So What do YOU do to prepare for a Hurricane?

Living in Florida brings many things that are not necessarily common throughout the rest of the world or even all of the USA.

For instance, I daresay my twin sister, Becky, residing in Poland, has never had to prepare for a hurricane.

I thought it would be kind of fun to list some of the things that we do to prepare for an upcoming hurricane.

By the time you read this, we’ll be right in the midst of it, or about to get walloped by it. Of course, who knows, it might veer away from us at the last minute, and avoid us altogether, although that is highly unlikely, at this point.

1) First, we attempt to confirm the facts. We go to a variety of sources to determine whether this is something that we should even concern ourselves with. We happen to live approximately 30 miles inland, and no where near a river, stream or even really a major lake.

Ryan Hall, Ya’ll on Youtube is quite entertaining. The only problem is that he doesn’t do enough updates.

So, one of the favorites is Dennis Phillips, I hear. I haven’t followed him before, but I figured I should check him out.

My twin, Becky, had introduced me to Ryan Hall, Ya’ll (and Ryan Hall, Ya’ll Extra) before Ian came aboard Florida last October, and I’ve been watching and listening to what he has to say regularly, finding his predictions to be just about dead ringers in accuracy.

Ken got gas, completely filling his vehicles.

2) Then we begin to cover the basics. For me, Each of these things is equally important, so in no particular order, we do all of these things:

Fill all gas tanks, and top off any that might be close to being full. It seems that in case of a really bad storm, that gasoline becomes scarce, and just getting places to find out how your friends and family are doing is difficult.

3) Check to see if we have plenty of water, and find and fill any empty jugs that we have, to ensure that we’ll have both drinking water and/or toilet flushing water, in case the power goes out.

 

This bed is now ready for guests! 4 pillows and a clean queen sized bed can house a couple, if need be!

4) Wash the sheets and change the bed in the guest room in case someone we know needs a safe and secure place to stay.

This area has lots of mobile homes, so we’re not at all sure, until we’re a bit closer to the impact, to know if we’ll need the space, but it’s ready.

 

5) Do all laundry. Get it washed and dried. Once the storm hits and if you have power going out, it seems like nothing, absolutely nothing is ever dry.

You want to have as many changes of clothes as possible, as well as have nothing left in the dryer to mildew.

Thankful we have two washers and two dryers, so this task is relatively easy for us to do. The clothes might not make it to the folded and put away stage, but that’s fine, too.

That’s something I can do with no power.

6) Be sure we have plenty of batteries to handle all of the lanterns and flashlights. Locate several before the power goes out, because once it goes out, everything seems very, very dark.

7) Buy cat food and kitty litter. Staying home with upset and hungry cats is not desirable. Once again, if the power goes out, one never knows how long stores will remain closed.

8) Be sure to have plenty of canned goods and delicious, totally fattening, non refrigerated snacks. The canned goods are for your security and long term keeping you alive. The snacks are to enjoy. You’re supposed to wait until after the storm is here, your work has told you to stay home and the only thing you can do is sit here on your computer or phone and wait for it to hit land. So then you eat those snacks.

9) Ken cleaned out the gutters. This will help our water to run where it’s supposed to, instead of all over the place.

 

My fitbit will go 4 days between charges once it’s fully charged.

10) Write emails, blog posts and whatever you can ahead of time. Once everyone is off work, it tends to be more of a party atmosphere, and it’s hard to concentrate on work.

11) Charge every available device that can be charged.

12) Stuff every freezer with bags of water that will freeze into the shapes you need to keep the freezer stuffed full. If the power goes out, this keeps things colder longer, if the freezer is packed to the gills with frozen blocks of ice.

 

There you have it. These are the things that we try to do before or around every hurricane.

Then, once it gets close, esp if it’s at night, I simply go to bed, knowing that I’ve done all that I can do, making sure my cats are inside the house with us!

We leave it in the Lord’s hands, and trust Him for protection.

We trust that this hurricane will not wipe out any more of Florida. Ian did so much destruction last year, that we’ve had enough to last the rest of my life!

Check back in with us later to see what happened. If we have power, we’ll let you know what, if anything, happened!

Becky’s note:

Challenge finished!

0 quilts left to quilt in the

“Quilt 90 quilts in 31 days challenge”.!

But I’m trying to finish another 6 before the end of August so I can meet the basic 2023 goal of 120 quilts.


Rachael Woodard3 Comments