hurricane preparedness

Hello Tammy,

Consider whether your house/apartment is well built, sturdy; if you don't think it is then you'd want to figure out which of your friends/neighbors has a sturdy house that you could stay with while the hurricane is passing or look into shelters. Good idea to also have friends/neighbors to go to if something does happen to your house. Storm shutters, make sure you have the tools to put them up and make sure they fit... it can be quite frustrating in the panic of preparing to find you are missing a screw, the panel doesn't quite fit right etc. This might not apply... depends on what type of shutters you are getting. A power outage after a hurricane... depends on how much damage there is. Can be days, weeks... can be months! The areas that are priorities are airport, hospital, general infrastructure related entities. The strictly residential areas take longer and also the ones furthest from the priority areas. At least this was the observation after past hurricanes on St. Thomas. Food... get dried and can foods for a few weeks. It is possible to get food after a storm, often times its a long process but possible; again depends on the severity of the storm damage. Churches and other organizations often distribute some food items. The hospitals go into emergency mode, they get help when FEMA and other federal agencies arrive. Of course getting to the hospital can be difficult or impossible during and just after a storm so someone with special medical needs might consider staying at a shelter or inquiring with their physician on what the best option is. I don't know if shelters have a medical person on location but it seems they should. Couple things for preparation that apply to outside the house; cut trees close to power lines and close to your house, also trim tall plants. Secure all items; chairs, tables, potted plants etc. If you have a gas stove, turn off the gas tanks/lines and tie the tanks down. If you do some searches on line you can find articles on websites like FEMA, Red Cross etc. about hurricane preparation. Hope this helps.

--Islander

Thanks Islander.
Tammy

Hey lady! As I know where you live, I think that even with a truck, one of the hard things will be access to other parts of the island. You might be able to get food, but might be challenged with other things like food for your pets, even cleaning or washing products. They run out on the island even without a storm.

Last year, we did a drill. We have solar products, lots of bottled water that really can be used several times for different things, paper products for eating, deterrants for mosquitoes which I have only heard BOOM after a large storm, etc. Even though we have a lot from last year, as it has been in storage, we need to check for mold, any varmints getting into supplies, revolving things like the water, which I will use now for treating plants, will need to be replaced.

I also noticed that some of the bleach was not Clorox. Many of the off brands are watered down, so using it is not as consistent, so those will be refreshed, lots of canned and other non-perishible foods put up. I even planted trees (Kiki Kiki Chaya) that has basically full protein, vitamins, minerals and iron.

Living where you did, I think you are a jump ahead of a lot of folks, but never forget the last minute rush. Lots of things will get wiped out, just as they did last summer if it even looked like there was the potential of a close call.

I don't know if this helps, but I hope so. If not, I guess i'm in about the same boat!

L

Dan