Living on the Beach during Hurricane Season...Florida

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My small home is very well insulated, but not overly secure to the ground. Everything of value would be in the truck seats next to me, probably reading dragon books;), so the firearms would be in cases in the back. I have a good many pelican type cases.
Oh dang! The rimfire ammo! I’m going to need a few ammo can, pallets. Maybe I can Flex-Seal the factory cases? Will my truck handle it all?:D

The hurricane will have removed the ten years of work and treasure I put into my grandfather’s place and I’ll have to sell the guns and ammo for shelter, as I’m pretty minimalist as it is.

Thank God I live in Michigan!
Even when she’s trying to freeze you to death, she’s nice about it.:)

Good luck to you in the Southern Peninsular Paradise, Hang on and report back!:thumbup:
 
if you have to bail out. And the Safes are full of gun and you just can’t take them with you. Pour fresh motor oil on everything in the safe. Fast way to preserve your guns from storm waters
 
My small home is very well insulated, but not overly secure to the ground. Everything of value would be in the truck seats next to me, probably reading dragon books;), so the firearms would be in cases in the back. I have a good many pelican type cases.
Oh dang! The rimfire ammo! I’m going to need a few ammo can, pallets. Maybe I can Flex-Seal the factory cases? Will my truck handle it all?:D

The hurricane will have removed the ten years of work and treasure I put into my grandfather’s place and I’ll have to sell the guns and ammo for shelter, as I’m pretty minimalist as it is.

Thank God I live in Michigan!
Even when she’s trying to freeze you to death, she’s nice about it.:)

Good luck to you in the Southern Peninsular Paradise, Hang on and report back!:thumbup:
I’ll take tropical wet evacuation weather over the freezing lake winters. Burrrrrrrr, hate cold weather
 
Here in ‘inland’ Florida it’s mostly about being without power for days – a particular pain for those with well pumps.

The generator is in the living room waiting to be rolled out to the front porch.

Filled the RV’s water tank.

Plenty of kerosene for the lamps, I’ll cook on the RV’s gas stove, and the chest freezer becomes a cooler for perishables.

And the guns aren’t really in need of special prep.
 
I lived on the beach down there for a few years.
After the first storm flooding out the place we went with a raised house.
Then it was just bring in the plants, cover up the widows and wait for it to be over. Every year.
In between that season it's just the normal dodging lightning or tornadoes and 3:00 rain storms.
 
A relative of mine bugged out before Hurricane Katrina hit. When the hurricane passed, she came back and took pictures of her apartment complex. The complex was gone!. What was left was jumbled sections of sidewalk concrete. And that was a Category 3 Hurricane.

Once you go without power for a week or two, cold showers, throwing all the food out of the refrigerator, cooking on Coleman camp stoves, and high, hot humidity, hurricane parties sort of lose their fizz.

At least you get to bed early because the TV does not work.
 
My wife is not playful yet, she keeps yelling...GOT ENOUGH WATER, GOT ENOUGH ICE, GOT ENOUGH BOURBON... the latter makes her more playful :) we turn our cell phones off cause everyone is calling us....

Don't you hate the phone calls! One major storm we were all hiding in the closet, dog and kids. mattress and the phones kept ringing! "How ya doing??"
Or the storm is nowhere near us and they are calling, "How ya doing?" Fine it is on the other side of the State 500 miles away!

Thanks for the concern though:)
 
A relative of mine bugged out before Hurricane Katrina hit. When the hurricane passed, she came back and took pictures of her apartment complex. The complex was gone!. What was left was jumbled sections of sidewalk concrete. And that was a Category 3 Hurricane.

Once you go without power for a week or two, cold showers, throwing all the food out of the refrigerator, cooking on Coleman camp stoves, and high, hot humidity, hurricane parties sort of lose their fizz.

At least you get to bed early because the TV does not work.


Katrina showed what a complete useless agency FEMA is!:cuss:

I have been through every major storm here in Florida, In a past occupation I also worked disaster relief after most of the storms. We were doing so much while FEMA did absolutely nothing! The stories I could tell, bit here is not the place.
Only two storms that really scared me, Charley and Andrew.
 
A relative of mine bugged out before Hurricane Katrina hit. When the hurricane passed, she came back and took pictures of her apartment complex. The complex was gone!. What was left was jumbled sections of sidewalk concrete. And that was a Category 3 Hurricane.

Once you go without power for a week or two, cold showers, throwing all the food out of the refrigerator, cooking on Coleman camp stoves, and high, hot humidity, hurricane parties sort of lose their fizz.

At least you get to bed early because the TV does not work.
If I was single or just me and the lady… I could live like I’m homeless, been thur worst.

but with children, we headed to sibling or cousins place for vacation.
 
Don't you hate the phone calls! One major storm we were all hiding in the closet, dog and kids. mattress and the phones kept ringing! "How ya doing??"
Or the storm is nowhere near us and they are calling, "How ya doing?" Fine it is on the other side of the State 500 miles away!

Thanks for the concern though:)

Count your blessings that people care about you. There are many people who no one cares about. They all end up riding the storm out in a high school gym together-without their pets, OR their guns.
 
Here in ‘inland’ Florida it’s mostly about being without power for days – a particular pain for those with well pumps.

The generator is in the living room waiting to be rolled out to the front porch.

Filled the RV’s water tank.

Plenty of kerosene for the lamps, I’ll cook on the RV’s gas stove, and the chest freezer becomes a cooler for perishables.

And the guns aren’t really in need of special prep.
Sounds like you have more confidence in your RV surviving the storm than your house. In my experience, hurricane force winds are not normally kind to RV's.
ETA: I lived near Orlando '85-'86 (Casselberry). Had multiple hurricanes during my stay. They didn't scare me, but sure made me uneasy. I was a transplant from the northern plains.
 
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I remember the clean up at my dad's stilt house after Hurricane Ike. He used to live on the east side of Galveston Bay right on the water.

Ike's storm surge blew out everything on the first level of his house and barn. Ike also removed his pier and put a shrimp boat on the bulkhead where land met water. Some homes in the vicinity were completely leveled.

He evacuated but left his guns in the first level of the stilt home, which was a small apartment style set up. Those guns were dispersed on his property and were hunks of rust when they were found a couple weeks after the storm.
 
My parents waterfront brick rancher in Gulf Breeze was severely damaged from hurricane Ivan. Anything that didn’t wash out of the house was in a six foot pile at the back of the house. A Lincoln town car was in the living room, a jet ski in one of the bedrooms. Houses on the street were missing or moved a hundred feet off their slab foundations. We recovered some possessions over a mile away. The only gun overlooked and not removed prior to evacuation was my stainless 410 snake charmer which by the time I found it was seized up. I got it freed up and functional but it’s not the pretty thing it used to be. Never underestimate the power of moving water.
 
There's still a huge amount of uncertainty about Ian.
We'll know here on Sunday afternoon whether it's a hit on Florida in midweek, or a gulf coast hit as far west as Mississippi on Friday/Saturday (a bunch of SEC football games will be nervously watching Ian closely).

It's a bit late to get a Jackery or similar portable power supply in hand, which could be handy if a person needed to displace. And, a season too late for getting in an NG-powered generator to back-up the house.

There are many issues for tropical storms, and being prepared. For one, you need to have your meds sorted out, and anything that's kid-specific. Having crates/carriers for the pets is middling critical, too. Checking on local shelter policies is pretty important as many do not allow pets--or firearms--on premises. (Several States have recently changed their laws on this; but not all shelters are caught up to those changes.)

You generally need to be pretty close to the shore to have to worry about Storm Surges, and really, there's nothing you can do if the surge is more than 1.5-2m (as Ike demonstrated). If your house is hit by a tornado as part of the larger storm, that's another level of complexity to cope with.

Dry bags with dessicant inside are probably best for the safe contents (remember to unplug rod heaters and remove dry dessicant pouches).

Harvey, and Ike, both demonstrated that flooding is almost worse than actual wind damage.
 
There's still a huge amount of uncertainty about Ian.
We'll know here on Sunday afternoon whether it's a hit on Florida in midweek, or a gulf coast hit as far west as Mississippi on Friday/Saturday (a bunch of SEC football games will be nervously watching Ian closely).

It's a bit late to get a Jackery or similar portable power supply in hand, which could be handy if a person needed to displace. And, a season too late for getting in an NG-powered generator to back-up the house.

There are many issues for tropical storms, and being prepared. For one, you need to have your meds sorted out, and anything that's kid-specific. Having crates/carriers for the pets is middling critical, too. Checking on local shelter policies is pretty important as many do not allow pets--or firearms--on premises. (Several States have recently changed their laws on this; but not all shelters are caught up to those changes.)

You generally need to be pretty close to the shore to have to worry about Storm Surges, and really, there's nothing you can do if the surge is more than 1.5-2m (as Ike demonstrated). If your house is hit by a tornado as part of the larger storm, that's another level of complexity to cope with.

Dry bags with dessicant inside are probably best for the safe contents (remember to unplug rod heaters and remove dry dessicant pouches).

Harvey, and Ike, both demonstrated that flooding is almost worse than actual wind damage.

^This right here. All of this. I never understood people's absolute refusal to make any basic preparations for the most likely emergencies that could befall them. I worked at a sporting goods store in Tampa during 2 hurricane seasons. Every 2 weeks it was the same. People would run in, buy up al the camp stoves, camp fuel, flashlights, batteries, tarps, etc., and then they would return them all, unopened/unused the following week. Two weeks later, it would happen again. Saw the same thing with plywood and generators at the big box home stores. Over and over and over and...smh

And on that note, and to keep this THR/firearm related: I'm supposed to fly down there this weekend. My adult son still lives there. He is absolutely not into guns. Knows how to use them, but not interested in them. I wrote off giving him a gun for that reason. Now, thinking about how hard it would be for him to buy a gun should the need arise (looting/riots, etc.), I'm thinking about giving him one to just put away and collect dust until he needs it. Florida has a waiting period, plus, Democratic governors have, in years past, banned the sale of firearms and ammo in the lead up and aftermath of a storm. hen again, he is absolutely not going to practice or train with it. It may just more of a liability.

Any thoughts on that?
 
You said he knows how to use a firearm, but won’t practice or train with one (not much time to do that prior to possible landfall anyways). So he must be familiar with some firearm, if you have that firearm or model, take it and the needed ammo down and leave it with him in a waterproof container. Maybe label it “In case of emergency”.
 
You said he knows how to use a firearm, but won’t practice or train with one (not much time to do that prior to possible landfall anyways). So he must be familiar with some firearm, if you have that firearm or model, take it and the needed ammo down and leave it with him in a waterproof container. Maybe label it “In case of emergency”.

Yup. That's what I'm thinking. I just spoke to his mom to get her thoughts on it, she promptly let the cat out of the bag. I spoke to him, he was like "okay, whatever." I'm a little leery of forcing such a great responsibility on him if he doesn't want that responsibility.

But yeah, it's the exact same gun he ran USPSA with about 2 yrs back.

I'm not necessarily concerned about this particular storm, rather a general pattern.
 
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Sounds like you have more confidence in your RV surviving the storm than your house. In my experience, hurricane force winds are not normally kind to RV's.
That depends on the category.

Irma was a borderline cat 2 – the house and RV were fine; but no power for three days.
 
That depends on the category.

Irma was a borderline cat 2 – the house and RV were fine; but no power for three days.

That seems to be the pattern with hurricanes in Florida. Very few direct hits with widespread devastation, but glancing or passing-by hits with high winds that take down power lines over hundreds of square miles. It requires a lot of labor, and time, to rebuild that much infrastructure.

And when the lights go out, that's when the looting starts. There was a lot of it during Andrew in 92. Less so in others. The other problem is profiteers selling generators, water, and ice for 3-4 times the normal price, but that isn't really a direct, physical threat.

The problem with defending against looting is that you're not really there. The government orders an evacuation, so residents leave. Then, the looters come out. Once the storm passes, the government is usually slow to allow residents tor return. And police aren't patrolling, so there is a 24-36 hr window of general lawlessness. If you refused the evac order, then you're very much on your own for a couple days. Maybe that's why we never thought about prepping guns for a storm; we never evacuated, and, because we were there, we never saw any looters.
 
The problem with defending against looting is that you're not really there.
Hence my remaining home.

I bought this property with hurricanes in mind – there’s no chance of flooding and storms usually downgrade before arriving.

And to keep this post firearm-related, my ‘hurricane gun’ will be at the ready – a Yugo M70 AKM clone.

The sight and sound of an AK’s action being cycled is usually sufficient to deter looters.
 
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