Hurricane Season 2019: Who's Ready?

[hereyago]

Yes it's that time of year.

I am prepared but I am always kind of funny when it comes to hurricanes etc.

If you are in the zone for hurricane; are you ready?

Oddly enough my dad's name is on the name list this year oh goody

 

[JLTraveling]

I'm prepared- I have a vehicle in good condition and plenty of places to go. I live in New Orleans, and after Katrina I don't take chances. For a Cat 1 or 2, we'll buy some extra bottled water and nonperishable food, and get out some cash. Cat 3 or above, we're out early. Fortunately I work from home and my dad's retired, so we're free to just go.

 

[wgeo]

Haven't finished my prep list yet, we're going on a long vacation soon so I'm going to wait to buy things like gas until after we get back home.

 

[luvsJack]

I keep extra food all the time. We will be buying extra supplies for the grill each week. And buy extra water each week but we don’t go crazy with lots of prep. Too much stuff that may or may not get used by the next season.

If one gets in the gulf, we will fill up gas cans and make sure we have plenty of cash. And be careful to keep the car filled with gas. At that point probably double up the bottled water. And make sure we have plenty of sandwich and ready to eat supplies.

We don’t live on the coast but with a big one we do get affected. Dd does live on the coast so we are their place to evacuate to. As well as ds and his kids who live in an area more likely to flood and for some reason more prone to the offshoot tornados.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I need to replace my battery powered fans, but other than that we are good.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

We haven't done anything really major.

We've bought new batteries, checked the flashlights and propane tanks (for cooking on the camp stoves/grill in case of power failure), filled the gas can with gas (just a couple gallons, but hey, it can help).

Next weekend, I'm going to finish out my monthly shopping (did some yesterday) and will grab a few extra canned/boxed good (boil in bag rice, canned beans and chili and tomatoes, pasta, peanut butter, etc). We have five 5 gallon water bottles (like for a water cooler) that we will fill if we get a hurricane notice, plus I have a 5 gallon drink cooler and a 2.5gallon drink cooler that I can fill up as well. For the next few months, I'll switch from shopping one big shopping trip with a couple of small ones for fresh stuff per month to shopping every other weekend for 2 weeks worth of food (unless I hit a total sale, like I did last month...$1.99 a lb. for pork tenderloin at The Fresh Market..I bought the 5 that they had left...).; so I'm not going to have a freezer full of meats and veggies if we lose power. I do need to replenish the meals box (for when DH/DS go on hikes or backpacking campouts; PackIt Gourmet is the best we've found); I usually keep 4 or 5 meals worth per person in there but they used them doing hikes over the fall/winter/spring.

Now that we have a deep freezer, I have a 20 lb bag of ice in the fridge freezer almost constantly (cause I love the texture on the ice from the ice machine up the road). If we get a hurricane notice, I'll run up to the ice machine and get 5+ bags and toss them in the deep freezer. I'll put the plastic bags of ice in big plastic boxes, so as they melt, the water won't flood the freezer, lol, and create a mess to deal with.

DH and DS are keeping up on the outside, trimming tree branches/etc. We do need to get into the garage and organize it yet again, so we can fit the car in there. Other than that, not much else to do. We already have the weather radio. Not moving the trash cans into the garage until I have to, same with the stuff on the backporch. Already own all the gear we might need, and it all works.

 

[Southernmiss]

I don't do anything extra until one moves into the Gulf.

Always have food on hand in the pantry and freezer. Yard and home maintenance are always taken care of.

Next time we get gas for the lawnmower we'll fill up 2 10 gallon cans.

Cat 3 or higher, we'll get serious depending on where it's going.

We fill up all autos with gas, freeze water in containers, fill up bath tubs with water, decide to board up or not, bring in porch furniture, add to pantry items, decide to evacuate or not.

 

[pcstang]

I’m still replacing beds in the panhandle from Micheal.

 

[LSUmiss]

Yes it's that time of year.

I am prepared but I am always kind of funny when it comes to hurricanes etc.

If you are in the zone for hurricane; are you ready?

Oddly enough my dad's name is on the name list this year oh goody

My name is on the list too...and no, I’m not ready. I’ll have to be if something comes up but hoping for a quiet season.

 

[LSUmiss]

I'm prepared- I have a vehicle in good condition and plenty of places to go. I live in New Orleans, and after Katrina I don't take chances. For a Cat 1 or 2, we'll buy some extra bottled water and nonperishable food, and get out some cash. Cat 3 or above, we're out early. Fortunately I work from home and my dad's retired, so we're free to just go.

Yeah, but with the river so high right now, I’m not sure if I would even stay for a TS or Cat 1 or 2 now. Just hoping they get that under control before we see any real threat.

 

[hereyago]

I’m still replacing beds in the panhandle from Micheal.

I'm sorry.

 

[snappy]

Are they opening the Morganza Spillway after all today? It was supposed to be today, then June 6th. We are getting nervous near the river in Baton Rouge.

We are filling our gas cans and getting cash tomorrow regardless. Loaded up with pantry items and water today. All meds are filled.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Are they opening the Morganza Spillway after all today? It was supposed to be today, then June 6th. We are getting nervous near the river in Baton Rouge.

We are filling our gas cans and getting cash tomorrow regardless. Loaded up with pantry items and water today. All meds are filled.

I thought they were opening it up slowly to allow the area to fill with water more slowly. And so the black bears could get to higher ground more easily.

 

[Deb & Bill]

So Andrea has already happened. On to the second name.

 

[luvflorida]

We are new to Florida, so this will be our first experience with hurricanes. It does make me a little nervous thinking about the months ahead! We are in the Orlando area, so not on the coast. Our house, however, has quite a few big trees around it and a small lake right behind us. We also have a large screened-in lanai, and I know many, many houses in Florida have them, but I can't for the life of me understand how these screen enclosures hold up in a hurricane!
I'm finding a lot of good info on preparations by reading this thread, so thank you, hereyago, for posting it!

 

[BrinkofSunshine]

We are new to Florida, so this will be our first experience with hurricanes. It does make me a little nervous thinking about the months ahead! We are in the Orlando area, so not on the coast. Our house, however, has quite a few big trees around it and a small lake right behind us. We also have a large screened-in lanai, and I know many, many houses in Florida have them, but I can't for the life of me understand how these screen enclosures hold up in a hurricane!
I'm finding a lot of good info on preparations by reading this thread, so thank you, hereyago, for posting it!

If we get a big enough hurricane, the screens are the most likely thing you’ll see damaged. My friend’s patio (including the roof!) was destroyed in Irma. Back when Charley tore through in 2004, driving around you’d see house after house with destroyed pool screens.

 

[LSUmiss]

I thought they were opening it up slowly to allow the area to fill with water more slowly. And so the black bears could get to higher ground more easily.

I’m not sure the latest. The last I’d heard was they didn’t need to do it as soon as they thought. I think we’re all fine as long as we don’t get a storm. It’s crazy though b/c the water table is so high here. We need our pool replastered but with the water table so high it’s too dangerous to do & we are probably about 2 miles from the levee. I heard in BR water is seeping up through concrete like around River Road by LSU’s campus.

 

[hereyago]

I'm finding a lot of good info on preparations by reading this thread, so thank you, hereyago, for posting it!

You are welcome! If you do a search here on Dis, there are past threads of hurricane tips.

Hopefully this season will be a mild one.

 

[Frozen Canuck]

We are new to Florida, so this will be our first experience with hurricanes. It does make me a little nervous thinking about the months ahead! We are in the Orlando area, so not on the coast. Our house, however, has quite a few big trees around it and a small lake right behind us. We also have a large screened-in lanai, and I know many, many houses in Florida have them, but I can't for the life of me understand how these screen enclosures hold up in a hurricane!
I'm finding a lot of good info on preparations by reading this thread, so thank you, hereyago, for posting it!

This was a thread that was started last year that has a lot of helpful tips.

Hurricane Tips Here Comes Florence

 

[Deb & Bill]

We are new to Florida, so this will be our first experience with hurricanes. It does make me a little nervous thinking about the months ahead! We are in the Orlando area, so not on the coast. Our house, however, has quite a few big trees around it and a small lake right behind us. We also have a large screened-in lanai, and I know many, many houses in Florida have them, but I can't for the life of me understand how these screen enclosures hold up in a hurricane!
I'm finding a lot of good info on preparations by reading this thread, so thank you, hereyago, for posting it!

We just moved to Marco Island at the end of July 2017. Six weeks later, Hurricane Irma made landfall here on the island. We didn't have any shutters, impact windows, nothing. Our house was built in 2000, so the roof was older, the pool cage screening was older, etc. We got back from our evacuation and found lots of shingles gone, but the roof basically intact. The pool cage had screening missing (or in the pool) about 60%. We didn't have any water intrusion (that's what we were worried about the most since they reported we were going to have 20 foot surge) and the power and utilities were on and working absolutely perfectly. We got a new roof, added impact windows and front door to the front of the house and shutters on the other three side and replaced the screening on our pool cage.

Irma was a different hurricane since it was so wide and affected almost the entire state. So Orlando did get affected. I don't think you have too much to worry about other than tornados as offshoots of the storm. And any rain if the storm lingers over the state instead of moving out quickly. You'll want some water stashed if you lose water pressure, some food that you can prepare if you lose power, etc. Make sure your insurance is up to date. I know our homeowners' insurance didn't cover the pool cage, so we paid out of pocket for those repairs. Check with your neighbors to see if they have flood insurance or not. When we first got flood insurance in Louisiana, we were not in a flood zone, so it was only about $270 a year. After we made two claims, it jumped up to about $2400 a year. Our flood insurance on the island which is a flood zone, is higher than what we paid at the beginning in Louisiana, but not nearly as high as it was after our two claims.