Preparing for Life After a Hurricane
If you have evacuated make sure to listen to radio reports since some roads can be inaccessible. Make sure that it is safe to return home by listening to local officials or radio reports. If you are in an area prone to flooding, this is especially important since your area may not have suffered much wind damage but could still be flooded due to rainfall. If you do come to a road that is flooded, do not drive through it. Swift waters can float your car and there’s no way of judging the depth of the water.
Also, do not walk through floodwaters since they can swiftly knock you off of your feet or even be electrically charged due to fallen power lines. It’s safe to say that you should never touch fallen power lines.
Once you return home (or if you stayed during the storm), access any damage you may have. This can be roof damage, fallen trees or anything else that may have happened. If you are relatively damage free, help a neighbor out; especially the elderly or handicapped.
If you can afford it, it’s a good idea to have a generator for storms. This is something you won’t use until you need it but once you need it, it’s indispensable. They usually run about $600 or so but imagine being able to at least keep your refrigerated items cold. You can rent generators but after a storm you’ll need a lot of good luck to find one. They go very fast! Home Depot sells the large, whole house generators but those are $2000 and up, and have to be wired to your home by a licensed electrician. Not everyone can afford such a luxury.
Open your windows and doors to air out your home. Check your refrigerator for spoiled food. If you are without power, it’s good to have a grill so that you can cook some of your food before it goes bad. Finding ice after a storm is equally hard. If you have a deep freeze, you might be able to place some of your perishables in there since the coldness in the deep freeze might last a little longer as long as you don’t continually open the doors. This goes back to having a generator because if you do have one, you can power your refrigerator, keeping your food safe from spoilage.
If you own fish tanks like we do, invest in battery powered back up air systems. These are affordable and can help keep your fish alive once you lose power. The last storm we had was devastating to our tanks because the fish had no air. I lost many expensive fish when we lost power. Imagine how bad your house will smell with dying fish in your tanks. Not to mention the food in the refrigerator.
Check your telephone to see if it is still working. Water can damage the lines to the house and repairs will take weeks if a lot of people have damage as well. Cell phones are great to have during such disasters but do keep in mind that if cell towers are damaged as well, your phone may not work.
Avoid drinking tap water until you know it’s safe. This is why it’s a good idea to keep a lot of bottled water available. You can also make drinking water safe by putting a drop of bleach in it. If you use household chlorine bleach, add 1/8 teaspoon of bleach per gallon of water if the water is clear. For cloudy water, add 1/4 teaspoon of bleach per gallon. Mix the solution thoroughly and let it stand for about 30 minutes before using it. Treating water with chlorine tablets, iodine tablets, or liquid bleach will not kill many parasitic organisms. Boiling is the best way to kill these organisms.
Keep in mind that it is usually unbearably hot after a hurricane. If you do have a generator, you can at least hook up a fan to it to lessen some of the heat.
