well is likely to go out in a bad storm, so having extra water on hand is a must.  While municipal water is less likely to stop due to a storm, it can be contaminated, in which case bottled water is still a must.  While you can certainly go out and buy a bunch of bottled water, you can save a bit by filling up the drink bottles you already have.  Bonus Tip:  If you freeze your bottled water before the storm, the frozen bottles can be used to keep perishable food cool a little longer, and when the ice melts you will have a cool drink.
• Buy Food that doesn't need to be refrigerated or cooked:  I am not a huge granola bar fan, but when you have no power and no refrigeration they suddenly become surprisingly tasty, and they are better for you than most of the junk food that doesn't need refrigeration or cooking.
• Ready a Cooler for Perishable Food:  A cooler with a bunch of ice or ice packs will probably keep your perishable food cooler longer than a fridge without power.  Prior to the storm make or buy extra ice or freeze a bunch of ice packs to stick in the cooler with your most precious perishable foods so they can survive a little longer.  Bonus Tip:  Really nice coolers actually keep food cooler longer.  We have a Yeti that we put through it's paces when our fridge broke a few months ago.  It kept ice frozen for 3 days.
• Gather Candles, Matches, Flashlights, and Batteries:  Again, the power is likely to go out, but we still need to see.  I was shocked to see just how dark some areas in my house were without electricity, even in the middle of the day.
• Ready the Get-a-way Car:  If it gets really bad you might need to get out of dodge (or, participate in an evacuation when the local authorities indicate to do so).  Make sure at least one car is in good working order and fueled up.

Stepping up the Prep

• Have cash on hand:  When stores open up after a hurricane they may still not have any way to run credit cards (power may have been restored, but phone or cable lines used by credit card processors might still be down).
• Do laundry and wash dishes prior to the storm:  You don't want to be caught the day after storm with no power and no water, with a sink full of dirty dishes and no clean underwear.  What would your mom say?
• Charge Phones/any other rechargeable electronic device you might need:  The ability to call out and check the news in an emergency is priceless.  Bonus Tip:  Check out solar charged battery backups for small electronics (like this one from Amazon).  They allow you to keep your phone charged even when the power is out, and are surprisingly inexpensive.  
• Stock up the First Aid Kit:  In a bad emergency getting to the hospital may not be immediately possible.  Make sure to have at least basic first aid supplies on hand in case of illness or injury.  My basic list includes;  bandages, antibiotic ointment, pain killer, and anti nausea/diarrheal meds.
• Pick up prescription meds:  If you have been prescribed prescription medication you should probably keep taking it even after a hurricane, but the pharmacy may not be open for pick up.  Think ahead and pick them up early.
• Have an established plan that everyone is on-board with:  This is especially helpful for making small children feel prepared and confident when the power goes out.  Sharing dialogue about what will happen and why can give participants in your plan a psychological boost because they're not victims of the weather, they're actively addressing the weather and taking control of the situation.

Hard Core Prepping

• Buy a Camp Stove and Fuel:  With a camp stove you can cook food and boil potentially contaminated water, solving part of the lack of power or clean water issue.
• Buy a Camping Water Filter and iodine tablets:  Unlike the water filer you probably have in your fridge right now that just makes your water taste better, a camping water filer will actually filter out many contaminates.  When combined with iodine tables unboiled water becomes relatively safe to drink (although boiling is still recommended if possible).
• Actually buy that generator you keep talking about:  While a $3000 whole house automatic backup generator may be tempting, a considerably smaller and less expensive one can still keep your fridge running, power a few fans, and run a hotplate (although maybe not all at once).  It can help make the time after the storm considerably more bearable, and if you buy one when there isn't a hurricane bearing down it might even be reasonably priced.

Do you have any other hurricane preparation tips.  Please share them in the comments.

(This post contains affiliate links, all opinions are my own.)

We got hit by Hurricane Hermine

Very early Friday morning, Tallahassee, FL, where I live, was hit by hurricane Hermine, a category 1 (weak) hurricane.  Since then I have heard it described as "devastating," and compared to hurricane Katrina (the 2005 hurricane that leveled immense damage on Louisiana).  I have seen pictures of boats tossed up on shore, and houses waist deep in water.  I have also heard the question "Why would anyone live in a state that is constantly being destroyed by hurricanes?"  

While Hermine certainly caused flooding and destruction, I don't feel that the media's depiction of Hermine is consistent with the experience of most of the people that lived through the hurricane.  Hurricane destruction tends to be worst right on the coast, and in flood zones, and thats is were the media takes all of their aftermath photos - where the destruction is worst.  Most Floridians don't live in those areas.   I would like to give a less sensational perspective.

Hermine was the first hurricane to hit Tallahassee directly in about 30 years.  Tropical storms are fairly common, but direct hits from hurricanes - not so much.  Local schools were closed on Thursday and most businesses closed around noon on Thursday in preparation for the hurricane.  Only a few costal areas were evacuated.  We didn't start to get wind or rain until Thursday night, and went to bed like normal that night expecting minimal damage from a storm with such low magnitude.  The kids slept through the hurricane.  Firebird and I got up to check on things a few times, but for the most part we also slept through it.  When we woke the following morning we had no power, and this was the view outside our bedroom window;

Limbs down in the backyard after Hermine

Some of the limbs in the yard were pretty large.

We had a lot of fallen tree limbs in the yard, some quite large, and small twigs and leaf litter everywhere.  Initially it seemed like the damage was pretty minimal.  It wasn't until we went in the front yard that we started to understand the extent of the damage.  This was the view from our front yard;

Tree on my neighbor's roof

Then we went online (thanks cellular data service), and this is what the power outage map looked like;

Power Outage Map - the red areas are without power

More than 70,000 people were without electricity, and those with wells (rather than municipal water supply) were without water too (the well pumps need electricity to work).  Trees were laying on power lines and across roads.  Electric poles had been toppled, and live power lines were laying in the street.  The city was projecting that it might take days to restore everyone's power.  

We ventured out of the house the day after the storm to get some food, and stopped at the first place we came across with power - Walmart.   None of their refrigerated or frozen food was for sale - the backup generator to keep the refrigeration going had failed, and a ton of food was wasted.  Likely hundreds of thousands of dollars of inventory.  We grabbed some food that didn't need cooking or refrigeration and headed straight back home.  

Refrigerated food goes to waste after power outage.

In our neighborhood and around the town we found that the damage from the storm was extremely variable.  Some houses looked like they suffered from nothing more than a thunderstorm, and some, like our neighbor's, looked like they had been hit by a hurricane far stronger than Hermine.

Some houses looked untouched by the storm.

Others just needed a bit of cleanup 

Some homes had serious damage.  This house had two large fallen trees that blocked the road

We counted at least 4 fallen trees in this yard.

As of this writing it is Monday night, about 4 days after the storm, and 18,000 people are still without power (down from 70,000).  Some wells were damaged or are still without power and as a result those residents are still without water.  My family was one of the lucky ones - we regained power about 24 hours after the storm, and we are doing fine, but for others, recovery from the storm could take weeks or months.

So, was Hermine "devastating"?  Should we be comparing it to Katrina?  No and no.  For a category 1 hurricane Hermine caused a surprising amount of damage.  Category 1 hurricanes are not much stronger than tropical storms, which are not much stronger than bad thunderstorms.  I expected Hermine to cause the kind of damage that we saw in our own yard - lots of broken and fallen limbs.  Herman caused a lot more trees and power lines to fall than her category would have suggested, and I believe as a result, we (meaning the residents of Tallahassee) were not as prepared for the extent of the damage as we could have been, and neither was the city itself.  That being said, comparing it to Katrina is completely inappropriate - Katrina was truly devastating, it, and the flooding that resulted from it destroyed the homes of thousands of people and came close to destroying one of our country's oldest cities.  Hermine knocked down a lot of trees, damaged several homes, and made us lose power for a couple of days.  While it will probably take several months for Tallahassee to fully recover from Hermine, the damage from the storm is ultimately temporary.