Hurricane season 08: prepared?

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Since Katrina I have acquired 11 guns. That's 11 more than I had at the time. I also have the supplies necessary to survive for a month or more on my own.
 
as far as a "good guy" gun, why not get a garand? more powerful round, not an EBR, and for goodness' sake, it's what we used to defeat the nazis.
 
Bought a generator, gasoline storage, brought chainsaw up from hunting camp. I'm an assistant scoutmaster so we already have most of the outdoor stoves and water purification stuff as well as a week+ of good food and lots of canned and bagged staples.
 
Me and my family have sat through every hurricane thats been thrown at us. Some of my earliest memories are from sitting through Andrew. We just got a good guy gun too (MP15):D
 
Ske1etor wrote:


I mean the only way to absolutely stay safe during a hurricane is to not be near a hurricane. For New Orleans and surrounding area population, you have got to leave, especially if the storm is looking like taking a ride up the Mississippi.
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Something I think we can ALL agree on. :)


-- John
 
as far as a "good guy" gun, why not get a garand? more powerful round, not an EBR, and for goodness' sake, it's what we used to defeat the nazis.
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True enough. But it's just a preference thing. I am not a fan of 8-round, internal magazine, en-bloc fed rifles that are that heavy for the firepower it offers. Don't get me wrong, I respect the Garand. It's just not my preference. I prefer a short carbine for general knock-around use.

Understand, I also have a 24" DPMS LR-308 if I need a full-power cartridge. It just weights a ton and is LONG.


-- John
 
Everyone seems to have covered all sorts of supplies.....but what about the paper and information that makes our lives run on a day-to-day basis (and might be needed to get back on your feet after the fact....especially if your whole house is destroyed) ?????

I have taken all sorts of documents and information (everything from MV registration & insurance info, birth certificates & passport & drivers lic to photos of the various possessions in my house and important receipts and bank account info) and scanned them.

I have taken the scanned documents and put them on mini drives. I have one here, the other two got mailed to relatives in other places. I also emailed all of them to myself on one of those internet based mail accounts. This gives me multiply redundant back ups of all my most important personal info. All I need is access to a PC (with or without internet) and I can get rolling again.

I feel that this is almost as important as food, water, shelter, firearms......that info is the key to getting your life back on track as quickly as possible after some sort of disaster.
 
bwavec makes an excellent-- and often overlooked point.


I could do better in that department as well.


-- John
 
Prepared??? Mostly.

Need to restock the drinking water supply a bit and fill the gas cans and squirrel away some more cash.

I learned during Hurricane Fran back in the 90's that ATM's don't work when the power is down. Neither do CC's. :D.


Other than those few things, yes. I keep plenty of first aid/emergency supplies on hand. I'm also well stocked for tools for tree removal and such.
 
I'm also well stocked for tools for tree removal and such.
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I think a lot of people underestimate how much it takes to remove downed trees.

If you had a couple dozen downed trees in your neighborhood, it might be all but impossible for help to get to you afterward. A few chain saws and other tree moving accoutrement's could be real useful.

A good come-along and some long chains comes to mind.
 
It is actually amazing how little people really need to survive such an event. Surviving it and living well while doing so are two completely different things though.

I would add something to move power lines. I know they say don't mess with the power lines but what are you going to do if you blocked into your own driveway for a few days as we were after the last Hurricane rolled over our house?

Probably do what I did and move them so we could get out.
 
I work for FPL(Power Co.)& I "HATE"Hurricanes!! Little sleep,bad food,working...16 hr.days!Afterwards....just wanting a day off!!
Jim
 
ilbob wrote:

I think a lot of people underestimate how much it takes to remove downed trees.

If you had a couple dozen downed trees in your neighborhood, it might be all but impossible for help to get to you afterward. A few chain saws and other tree moving accoutrement's could be real useful.

A good come-along and some long chains comes to mind.
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Very true. During Katrina, we started cutting trees as soon as the winds got down to about "Gale Force"-- about 11:30 AM CST). Over a 10 hour period, we cut over 350 trees-- Just to get ONE MILE to get out of a subdivision and onto the highway.

Chainsaws were actually not our problem. Broken chains and running out of chainsaw oil was. You could not find chains or chainsaw oil anywhere. (BTW-- motor oil WILL work, but it is a bit runny).



Titan6 wrote:

I would add something to move power lines. I know they say don't mess with the power lines but what are you going to do if you blocked into your own driveway for a few days as we were after the last Hurricane rolled over our house?
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Very true. We had so many down and in such bad places, we had only one choice: Bolt Cutters. It was safer than you would reactively think-- after all, the ENTIRE power infrastructure was out for dozens and dozens of miles.

For driving and occassionally coming into a hanging line, I came up with a wooden frame made from 2X4's bolted together and notched at the top. I could throw it in the back on my jeep. When I got to one, I would slip the long leg under to line and catch it in the notch. I'd then extend the short leg to stabalize the line as it was held up high enough for me to drive under. Afterwards, I'd retrieve my frame.


-- John
 
It was safer than you would reactively think-- after all, the ENTIRE power infrastructure was out for dozens and dozens of miles.
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The worry isn't the lines being live because the grid is still up, the worry is the lines in your area being live because some idiot has his generator hooked up to his house wrong and is unknowingly back-feeding the lines.
 
You said a mouthful.
Lots of linemen get zapped because of some nimrod backfeeding power into the grid due to ignorance of how things work.
If you're going to use a generator, for goodness sake have a plug and switch installed so you can isolate your home from the grid and not kill a poor working stiff.
 
If you're going to use a generator, for goodness sake have a plug and switch installed so you can isolate your home from the grid and not kill a poor working stiff.
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Plug and switch?
 
Switch- A dedicated switch to isolate the outside lines from the house and route the generator power to the house only.

Plug- Outlet hard installed into the home's breaker box or area near so that when you do the generator thing no creative wiring is required. You know, with unshielded wire hanging around to be tripped over, etc.

Flip the switch to isolate the house, plug in the generator using a premade cable to feed power in, and fire up the gennie.

Cost is minimal for an Electrician to do it at your home. And, then you don't have to sweat getting power back up or killing someone through negligence.


Additionally, you may want to experiment with rainbarrels to have a water supply for cooking and drinking (after purifying of course).
 
bwavec said:
I have taken all sorts of documents and information (everything from MV registration & insurance info, birth certificates & passport & drivers lic to photos of the various possessions in my house and important receipts and bank account info) and scanned them.

I have taken the scanned documents and put them on mini drives. I have one here, the other two got mailed to relatives in other places. I also emailed all of them to myself on one of those internet based mail accounts. This gives me multiply redundant back ups of all my most important personal info. All I need is access to a PC (with or without internet) and I can get rolling again.
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I do that, but word to the wise, get all the scanned imaged together, turn it into one large zip file and then encrypt that file. I use a stand alone utility called Omziff (it is free - http://www.snapfiles.com/get/omziff.html). This is cool, because you can put it on a jump drive and / or mail a copy to one of your internet mail addresses and it is always available, hell you can even put a copy on each of the "backups" you created, so that when you need to decrypt the info, you can do it on any computer you have accress to.

I do not recommend making copies that are not encrypted, you are at extreme risk for Identity theft. PGP can be used, as they create "self decrypting archives / files" as well. If anyone has any questions about this, feel free to PM me or something... Just something to think about. Especially if you are mailing copies to relatives. My mother-in-law and I do not see eye to eye about water being wet. It would be a MAJOR issue for me to send her something and the snoopy broad would prolly look at it and... who knows what else.

JWarren said:
Broken chains and running out of chainsaw oil was. You could not find chains or chainsaw oil anywhere.
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That is the problem, you don't need a chainsaw when you have an ax! :neener:

Just kidding, I don't think you could live through 98 degree heat swinging and ax to chop up 350 trees... I really don't. So get a chainsaw.
 
No, the worst part of a hurricane is living with 4 kids for 13 days without power.

They get cranky without their daily dose of Spongebob...
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maybe you should include a two week supply of tranquilizers for each rug rat.
 
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