Author Topic: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?  (Read 13212 times)

Zooport

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I have no experience with hurricanes and I'm curious about how locals think of hurricanes.  What is your agenda when there is a hurricane coming?  Do you wait until the last minute to evacuate so you can catch the good, pre-storm surf?  Do you evacuate at all?  I'm sure you sand bag and board up your house, but how do you deal with those things?
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Dwight (DW)

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2019, 10:22:00 AM »
You don’t need to go anywhere unless you live ocean front or dam close.

Put away anything that can fly away. Outdoor furniture, etc. Plan for power outage, mostly.

For anyone inland, it’s a fallen tree, flash flood event.


APPST_Paddle

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #2 on: August 31, 2019, 10:42:19 AM »
You don’t need to go anywhere unless you live ocean front or dam close.

Put away anything that can fly away. Outdoor furniture, etc. Plan for power outage, mostly.

For anyone inland, it’s a fallen tree, flash flood event.

What he said, media, especially these days loves to hype it up. It's really not a big deal, the hysteria before hand is probably worse.

Where do you live? I will say, the one place I probably would maybe think about leaving is OBX, just because you can get cut off.
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Zooport

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2019, 11:45:02 AM »
You don’t need to go anywhere unless you live ocean front or dam close.

Put away anything that can fly away. Outdoor furniture, etc. Plan for power outage, mostly.

For anyone inland, it’s a fallen tree, flash flood event.

What he said, media, especially these days loves to hype it up. It's really not a big deal, the hysteria before hand is probably worse.

Where do you live? I will say, the one place I probably would maybe think about leaving is OBX, just because you can get cut off.

Newport Beach for 38 years, but now I've moved to Charlotte, NC about a year ago. 
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APPST_Paddle

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #4 on: August 31, 2019, 11:54:54 AM »
You don’t need to go anywhere unless you live ocean front or dam close.

Put away anything that can fly away. Outdoor furniture, etc. Plan for power outage, mostly.

For anyone inland, it’s a fallen tree, flash flood event.

What he said, media, especially these days loves to hype it up. It's really not a big deal, the hysteria before hand is probably worse.

Where do you live? I will say, the one place I probably would maybe think about leaving is OBX, just because you can get cut off.

Newport Beach for 38 years, but now I've moved to Charlotte, NC about a year ago.

Oh yeah, you are good, you are closer to mountains than the ocean. The only areas inland that typically run into issues is Eastern NC/NE NC where it's all mostly swamp. Nothing to worry about in Charlotte, I'd try and hit up WB or actually probably Topsail on Sunday/Monday.

Boarding up a house is pretty pointless unless you are oceanfront or just have a ton of small limbs, etc. around you that you think could conceivably crack a window. Again, mostly a waste of time.
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mrbig

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #5 on: August 31, 2019, 12:40:23 PM »
Rent, beg, buy a generator! Nice to have power which can be out for far longer than you would
like!
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Scallop

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #6 on: August 31, 2019, 01:15:58 PM »
For perspective; Floridian since the late 80's, prior to that grew up in South Jersey, been through a bunch of Hurricanes. I think Bell was the first one in Jersey when I was a kid on LBI. I'm also in the post disaster business so I'm often in early to the impact zone. I entered the Keys on a government pass through the Matecumbe road block 24 hrs post the last storm there.

Depends where I'm living and the strength of the storm. I don't pay much attention unless it goes above cat 3. I prepare mostly to compensate for the over preparers who can suck up day to day resources in a panic. I top off the cars, buy extra beer and few gallons of water if I think we may get some real impact, although I have never had to use any reserve water. Having a generator is nice and when I lived on the East coast I had a bang up one. Funny story once with FPL coming to my house once knocking on the door post storm. I had the whole place lit up, fridge running, window shaker humming, etc.  They knocked and asked if I had power somehow, was the only house lit up. Power was out 2 weeks, no power is a PITA.

The sand bag thing cracks me up but hey whatever makes you feel better I guess. If you live in a river flood plain maybe it will help. I have good windows, plywood isn't going to help anything.

Beach front versus just inland a short distance can be a big difference. Each storm is different but just a small distance outside of the actual eye wall zone will have totally different impacts. If you travel through an impact zone the travel of the edge of the eye is very easy to see in the impact to the landscape. There could every tree knocked down then a distinct line where it ends and all of the trees look untouched.

Nothing fleshes out poor construction like a hurricane either. If you saw the pictures form Mexico Beach it was very easy to see how construction quality played a part in structure survival. Same thing down in the Keys. I prefer to live in block houses myself.

Looks like this one is staying off shore which is good, our local guy called that almost 2 days ago when the forward motion was predicted to slow down. We have some good local Meteorologists here who report reasonably on storms as opposed to a National like CNN, those guys are way out of hand on the over hype run for the hills at all costs BS.

Not to say if you are looking at a strong 4 or 5 right on the head with the eye wall coming right over top or very close to you, water front or on a barrier island you shouldn't back out, that's a different deal. If you live in a mobile home well you've got no choice.

Hope you East coast guys get some clean surf out of it next week.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2019, 01:26:44 PM by Scallop »
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Zooport

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #7 on: August 31, 2019, 01:21:04 PM »
You don’t need to go anywhere unless you live ocean front or dam close.

Put away anything that can fly away. Outdoor furniture, etc. Plan for power outage, mostly.

For anyone inland, it’s a fallen tree, flash flood event.

What he said, media, especially these days loves to hype it up. It's really not a big deal, the hysteria before hand is probably worse.

Where do you live? I will say, the one place I probably would maybe think about leaving is OBX, just because you can get cut off.

Newport Beach for 38 years, but now I've moved to Charlotte, NC about a year ago.

Oh yeah, you are good, you are closer to mountains than the ocean. The only areas inland that typically run into issues is Eastern NC/NE NC where it's all mostly swamp. Nothing to worry about in Charlotte, I'd try and hit up WB or actually probably Topsail on Sunday/Monday.

Boarding up a house is pretty pointless unless you are oceanfront or just have a ton of small limbs, etc. around you that you think could conceivably crack a window. Again, mostly a waste of time.


Yeah, I'm not worried about our place.  We'll just get an annoying amount of rain, it's the people on the coast I'm worried about.
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supthecreek

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #8 on: August 31, 2019, 02:30:08 PM »
Fill up the car early.
Evacuations orders cause shortages on everything.
If you live in a dangerous location.... leave days early, the highways get insane in the late stages.
Nothing wrong with a 2 day getaway, if the storm misses you town.

Power outages can last for week in badly hit areas, so you have to plan ahead for that.

I never leave Cape Cod during a hurricane but I do:
Have power packs for my phone... it may be the only way to keep up with events.
I can recharge my power packs from my fully gassed up car.... and I don't park it under any trees  :)

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are great for long outages... stuff like that.

Have some nice wine in stock.... cheese and crackers

Wax up my boards and wait for the wind to switch!


Night Wing

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #9 on: August 31, 2019, 06:06:39 PM »
@ supthecreek

I like your preparations.  8)
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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #10 on: August 31, 2019, 09:01:43 PM »
Definitely get a generator if you can.  We have a Honda i2000, it purrs  like a kitten you barely know it’s on. It runs about 12 - 14 hrs on a tank full depending what you are running off it. I used to power a small guest apartment using this small generator. It’s very portable, sips gas and is so quiet your neighbors will appreciate it.

Stock up on water...fill  your bathtubs with water and use that to flush toilets should you lose power. If you dont get a generator, buy some Coleman battery operated lanterns and plenty of batteries.  Fill coolers with ice to save your food.  They sell solar phone chargers which would help. Also a crank wind up radio, light, phone charger comes in handy. 
I have found most times that the pre storm panic and the post storm chaos is much worse than the actual storm. Those idiots who didn’t plan or stock up become savages after a storm

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APPST_Paddle

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #11 on: September 01, 2019, 02:49:43 AM »
Definitely get a generator if you can.  We have a Honda i2000, it purrs  like a kitten you barely know it’s on. It runs about 12 - 14 hrs on a tank full depending what you are running off it. I used to power a small guest apartment using this small generator. It’s very portable, sips gas and is so quiet your neighbors will appreciate it.

Stock up on water...fill  your bathtubs with water and use that to flush toilets should you lose power. If you dont get a generator, buy some Coleman battery operated lanterns and plenty of batteries.  Fill coolers with ice to save your food.  They sell solar phone chargers which would help. Also a crank wind up radio, light, phone charger comes in handy. 
I have found most times that the pre storm panic and the post storm chaos is much worse than the actual storm. Those idiots who didn’t plan or stock up become savages after a storm

Agree with all of this - the smaller inverter generators are the way to go, you don't need everything running, but a TV and OTA antenna for football (especially this upcoming weekend) and a mini-fridge are ideal, and they are quiet and don't suck gas. I have the same one. I've only used it during Matthew for a little bit of time.

In Charlotte by the way - I doubt you will get much rain if at all. Far as water/ice and all of that, small water bottles frozen before hand work well as ice. Lower the AC and fridge temps before hand to give yourself some buffer. Also.......there's an easy solution to all of the food in your fridge possibly going bad, ready for it...........eat it. Ha, I grill like a champ during power outages.

Again, the hype these days before and after is probably worse than the storm for 95% of people.
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Ichabod Spoonbill

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #12 on: September 01, 2019, 04:28:13 AM »
Even inland the hurricane can have a big effect. Hurricane Irene wasn't a big deal on the coast, but when it went to upstate NY it caused a lot of erosion, flooding, downed trees. Do what Creek said, but also be prepared to be without basic services for a while. The underground stuff (water, gas) is usually fine but electricity is fragile. We always stock up on nonperishables, especially Parmalat for milk. (Same thing when a big snowstorm comes through.) Roads can be inaccessible too, so be prepared for that. Make sure you have a supply of necessary prescriptions.

I think too have some tools to prepare for downed trees on your property. Unless the tree is in a dangerous place, like leaning on power lines, it's not going to get taken care of immediately.
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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #13 on: September 01, 2019, 02:09:52 PM »
you dont ppower your fridge off the generator?

Definitely get a generator if you can.  We have a Honda i2000, it purrs  like a kitten you barely know it’s on. It runs about 12 - 14 hrs on a tank full depending what you are running off it. I used to power a small guest apartment using this small generator. It’s very portable, sips gas and is so quiet your neighbors will appreciate it.

Stock up on water...fill  your bathtubs with water and use that to flush toilets should you lose power. If you dont get a generator, buy some Coleman battery operated lanterns and plenty of batteries.  Fill coolers with ice to save your food.  They sell solar phone chargers which would help. Also a crank wind up radio, light, phone charger comes in handy. 
I have found most times that the pre storm panic and the post storm chaos is much worse than the actual storm. Those idiots who didn’t plan or stock up become savages after a storm

Agree with all of this - the smaller inverter generators are the way to go, you don't need everything running, but a TV and OTA antenna for football (especially this upcoming weekend) and a mini-fridge are ideal, and they are quiet and don't suck gas. I have the same one. I've only used it during Matthew for a little bit of time.

In Charlotte by the way - I doubt you will get much rain if at all. Far as water/ice and all of that, small water bottles frozen before hand work well as ice. Lower the AC and fridge temps before hand to give yourself some buffer. Also.......there's an easy solution to all of the food in your fridge possibly going bad, ready for it...........eat it. Ha, I grill like a champ during power outages.

Again, the hype these days before and after is probably worse than the storm for 95% of people.

Zooport

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Re: Southern, East Coast guys, what do you do to prepare for a hurricane?
« Reply #14 on: September 01, 2019, 05:11:31 PM »
Fill up the car early.
Evacuations orders cause shortages on everything.
If you live in a dangerous location.... leave days early, the highways get insane in the late stages.
Nothing wrong with a 2 day getaway, if the storm misses you town.

Power outages can last for week in badly hit areas, so you have to plan ahead for that.

I never leave Cape Cod during a hurricane but I do:
Have power packs for my phone... it may be the only way to keep up with events.
I can recharge my power packs from my fully gassed up car.... and I don't park it under any trees  :)

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are great for long outages... stuff like that.

Have some nice wine in stock.... cheese and crackers

Wax up my boards and wait for the wind to switch!



So gas, wine, peanut butter, jelly and a cell phone is all a guy needs.  LOL, that's great!
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