Ways to Prepare for a Hurricane

When you have lived inland most of your life, moving to a location near the ocean, like Tampa, Florida, or Charleston, South Carolina, can pose quite a challenge when it comes to weather. Instead of just having to be prepared for thunderstorms and lightning, or even the occasional tornado, you find yourself needing to learn about the different ways that you need to prepare for hurricanes.

Many different things become important all of a sudden, especially if you happen to make your move in the middle of hurricane season, usually August through October of any given year. From making sure you have plenty of bottled water around just in case, the freshwater supply is interrupted or tainted to having to consider a generator installation to making sure you have plenty of flashlights and fresh batteries must now be considered.

Certainly, making sure you have plenty of food and water available for a prolonged period of time, sometimes weeks, not just days, is paramount. Having plenty of bottled water available is easy enough. Still, you can’t wait until the last moment because if everyone else making a run on the stores trying to do the same thing that you are, it can result in a bottled water shortage. If your gas or electricity is interrupted, you must consider how you will cook your food.

Having plenty of canned food or snacks that do not require cooking is one solution that you need to consider. If you have a charcoal or propane grill, that can provide you with an alternative way of cooking, but you have to make sure you have plenty of charcoal to last you through the crisis. You still, however, are presented with the challenge of how you are going to keep food refrigerated or frozen when your power goes out for a protracted period of time.

If your power only goes out for a shorter period of time, like a day or maybe two, you can keep food from spoiling by limiting the number of times you open your refrigerator or freezer door and how long you leave the doors open. Because refrigerators are insulated, this alone can help you prolong the period of time before your food is spoiled. In addition, it is helpful to have several large-capacity insulated coolers on hand, with some of them full of ice. Of course, the ice must be purchased right before the storm is expected to hit but before the stores have sold out.

The overall best solution is, of course, to consider having a generator installed if the house you bought does not already have one. There are different ways to go when deciding on a generator. A stand-alone generator is a backup electrical system that provides you with a power source if your main power goes out because of a storm or hurricane.

They can be provided with an automatic transfer switch to come on when it automatically senses a loss of power. They are all fueled by gasoline, so you must make sure that you have plenty on hand. You can either have a smaller one to only provide a circuit for essential appliances like your refrigerator or your lights, or you can have a whole-house generator installed that provides backup power to your entire home.

As you can see, there is a lot to consider when you move to an area that is prone to experiencing hurricanes. You must be aware of these things so that you are prepared for the storm.