Hurricane prep!

As Hurricane Sandy approaches I thought I would repost this useful tidbit for all my east-coast friends. Be prepared for lots of water, wind and no electricity. The best part of storms (in my experience) is the community coming together during a mutually sucky time.

During Ike, I was terribly unprepared. I mean, I was at the office (which was one of the only buildings to not lose power) with 800$ worth of booze and Kirby (my cat) to keep me company. After the hurricane passed and normalcy was restored my office made a list of things that we wish we had (or glad that we had). I thought I would share this list:

 

Things people had on hand (or did) that worked well:

1. Lots of bottle water.

2. Lots of dry foods like pop-tarts, cereals, crackers, and cookies. Some caned food. Some fruit.

3. Battery operated weather radio

4. Battery operated regular radio

5. Battery operated fan.

6. Plenty of different flashlights.

7. Lots and lots of batteries of different types.

8. Sheets of plastic. I cut some of them and spread them out in the bathtubs and filled them with water before the storm so I had plenty of water to flush the toilets. Most bathtubs leak a little over time.

9. Filled my fridge full of water and filled any spaces in the freezer with ice packs. The less space you have open, the longer it will take the fridge to warm. Note, best to do this over time to allow everything to cool down. Don’t do this the night of the storm.

10: Bring everything I could into my apartment. Less things to bang around outside.

11. A simple phone that didn’t require electricity to work on the phone line.

12. Full tank of gas.

13. Prescription and other drugs enough for a couple of weeks.

14. Step ladder. I had to disconnect the fire alarm speaker in my apartment during the storm.

15. I did laundry the day before the storm.

16. Set up one family member to be a point of contact. I call them and they can tell the rest of the family how I am doing. One less thing for me to worry about.

17. I had some comic books, graphic novels, and books to read.

18. I cleared the memory of my camera, then I took a photo inventory of my apartment with my camera. Try and get a photo of the object and a photo of the serial # label of each object if you can. Burn it to CD or DVD if you have time.

19. Plenty of toilet paper and facial tissues.

20. Made sure I had enough soap, deodorant, toothpaste and shampoo to last a while

21. Regular dish washing soap.

22. Plenty of trash bags.

23. Hard copy of the company and family contacts. In case my cell phone died.

24. Fill old milk/water jugs with water and put those in the freezer. Solid blocks of ice stay frozen longer than bags of ice cubes or lunchbox sized ice packs – plus you can drink it when it melts. Make sure to leave room on top for the ice to expand as it freezes.

25. Pre-packed airline-travel-bag of toiletry items (also a roll of tp in a plastic bag).

26. Plenty of pet supplies (food, litter, etc). Carriers and harnesses/leashes for all pets.

27. Sterno (for cooking).

 

 

Things people did, but didn’t need to use.

1. I charged up my drill and extra battery for it.

2. I had a staple gun. Handy for hanging plastic over windows.

3. Plastic for the windows.

4. Extra cash on hand.

5. Grouped my tools together in the center of the apartment in case I needed them.

6. Carried and empty gas can in the back of my vehicle. Can be hard to find when you need one.

7. Suntan lotion.

8. Bug spray.

9. Rain coat with hood.

10. Important papers gathered together.(insurance documents/numbers, passport/ssn card/birth certificate/etc, bank/credit card numbers)

11. A set of emergency towels. Don’t throw away old towels, they are handy when things leak.

12. Fresh batteries in the camera for taking pictures for insurance.

13. Paper plates, plastic utensils, and plastic cups. If I had to live out of my vehicle I could easily thrown them in the back

14. Bleach (or iodine tablets) for treating water.

15. Drugs on hand in case I got sick.

16. Inflatable mattress in case I needed to offer shelter to someone else.

17. MREs are great, high-calorie food. They’re not filling, they usually don’t taste great, but you can go all day on just a couple of them. Plus (more importantly) they don’t spoil or get water-logged (and they often float).

18. Clean clothes & blankets in a water-proof container, in the event that the house floods or some of the roof/windows break.

19. Dish soap.

 

 

Things people wished they had during the storm.

1. A battery powered HDTV. Being able to keep track of the storm would have been nice.

2. A generator and gas. I don’t know how I would do that in my apartment, but I wanted one anyway.

3. A better selection of food.

4. A battery powered lantern.

5. A second battery operated fan.

6. A mini grill with charcoal.

7. Programed more contact info into my phone. The electric company, the apartment complex, phone company

8. A retractable clothes line so I could hand wash clothes after the storm after having no power.