General Weather/Earth Sciences Topics > Tropical Weather

Hurricane Preparation Guide

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Anole:
I just posted part one of a three part guide I've been writing on getting ready for hurricane season. This first part covers the actions to take before the season starts. Part two will cover what to do when a storm approaches, and part three will cover the aftermath. Take a look and let me know what you think. As always I'm open to comments and if you can think of anything that's been left out let me know.

http://weather.anolecomputer.com/

and go to the Wx Blog in the menu.

ncpilot:
We may have messaged about it before, but forgot you went through Floyd... I decided to evacuate from Wilmington to the Chapel Hill area--what a cluster F*** on I-40... 6+ hour drive from Wilm to Hillsborough. Then I couldn't get back because all the incoming roads to Wilm were flooded... and all the while I was listening on the radio about how it was weakening...

Anyway...

Re: home property inventories, the IRS has some forms that can be used as a starting point--from schedule:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p584.pdf

It's nice because it lists items I wouldn't have thought about documenting.

This is in addition to photos or videos of course...

Re: pets... fortunately, after Katrina, officials are realizing that people are very unwilling to evacuate if they can't take their pets, so there is a very large movement to make accommodations in shelters for pet owners... very much a local issue. So as you say, find out about it ahead of time.

Re: water--I've thought about adding a water filtering device to my "hurricane kit"--one of those devices primarily designed for camping. Cost about $60 or so... that solves the potable water need with no preparation, no water storage, light weight, portable, etc... although of course, your suggestions serve other purposes also... like freezing containers.

Re: food... c'mon, you know very well that the first section of the grocery store to disappear pre-hurricane is the alcohol section... can't have too much beer post-hurricane!!!!!  :lol:  :lol:

Re: tools, after Katrina, it might not be a bad idea to have some type of axe handy...? Of course , that's kinda specific to massive flooding when you're below sea level, but still...

Gotta run to a meeting...  still ruminating on other additions...

But great idea, and excellent start...

Marc
(we'll get to the ammo/knife/firearm needs later...  :shock: )

Anole:
A couple of good suggestion there, in particular the water filter and axe.

On Floyd, the amount of rain and flooding was incredible. I was living in Pilot, NC at the time about 5 or 6 miles from the Tar River. There's a section of old US 64 that drops down to a bridge crossing the river just west of Spring Hope. On either side of the bridge are telephone poles to carry the lines across the river. When you looked out across that section of road after Floyd, all you could see was about a foot of one of the telphone poles sticking out of the water. That means the water was a good twenty feet over the bridge! Floyd is the perfect example of why you can't just look at the "strength" of a storm when trying to decide how dangerous it might be.

One of the biggest problems in the weeks after Floyd was washed out roads. You had to be very careful driving around, particularly in Nash county because all of the sudden the road would just go away! Most of those cases where culverts crossing under the road that normally were empty or just carried a trickle of water and couldn't handle the deluge.

ncpilot:
Also, if weight is an issue, there are more food products becoming available in foil type packaging, like tuna/salmon e.g....

I think Wilmington got about 22-23" of rain from Floyd.

The main issue I now have with evacuation is you're not necessarily guaranteed more safety inland--at least in NC (all things being equal, assuming you've got a home structure built to recent code). Just look at Hugo and Fran, both bore straight inland, to Charlotte and Triangle area respectively. I have friends in Durham that were without power for about a week after Fran (although admittedly, they certainly had less damage than say Topsail Beach). Lots of damage from falling trees though, and then there's the tornado risk...

I'm pretty inclined to stick it out now... but I also have an extremely low risk of flooding...

Here's to hoping all the storms stay at sea!

Anole:
Fran was yet another example of how the indicated "strength" of a storm can be misleading. The big thing with Fran was that we had had about 2 weeks of steady rain and the ground was already pretty saturated. Tree came down right and left. Many areas were impassable for days because there were so many trees down. The highest winds we saw were "only" about 80mph, but with the ground as wet as it was before Fran came through, that was plenty to wreak havoc. It took 9 days for us to get power back because of trees down on the lines. One of them was the 85' tall pecan tree in our yard that came down missing the house by about 7 feet when it fell into the road.

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