Hurricane Preparedness Tips (1 Viewer)

Here are some preparedness tips for our Texas friends who plan to ride the storm out. This is based on my family's experience with Gustav and not having power for a week.

1. Get a generator now if you do not have one and plan to stay in your home, you will lose power if your are in the path. If you have one make sure its working. Generators that have been laid up for a year may not start and may have bad gasoline in them.

Note that there is also a fuel treatment you can buy if you have left over gas in your generator. Apparently it works pretty well.

2. Get a stand up portable fan for your den area and a small window ac unit from walmart for your bedroom(about $100). Get plenty of extension cords and a couple power strips. Dont run everything off of the same cord and try to keep your cords as short as possible. Your generator can run your fridge, some lights, a fan and a small ac easily, but it will lose powere if your cords are too long. You also should run several cords from the generator, do not plug everything off of one cord. The cord may not be big enough for the juice. Long cords use more juice than short ones.

All important points. IMO, fan>>A/C, only because it saves gas and draws less power. If A/C is that important to you, get out of town, or go sit in the car.

Some generators actually have separate circuits for separate plugs (why you don't run off one cord). Use one for A/C, one for fridge, one for other. This is also a good time to have satellite, because if it doesn't get misaligned, you are more likely to have TV than with cable.

If your extension cords get hot, don't use them!!


5. You cant have enough bottled water. You need food to eat that doesnt need preparation. Peanut butter is good and cold cuts if you have a generator. Get some bbq stuff for when the storm passes and get ready for the neighbors.

We made a big pot of red beans. Remember, too, if you have a gas stove, you will have to light it, but for the most part, gas service will remain on (unless there is a significant flood event, or tree roots rupture a gas line.

6. You need flashlights and batteries of course. If you have a lot of trees, get your chainsaw ready. Test out your generator and get it all set up the day before the storm. Figure out how you will run cords now, it gets crazy during the storm. Count on your cell phones going out.
The handheld lantern style flashlights work well, as do maglites. You will regret going cheap on flashlights, as you will likely have to replace them next time.

Aircards are nice if you need internet, but same caveat as with cell phones. If you can get different services (sprint, att, etc) within the same household, you are more likely to get service.

8. Good luck to all. Make sure your vehicles are gassed. Dont wait another second, the lines might be too long to get these things.

YES!!!!

All very good points
 
And don't put the generator in the house, like some idiots tend to do.

Or in the garage. The fumes will get in the house and kill you. Generators stay outside. That means you may be without power for a while as the storm passes, but don't fire it up in the garage.
 
Add ice or fill water/milk jugs with ice and stick it in the freezer. This will keep it colder longer. If you have a propane grill, make sure the tank is full or you have a full backup tank. We have a sideburner on our's so if need be, we can heat up something.

- A battery-powered weather radio and/or an emergency radio that can run on solar power or a crank.

Harbor Freight was selling these flashlights that didn't need batteries. It has a small crank that you just cranked up to generate the power you needed for the flashlight. I bought 2 of those for $2 each. I should've bought more.
 
Add ice or fill water/milk jugs with ice and stick it in the freezer. This will keep it colder longer.

This really works...I made a ton of ice this way prior to Ike...milk jugs mostly, but everytime I'd empty a 2-liter bottle of soda or a bottle of juice, I'd fill it up and freeze it. I'd also fill big zip locks of ice cubes and keep those as well. The night before Ike I combined everything frozen into my big standup freezer, and packed the ice jugs and bags of ice among the frozen foods, especially the meats. And I turned everything to the coldest settings...I was amazed at how many people here didn't know to do that! I kept a couple of jugs and several bags of the ice cubes in my freezer inside, ready to stick in the fridge next to the milk and cold cuts. Our power was out for only 12 hours, a miracle now that I see homes around me still without electricity, and we lost NOTHING. We could have gone at least another day, we had so much ice. I had a cooler ready to move everything into if I needed to put the refrigerated stuff into a smaller space once the cold air in the fridge was gone, and duct tape for the seal around the freezer...never even had to do that, thankfully. I ended up giving all my ice away, bits at a time, to a friend of a neighbor who had a parent on insulin.

And even if you're in a "safe" area like we were, get a weeks worth of food for each person. Our groceries, even up here in the NW part of Houston, are just now getting fully restocked, almost a week after Ike. Thankfully I had a ton of those snack crackers with cheese, poptarts, cereal, sandwich stuff, peanut butter, etc., for me and the kids. There are several restaurants around here that are still without power and not open, and those that are were on limited menus for awhile (some still are). And yes, fill that gas tank as soon as a named storm occurs, and keep it topped off. That paid off for me big time.

What didn't I have? D batteries...I honestly couldn't find them for a couple of weeks before Ike; I was trying to find them before Gustav and couldn't. I'm buying them as soon as they get some in. My Coleman camping lamp has been invaluable to me for years; it was a security blanket for my kids. I realized I didn't have an extra bulb for it, and I need to find one. I have looked with no luck, but I need to look harder. It was in the back of my mind that the bulb just might go out...I also need a better flashlight. I thought we had a big one, and couldn't find it, and was stuck with a little cheapo and one small crank flashlight.

Lessons learned...and I learned a lot of good lessons on this thread! Many people asked "how did you know to do that?"

And I'm still keeping a few jugs of ice in my freezer, as Hurricane repellent, LOL.
 
Or in the garage. The fumes will get in the house and kill you. Generators stay outside. That means you may be without power for a while as the storm passes, but don't fire it up in the garage.

You can put it in the garage to keep it dry, as long as you put it next to the garage door, leave the garage door open at least above the generator, and point the exhaust directly outside. But you definitely CAN'T put it in an enclosed garage. Bad news if you do that.
 
Bumping this now because of Louisiana's tax-free weekend on hurricane supplies!

The sales tax exemption applies to the first $1,500 of each item sold.

Here's the list:

Eligible items include:
* Self-powered light sources such as flashlights and candles;
* Portable self-powered radios, two-way radios and weather band radios;
* Tarpaulins or other flexible waterproof sheeting;
* Ground anchor system or tie-down kits;
* Gas or diesel fuel tanks;
* Batteries of various sizes including AAA-cell, D-cell and 9-volt;
* Cellular phone batteries and chargers.
* Nonelectric food storage coolers;
* Storm shutter devices. Those are defined as materials and products manufactured, rated and marketed specifically for preventing wind-blown damage from storms.
* Carbon monoxide detectors, important in case of natural gas service interruption, and "blue ice" and similar reusable cooling products.

And More info
 
With Irene threatening the east coast, another freezer tip....

Put your meats/etc. into garbage bags in the freezer. If you evacuate, add a baggie of ice cubes to your freezer...if and how much they melt will give you a hint on how long your power was out, and how much your food may have thawed, even if your power is on when you get home. Completely thawed and refrozen...pitch the food. Good thing is, all that meat is in garbage bags, so there's no worry of drippage into the coils of your freezer. I also do this even if I'm staying; if the power is out for awhile I certainly don't want to lose cold air by opening the freezer to check to see if the meats are starting to drip. They're in the bag, ready to pitch, cook, or put away as usual.

The ice cube trick really works...in fact, I do that every time I travel...there's nothing like coming home to clocks blinking, and wondering how long the power was out. The condition of the ice cubes gives me a good indication of whether we had an extended outage or just a power blink.
 
For those who are new to the forum, Miss Billie (cajuncook) was one of our original members and a diehard Saints fan who passed in 2007. She really could cook, and put together a mean fantasy team as well, beating out many of the young guys in the early days. :hihi:
 
My tip for those who plan to stay is to put your generator under full load for at least an hour on a hot day. Just cranking it with no load isn't a good test. Mine overheated and shutdown last year due to "air intake gaskets" rotting that direct airflow across the inside the unit. Needed full load conditions on a hot day to know there was a problem. I posted in another thread but I think it's worth repeating. It was an easy fix but would have had me down for the real thing.
 
Also, check your poles.

Isaac showed just how bad entergy's power pole infrastructure is. Some of them snapped like twigs. I realized the pole behind my house is looking like it's rotting through, and I got a 24 hour response from them after I contacted both Entergry and my councilwoman.

Of course it turns out that it's ATT's pole, and while I have an open ticket, they haven't done anything yet. :mad:
 
We are twice as prepared this year as last year. I now have a motorhome that has a 5500 Onan generator plus the one we bought last year. I did my startup and running a few weeks ago on the one I bought last year. So I can either leave or live in the motorhome if necessary. If necessary I can fill up the 80 gallon tank on the motorhome and run the generator for a long time.

My wife is going to Milwaukee to visit family she has not seen since 2006 on August 1 and she is debating going. I told her to go and enjoy herself and I would hold the fort down with a hurricane party.
 
Microchip your pets. Part of the check-up at the vet is scanning the microchip to make sure it's okay.
 
For those who live outside the city, think about getting a buried propane tank. Nothing like having 500 gallons of propane in the ground for water heater and generator when you are without power for 10 days. An efficient instant on water propane water heater will help pay for it over many years.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account on our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Users who are viewing this thread

    Back
    Top Bottom