Hurricane kits

Check out the different downspout ideas you see around...there are many simple tricks for disconnecting them.

PS: the easiest I've ever heard of (popular with renters) is to jam a nerf football into the holes in your roof.

Everything points to a very active season. Some of the following is snipped from Jeff Master's wunderground blog. A link is provided at the bottom.

"Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) in the Atlantic's Main Development Region for hurricanes had their warmest March on record....SST data goes back to 1850, though there is much missing data before 1910 and during WWI and WWII." SST's in early April were already higher than they were during late June last year.

"The high March SST anomaly does not bode well for the coming hurricane season. The three past seasons with record warm March SST anomalies all had abnormally high numbers of intense hurricanes. Past hurricane seasons that had high March SST anomalies include 1969 (1.06°C anomaly), 2005 (0.93°C anomaly), and 1958 (0.93°C anomaly). These three years had 5, 7, and 5 intense hurricanes, respectively. Just two intense hurricanes occur in an average year. The total averaged activity for the three seasons was 15 named storms, 11 hurricanes, and 6 intense hurricanes (an average hurricane season has 10, 6, and 2.) Both 1958 and 2005 saw neutral El Niño conditions, while 1969 had a weak El Niño. So, even if this year's El Niño lingers on into hurricane season, it may not protect us from a hyper-active hurricane season--the weak El Niño year of 1969 had 18 named storms, 12 hurricanes, and 5 intense hurricanes."

Lots more details here. Scroll down to his post on April 12, 2010

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/archive.html?year=2010&month=04

getting on or off stx after Hugo was not easy for quite a while, but hopefully we will not see a storm like that again here in my lifetime....we had previously reserved tickets on AA from JFK for the day after Hugo, so AA just kept advancing our seats till they finally flew...but no luggage for another 10 days...getting off stx was VERY difficult....Picture if you can a plane arriving on stx...where the AA staff has NO IDEA what time it will actually land, or more important how many/what seats will be open, since there was no communication with AA anywhere else...meanwhile folks would start to line up at the stx airport at 7 am or earlier, for the flight at 3 or 4 or sometime like that....plane went from JFK to STT to STX to JFK....AA staff would then have to let only the number of passengers on for which there were open seats....I know of one flight two weeks or so after the storm (and I'm sure there were more) where an extra passenger boarded, and someone had no seat, and everyone refused to get off....etc, etc.... it was no fun. No idea what the situation was on STT after Marilyn, the stx conditions were not as bad as in '89.
We have beenin the states and followed storm forcasts, trying to decide if we should just jump on a plane and return or not...knowing that if it hits it is a couple days at least before we could return , and they usually cut flights off the day before it is due to hit....

did anyone mention rum.....lots of rum.....for medical purposes of course*-)

Yes, but put it on top of the hurricane kit. You'll need it first!!!!

Seriously, we should start a thread that lists the essentials of the hurricane kit then the extras that just make life a little better after a storm. I got power back in early December after Marilyn in late September. It was an adventure in ingenuity.

A real hallmark moment - since the STT airport was closed after the storm but Tortola was open ferries were running people over to Tortola. I gave a dozen of them a business card sized piece of paper with my name and my mom's number. I asked these strangers to call my mom - our communications were out - and let her know I was safe. Do you know every one of them called from all over the world. It was a wonderful thing!

We left STJ after Marilyn due to lack of work prospects and moved to STT. The place we rented had 5 foot water marks in the closet. AFter the first two years of living there I got tired of packing up my closets and the under the cupboard kitchen, desk and bath stuff. I boat kiddy inflatable boats and just loaded stuff out and into the boats. When the water rose they floated around the apartment. It was hilarious! Got even funnier after the rum.

Pamela

All I can say is - diesel generator!

Getting our machine from Import Supply was one of the best investmentswe have made. Peace of mind and consistent power through all the WAPA outages.

A real hallmark moment - since the STT airport was closed after the storm but Tortola was open ferries were running people over to Tortola. I gave a dozen of them a business card sized piece of paper with my name and my mom's number. I asked these strangers to call my mom - our communications were out - and let her know I was safe. Do you know every one of them called from all over the world. It was a wonderful thing!

This kind of thing is why I live here. 🙂 Thanks for sharing that, Pamela!!

Tried last year, but family issues got in the way, now I am once again planning a travel nurse assignment in August on STT. I have no experience in hurricane weather, so a quick question...where do you going during the storm??? Are most apartment complexes built to withstand the winds?? I guess, my real question is...is there a large risk of being injured during the storm, or is it mostly damage to properties?? Thanks and excuse my ignorance :).

For personal safety during a hurricane, move to the nearest "safe" room, which you identify before the storm, whether it's in your house or a neighbor's. The room is usually at or below ground level. The more concrete around and above you, the better. Consider whether the room's doors and windows, if any, are adequately protected, such as with hurricane shutters. Consider whether flooding will affect the room, such as from heavy rain, cistern overflow, or storm surge.

Surviving the storm is usually trivial compared to the aftermath, where it could be months before things are normal again with electricity, phone, food, re-construction, etc.

I would not , in any fashion, consider 'surviving the storm is usually trivial' ------- Make Darn Sure the room you choose to withstand a Hurricane is well protected - shutters,concrete, height above sea level. not susceptible to blowing debris, has protected openings etc.
Without a doubt the next 3 months are a trial by fire for patience and survival skills -- but protecting yourself -- not your possessions during the storm is Paramount in importance!

It looks like this season is starting much earlier than normal. Hold on to your hats! This update from Crown Weather:

"Based upon analysis of current and forecast signals from the various computer forecast models, warmer than normal sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Basin and the fact that there are already active tropical waves in the central and eastern Atlantic, there is a pretty good chance that we may have some sort of tropical development by the end of this month or early next month.

Because of this, I have decided to start issuing tropical weather discussions starting on Tuesday morning, May 18th.

Everything that I have looked at thus far continues to point towards an above average hurricane season with multiple threats or landfalls on the US coastline and the Caribbean islands."

Exit Zero: To quote my entire sentence, with emphasis added: "Surviving the storm is usually trivial compared to the aftermath"

That is, with a liitle effort, you can usually hunker down properly for the storm. With a huge amount of effort, you can get through the next few months.

Thanks for the kit list. Moving there July 1, think I'll start ordering and shipping some supplies now....