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As I was responding to one of the other threads, this got me thinking. What is everyone's SHTF plan if faced with an imminent threat of a MAJOR hurricane? Let's say you had 24 hours or less to take action!
Would you pack up and run?
Would you batten down the hatches and wait out the storm?
Would you stay around locally, or would you flee Florida?
What would you take with you? What would you leave behind?
Where would you go?
get the hell out or ride it out
it all depends
depending on the mood
Well, firstly I am in team A in work so that means I have to go to work. Team A works during the storm whereas team B works before or after. i have to be in work 4 hours before a storm hits and stay until the all clear then 4 hours. I have been told to bring enough clothes etc for 4 days.
My family (Hubby & 2 boys) - well they would definately pack up for a cat 4 or 5.
Only batten down the hatches for a cat 3 or below....
Hubby said he would leave Florida if necessary - he would take anything of value, papers etc, laptop and take photos of the house inside and out for insurance purposes and save them onto disc. Like someone else has said anything else pretty much can be replaced.
I lived there too and your post and the one from Miamiblue brought tears to my eyes. It was a horrendous time that none of us will ever forget. There is just no way that anyone who hasn't lived though it can understand it. What is seen on TV doesn't measure up to the reality. I rode out the storm in a house in Perrine and ended up with 6 people in the bathroom with 2 animals, while the house got beat to sh*t. Luckily, my employment in Kendall had minimal damage, so at least I had a job to go to afterwards. I agree with the person that said that no one was prepared back in those days.
That said, I live a little further north now, and my [old, hopefully sturdy] house has a relatively new roof and hurricane shutters for every window. I have a generator and a bunch of gas cans. I would not evacuate before any category storm; having lived through a 5 already. [Andrew caused relatively few deaths compared to the property damage it caused. Some occured after the storm.] I don't live in an evacuation zone. While I don't stock up on food until I need to, the TV and newspapers stress the need for having your "stuff", food, water, batteries, etc ready on June 1st, the beginning of the season. The thought of getting stuck in a car on a highway is more frightening than being sheltered in my home. A storm can and does shift track, so often doesn't hit where its predicted to hit. Andrew was supposed to be a Broward storm but devastated the south end of Dade county instead while Broward had relatively little damage. The point is that anyone who lives in FL has to be prepared for a storm, know whether they live in an evacuation zone, know where they'd go if they have to evacuate; get important papers together at the beginning of the season, have a plan.
It makes totally NO sense to me that lines start forming for gas and water and ice practically as soon as the storm moves away. And people are screaming because the govt doesn't/can't provide for their needs immediately. Did they just wake up; did they not know the storm was coming? They've never heard of saving milk jugs and filling them with tap water BEFORE the storm arrives? Guess I'm rambling now.....
I lived near Kendall during Hurricane Andrew and saw and lived first hand the devastation
We were not prepared (I am not sure anyone was). Before Andrew, people in Miami did not seem to take hurricanes seriously. I still remember being outside the afternoon before the hurricane hit...there was dead silence. It was so eerie...there were no animal noises. There were no birds, or insects, or nothing!
I was lucky in that Andrew did not hit my area as hard, however another thing people don't realize that post-hurricane is horrific. I was young, but would never stay with kids. There was no electricity, water, looters go crazy, no food, the roads are a mess, no phone, no cell phone, etc.
You don't know who lived or died, you don't know if you still have a job. Time stops and life stops.
It is just something I hope never happens in Florida again.
It makes totally NO sense to me that lines start forming for gas and water and ice practically as soon as the storm moves away. And people are screaming because the govt doesn't/can't provide for their needs immediately. Did they just wake up; did they not know the storm was coming? They've never heard of saving milk jugs and filling them with tap water BEFORE the storm arrives? Guess I'm rambling now.....
Not rambling at all. You've made a good point that needed to be said. People don't realize the extent to which govt. can't help in situations like that - not during the storm, nor during the immediate aftermath. Going back to Andrew, they couldn't even get into the affected area right away.
I think there are certain staples that are good to have on hand Just In Case. When a major storm has you in the crosshairs, this isn't the time to be running around grocery stores or trying to get the full tank of gas we should be keeping throughout Season etc etc. There's precious little time to either prepare your property or leave.
My heart goes out to all who endured the horror that was Andrew. I think that part of the lack of awareness, lack of preparedness, is the strong unwillingness to deal with the threat. It is a terror. But people who move here should immediately acquaint themselves with how to survive if a big one hits.
We got caught short back in '04. Jeanne was coming across the state, and I'd let our canned stuff run down (we try to keep these things in rotation, and I admit I hadn't kept track, inexcusable). Even though I'd reminded my husband to keep his gas tank full. So my tank was full and he was waiting in a gas line. Anyway, I went to the store to gather some supplies - everyone was waiting around in the parking lot, following customers who came out, and asking for their carts. What a hassle. and totally unnecessary if only I'd planned better
As soon as we were within 24 hours of a cat 4 or 5, we would gather our important papers, book a flight/hotel to wherever the hell we could go, and that would be all there is to it.
And that's the problem. If you're gonna bolt, you need to do it WAY before then or you will be stuck in the parking lot which used to be I-95. There won't BE any flights or hotel rooms! You have to decide what you're going to do and prepare early.
We know we'll stay, no matter what, and hope our friend, a FEMA director, is correct. He built a "safe" room into his house. He says we have a "safe" HOUSE!
We stock up early, board up, have a generator, no kids, two dogs & the experience of a lifetime in Florida.
What's scarier than a hurricane is all the recent transplants who don't pay attention to all the information available to them and who will be clueless and helpless if disaster strikes. Just look at the population increase since Andrew or even 2004.
And that's the problem. If you're gonna bolt, you need to do it WAY before then or you will be stuck in the parking lot which used to be I-95. There won't BE any flights or hotel rooms! You have to decide what you're going to do and prepare early.
That is 100% true! If you wait till the evac order is issued, depending on where you live, that could be much too late. And about the worst place to be in a hurricane is stuck in gridlocked traffic.
The problem for us on the Gulf is that we don't have as much warning. Things can flare up so quickly and often, they can switch course within hours of landfall. Charley was a perfect example. The people in Port Charlotte/Ft. Myers believed, as we did in Tampa Bay, that it was coming here. At the last minute, it took a right hook well south of us, and Pt. Charlotte took the hit.
We have friends "inland". We would pack up everything of value and go there.
One mistake that we will not make is 'thresholding' our criteria evacuation.
There are many folks on this very forum who can tell you what happened when they decided to stick around for the weakened "Category 2" Hurricane Charlie which intensified into a Cat 4 in under 6 hours, right before making landfall.
Mostly, it's because I can smell the ocean as I sit here and type this post, so no matter how "weak" the Hurricane is, I cannot stay (since I don't breathe well under water) but even if I were in one of the marginal areas, I'd still leave. Enormous, relatively unpredictable freaks of nature like Hurricanes aren't something I tend to speculate on when the consequences for being wrong could be my life.
We have friends "inland". We would pack up everything of value and go there.
One mistake that we will not make is 'thresholding' our criteria evacuation.
There are many folks on this very forum who can tell you what happened when they decided to stick around for the weakened "Category 2" Hurricane Charlie which intensified into a Cat 4 in under 6 hours, right before making landfall.
Mostly, it's because I can smell the ocean as I sit here and type this post, so no matter how "weak" the Hurricane is, I cannot stay (since I don't breathe well under water) but even if I were in one of the marginal areas, I'd still leave. Enormous, relatively unpredictable freaks of nature like Hurricanes aren't something I tend to speculate on when the consequences for being wrong could be my life.
Thats your best bet. The strange thing is a cat-5 storm was far and few but now it seems to be norm. Hurricanes are stronger then years past.
Because I live on the coast in an "A" evacuation zone, I would not take any chances. I will leave that to the idiots who stay, get hurt or killed, and then wonder why. Mother nature cannot be predicted even though meteorologists do their best.
Thats your best bet. The strange thing is a cat-5 storm was far and few but now it seems to be norm. Hurricanes are stronger then years past.
Yeah, there's an undeniable trend in the strengthening of hurricanes.
The four year period between 2003 and 2007 had eight storms reach Category 5 strength (at some point in its cycle).
Immediately prior to 2003, you have to begin in 1998 and start counting backwards to 1971 (twenty seven years) if you want to find eight Cat 5's.
Think about that for a second.
It took twenty seven years, from 1971 to 1998, for there to be eight Cat 5's.
It took four years, from 2003-2007, to achieve that exact same number.
Scary, scary stuff.
Last edited by LM1; 11-07-2007 at 11:21 PM..
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