Tuesday morning I was walking with Patti, and we were reminiscing about Hurricane Fran, which was our last big hurricane here in the Raleigh area, ( I think it was September 1996.) She was out of electricity for nine days, I was only out for one day. There were fallen trees blocking all the roads. We knew of plenty of people with trees on their house or car. Stores and businesses were closed.
I said to Patti, "If we found out there was a big hurricane heading straight for us right now, what would you do to prepare?"
And we both started brainstorming.
(Remember, we both already have lots of food and water storage, so these are just extra things we would do.)
(For those of you who have moved here since 1996, and have no idea what to do to prepare for a hurricane, pay close attention.)
Here is the list we came up with:
Buy another propane tank for the grill. (For cooking outdoors.)
Do all the laundry. (You may be out of electricity for awhile.)
Fill up all the spaces in my freezer with 2-liter bottles full of water. (A full freezer stays frozen longer. And ice is always handy when the power is out.)
Fill up all the cars with gasoline. (Gas stations can't function without electricity. Also, if there is a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, the refineries might be nonfunctional for weeks.)
Get the bikes repaired. (It is good to have another form of transportation if gasoline is unavailable.)
Get sandbags. (I'm going to get 4 bags of playground sand from Home Depot, to put across my front door. During Fran, we had 9 inches of rain in one day. I think my front door is low enough that I fear some water is going to come in there if the water can't drain from my front yard fast enough.)
Obtain a battery or solar radio, buy a replacement for my little portable TV. (We threw it away because it was analog. We loved that TV during hurricanes because we could plug it into the car and find out what was happening. So now we need a digital TV with an antenna.)
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