Hurricane Preparedness Lessons

By Robert Robillard on Home And Personal Safety, Weekend warrior


Lessons from the Eye of Irma

 

Written by Ralph Bagnell

Hurricane Irma made landfall on the southwest Florida coast, with the eye of the storm passing directly over our house. We decided to ride out the storm, and while we were well prepared and suffered very little property damage, there were a number of interesting lessons to be learned that I wanted to pass along. I cannot add much to the wealth of general preparedness information out there already, but I can pass along the unexpected things I learned during this storm, those things that surprised me.

Evacuate or No?

The very first item is to decide about evacuation early and act on the decision as soon as possible. The path of storms are hard to predict. By the time it became clear that we were in the direct path, it was simply too late to leave.

Decide Early, Act Early

Days early. If you are at all unprepared or live in an area prone to flooding or damage, better to leave early and risk the storm missing than to suffer a direct hit unprepared.

Battening Down

I was surprised by how many folks did not store or secure loose items around their yards. 120 plus mile per hour winds are much stronger than you think. Anything that can be moved, assume that the wind will move them. The number of items I saw blowing down our street was larger than it should have been. Keeping trees and shrubs pruned will also go a long way toward protecting your property and other’s.

Screen houses and pool enclosures tend to flex a lot more than expected. The doors on my pool yard were latched and locked, but the frame began flexing early in the storm, and the catches slipped off the strikers. I ended up removing the doors, and neighbors that did not had damage to doors and frames.

Generator

We lost power for 5 days. Our generator was great to have but there were surprises here too. I had it set up to run my well pump and refrigerator, so we had water and kept food fresh. But I found that my 7000 watt generator could have powered a lot more if I had had the house wired properly. It is not big enough for my A/C system or stove, but can run most of the 110 volt circuits in the house.

I will be having an electrician install a disconnect switch and line to feed the house off the generator. Being able to run the lights and ceiling fans would have made our experience a lot more pleasant. Fuel

Fuel

My generator runs about 11 hours on it’s 5 gallon fuel tank. Even though I left it off at night, my two 5-gallon gas cans were not nearly enough. More gas cans will be purchased. With power outages and delivery issues, supplies at gas stations were spotty and the lines were quite long.

We had two cars on hand with full tanks which could provide an additional 20-odd gallons, but only if you can siphon them. Modern cars are designed to resist siphoning, and there were certainly no siphon kits to be bought as the storm approached.

While siphon kits were sold out, the local auto parts stores did have brake bleeding pumps in stock. These are hand operated vacuum pumps that easily drew fuel up from the tanks of my cars when I tried one. Be sure you have enough tubing on hand, some cars have very long filler necks. And while on the subject of fuel, refill your outdoor grill tank, local supplies of propane will disappear early too.

Water

Water is critical, but AFTER the storm there can be issues with contamination with wells and even public supplies. Most filters will NOT remove biological contaminants. We have a small Reverse Osmosis System that is effective against coliform bacteria and E. coli, but it has limited capacity. We have since installed a whole house UV purifier that kills all biological contaminants before they enter the house. For less than $1000.00 installed, it is inexpensive protection and can be run off the generator with the well pump.

Batteries

Batteries turned out to be one of the bigger surprises of our experience. We stocked up on the various sizes we needed, but used none of them! Having grown up with old school flashlights, I expected to go through a number of batteries. But modern LED devices are remarkably bright and efficient. We literally did not need to change a single battery in 5 days without power. Stock some batteries, but you probably will need fewer than you think.

Communication

Common wisdom is that you need a land line phone because cell phone services are easily interrupted. We never lost cell signal even at the height of the storm, and at least in our neighborhood, the land lines were down right along with the power. They share the same poles after all. Texting is believed to reduce traffic on the cell networks, and I guess everyone took that to heart because many text messages were delayed or simply did not send. But we never lost the ability to make voice calls. Turns out cellular networks are far more robust than expected.

Don,t fail to Prepare

Every storm situation is different, and you need to be serious about preparation. Hopefully, our experiences can help you be better prepared the next time you find the weather closing in.

Ralph Bagnall is a woodworking author and host of Amazon’s Woodcademy TV. His website is www.woodcademy.com

 

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

About the author

Robert Robillard

Carpenter / Remodeler / Editor

Rob Robillard is “The Concord Carpenter” Rob is a builder, general contractor, carpenter, woodworker, and editor of Concord Carpenter and ToolBoxBuzz As a General Contractor and carpenter, Rob owns and operates Concord Carpenter LLC. A full-service remodeling and construction company. Rob is a recognized leader in home building best practices and a source for how-to information for building professionals. On this website, Rob covers all aspects of home construction, building science, home improvement, woodworking, remodeling, and some of the best product and tool reviews. Rob is in charge of our Tool and Product Review series - Concord Carpenter Videos where we post all of our tool reviews and video tutorials. Rob approaches remodeling and building construction with a pragmatic and problem-solving approach. He enjoys using his knowledge and experience to help and educate building professionals as well as DIYers on best practices in the construction and remodeling industry. He's a strong advocate for "raising the bar" in the construction trades and promoting the trades to youth. #BeAMentor #Green2Great Craftsmanship, quality, and pride guide his journey on this channel The Concord Carpenter's motto: "Well done is better than well said!" : Read more about Rob

All posts by Robert »

Not what you're looking for?

Search for more articles here. Enter keywords like roof leak, bookcase, deck, etc to find your topic.

© Copyright 2019 A Concord Carpenter · All Rights Reserved