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17 of important items you definitely need
Feb
Knowledge about what you need when preparing for a hurricane is life or death for many.
The destructive power of nature is really amazing. Our thoughts are with the east and west coast that prepare and cope with the devastation of hurricanes. It is difficult to think that a single hurricane can cause billions of dollars of damage, retreating in just the days that humanity lasted. Cleansing efforts for damages caused by hurricanes will take about three years or longer.
Should you get out?
The first question that you have to ask yourself when preparing for a hurricane is whether you should get out. It depends a lot on where you live, the area around you and the strength of the upcoming hurricane. There are many people on the east coast, whose hurricane will not affect the fact that their houses are only a few feet higher than water.
If you do not know how high you are above sea level and how it compares with the area around you, you need to get a topographic map. You can download them free of charge from the USGS website.
Finally, a backup generator that does not require gas!
If your home is in the so-called “100-year zone”, the chances are quite good that you will be flooded in every main hurricane. This term means that there is one percent chance that your home would flood in one year. Other zones are listed as “500-year flood zones” or “1000-year flood zones”. Everyone who buys their home with a mortgage and lives in a 100-year flood zone will be required to buy flood insurance under the contract. Few of us turned back behind us.
Just in case
Regardless of what you do when preparing for a hurricane, there is nothing that prepares you for the next devastation.
Even if you are sure that you live high and dry, where a hurricane flood cannot reach you, you should be prepared for mistakes. Hurricanes and tropical storms are unpredictable. Things may be completely different than you expect. Always make sure you leave your escape path.
Specifically, I mean that you should leave yourself a escape path if there are five feet of water in your home. You don’t want to rely on driving the car, unless you ever park in the driveway. You should not count on walking either. You will not be able to see what is under water, so you can simply enter the hole, which has a depth of 20 feet.
If you do not have a boat, you should probably invest in an inflatable rubber raft. You can buy them for only $ 100, giving yourself a way to safety, instead of waiting for someone to save you.
Don’t forget about your bags. That’s what they are. If you don’t have it, it’s the perfect time to make it. Wherever you go, you need tools, equipment and consumables to help you survive.
What do you have to see you?
Even if you survive a hurricane in your home, you must take into account that you will not have electricity, water, sewage service and that your home may have a few feet of water.
Often, preparing for a hurricane is really preparing to survive its consequences. This means that you buy things you must have until the power supply is restored. In particular, you will want:
- Bottled water
- Faculty food (canned food is great)
- Fuel (gasoline)
- Food cooking
- Flashlights and batteries
- Radio supported by the battery
- Charging the battery for the phone
- Sunny telephone charger
- Good first aid set
- Toilets, especially toilet paper
- Deepening insect
- Child and diaper formula (if you have a child)
- Complete set of important documents (identification, birth certificates, insurance, marriage license, real estate, vehicle titles) in a waterproof container
- Laminated list of emergency phone numbers
- Cleaning (to save the house)
- Raincoat (ponchos and shoes)
- Water purifier
Hurricane devastation
All this must be packed in waterproof containers, such as buckets with five gallons. Most warehouse containers are not waterproof because the lids are not sealed. However, they usually rise, unless things reach the point where they are under water.
The pocket solar generator ensures the power of backups for small devices
It should be remembered that this list is only the most basic consumable materials. If you are already a prepper, you probably already have much more. That’s good because you’ll need it. Just make sure that if you have spare reserve in the basement, you will move them to a higher point at home while preparing for a hurricane.
Saving a house
Attempting to save the house from a hurricane is difficult at best. This boils down to two basic parts: stopping the house from damage by the wind and holding water away from home.
You can not do much to prevent the house damage through strong winds. I hope your home has already been built with this in mind. Houses along the coast should be built using hurricane clips holding rafters in the walls and other protections to protect them. But if you have an older house, it may not have built -in with these security.
In addition to direct damage to the house, the biggest risk created by a strong wind for your home is breaking the branches of trees. If you have any branches of trees that return the roof at home, you should cut them off. You should also look around your home to get loose items that can become shells and store them.
Flood
But, as I said, the flood is a greater risk. Keeping water away from home requires building there to stop water. Sand bags are the most common way of doing this. They work well because the sand moves, allowing sacks to seal well. A properly built wall with sand should have at least a few feet from the walls of the house so that you can walk around the house to check the leaks. You will also need a pump or two to send water that leaks back above the wall with sand.
But you need a lot of sand and a lot of sandbags to make a wall around the house. Usually a 10-meter section of the wall of sandbags with a height of four feet requires about 160 sand and sand bags to fill them. You will need a pretty good crew by working together to fill all these bags and build a wall.
The power of nature is so scary because you can’t do anything to stop it.
Another option is to buy water dams. There are several different brands on the market. Basically, they consist of a flexible plastic tube, three or four feet. Filled with water, in fact they work better in creating a barrier than sandbags, with a less chance of spaces in which water can leak. They are also easier to configure, because you only need to put them and connect the hose. But you will need a lot of time for the snake to fill so many pipes.
During a storm
If you find yourself at home with growing waters, don’t panic. Your home can have a second story, move there. If not, you can go to the roof. But whatever you do, don’t go to the attic to escape from flood waters. The attic can become a death trap in such situations.
There was a house in Houston in Houston, during Harvey, where house owners spread several tents on the roof and sat down in them. Although this is not a normal method of protecting against a hurricane, it was quite effective.
There is a chance that someone will come with a boat to save you if you end up on the roof of the house. But it is better to be able to save yourself. That’s why I recommended buying a rubber rafting. Although it may not be as nice as having a motor boat to escape, it will still be effective.
What would you add to our hurricane preparation list? Share your tips in the section below:
