Tropical Depression Two is the new name. The suggested tracks have it heading north of the islands and then it either heads north into the northern Atlantic or continues westward. Still too early to tell, but it may miss everything. It's still early and the first ones aren't usually the worst, unless of course your name is Andrew.
Please remember these are only projections and they change as the storm approaches land. The further out you go time wise, the less accurate the projection. Katrina kicked east at the end and just missed New Orleans, but still did a ton of damage and Ike started near Galvaston, tracked towards Mexican/Texas border and then headed back toward Galvaston.
A couple of sites to take a look at:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
http://www.stormpulse.com/
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc_pages/tc_home.html
I'm able to keep an eye of these until school starts after Labour Day.Then I get really busy. That's why Groomie was so good at this and I wish I had his emergency list. Here it is: http://community.klipsch.com/forums/t/104884.aspx?PageIndex=25
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·
Make sure you have a
camera with fresh batteries. Both for photos of any damage as it occurs and
afterwards as it documents your expenses and mitigation efforts for insurance
(not to mention good pictures for the Forum,.....)
·
Have 55 gallon garbage
bags handy. You can use them for a lot of mitigation things, and.... to cover
expensive items (Klipsch.... ) in the event of a sheathing failure that
opens the roof.
·
Move all very expensive
stuff (e.g. Klipsch...) away from the walls. The "best practice" is
to actually move every possible thing away from any and all walls that are
opposite exterior walls. That's where the problems will surface.
·
Open all drapes and
blinds, and using a rag to hold them open, duct tape around the rag. Reason:
you can immediately see if there are any leaks.
·
Strategically place a
mop bucket and mop where you can get to it. Try to come up with about 10 WalMart
"tubs". The 18 gallon kind. You will need them for wet towels, and
also if you have water streaming in anywhere.
·
Strategically place at
least 4-5 towels, a WalMart tub, and a roll of duct tape next to the
windows so if there is a failure on the roof, or the windows leak anywhere, you
can use the towels to sop it up. We keep about 100 old cotton towels in several
WalMart "tubs" just for hurricanes.
·
If there is water coming
in around the windows, duct tape 55 gallon drum liner to sides and on the
window sill, and put loose end folded over into a tub, This will keep the water
off the floor and walls and direct it to the tubs.
·
If there is a
catastrophic failure to any section of the roof, i.e. a piece of sheathing
comes off, put WalMart tubs underneath where the water is pouring in.
Then isolate that room by shutting the door, and duct tape towels to the
bottom of the door on the inside. Then put towels around the bottom of the door
on the outside of the door. If you can, you can also duct tape the 55 gallon
drum liners (overlapped) along the wall and direct the water to a tub.
·
When the roof leaks, it
will generally leak at the edges and the visible effect is water coming in
around windows. Dependent on the design, if your house has ridge vents, unless
they are the newer CAT-3 type (higher "lip") there may be leaks and
the water will run down the sheathing and you will see water along the edges of
the walls/ceilings. Many newer homes no longer use ridge venting and rely only
on soffit vents.
·
On the front door, or
whatever primary home exit door is on the windward side, go outside and duct
tape the gap between the door and the frame. Even the best door seals begin to
leak at about 75 mph. The duct tape will prevent that.
·
Until the power dies,
keep the A/C running to remove humidity. When the power dies, go to the main
breaker box, and turn off all breakers except one "strategic" one. I
recommend the living room. Keep one light on so if power comes back there are
no massive surges to anything except your light bulb....
·
If you have a garage,
ideally park your car in the garage. Place a sheet of 4x8 plywood between
the bumper and the garage door. Carefully put it in reverse and back up very
slowly and push against the plywood. Put it in park and that will prevent the
wind from taking out the garage door if it's on the windward side.
·
Check every room with a
flashlight every 5-10 minutes. You will be busy as a one legged man in a butt
kickin contest for at least 12-16 hours..... Concentrate on the windward rooms.
·
If the "surge"
is not too bad and you are not underwater...., you can actually go outside
during the "event" on the leeward side and work your way around and
take a quick look at the roof and see if tiles are coming off. Trick is to have
two doors between you and the point of exit. The garage doors work for me
because the inner garage door to the house is well sealed and the air pressure
differential is not much. Once I get out into the first garage, I can then use
either the north bay door or the south exit door, dependent....
In the things not to do for a hurricane (trust me...).
No matter how many tears the WAF sheds, how sorry you feel for them, etc. DO NOT bring the outside pets inside. They are smarter than us and always "escape" to the leeward side until it's over. They may give you a dirty look when it's over but a can of tuna will make them all happy and loving again.....
For Frances... my wife decided the cats and the dog needed to be inside.... So, even though I knew what would happen, she would not hear it... we compromised and in the inner garage they went with a plywood panel to keep them out of my "garage", aka: the workshop.... Well, hurricanes sound like a giant freight train coming over and they went nuts and "turded" everything.... Whatta' mess.. We don't talk about the cats, dogs, etc anymore. We make sure they have a good meal before it starts, and they haul butt to wherever they want (usually in the horse trailer parked nose to the wind...)
Inside pets? Just leave them alone, talk to them, and pet them every few minutes and make sure their litter box is fresh.... If they see you are not scared totally witless, they will generally follow you around and help investigate...... Feed them tuna fish; it's pure protein and will cut down on the number of poops that you will have to deal with..... Never lock them in a room that you are not in, or they will go nuts as the "fright train" is passing over...
Clean up
Glad to see that it appears everyone made it through safe and sound. From experience in dealing with 2 weeks without power....., there are a number of things I do (and I handle safety/PIO for our Emergency Management during and after these "events").
For those who stay (I know it's common sense, but I'll throw it out there anyways...):
Get in the FEMA or EMgt "ice" lines and try to get ice every day. Try to find bleach, at least 5 gallons. Or even better, pool chlorine in jugs. Try to get at a couple pints of fuel line dryer. Always scoop up some batteries, etc. when they are available. Grab styro coolers if they are around, reasonable or free.....
Until you have power, or are ready to turn a generator on, absolutely turn off every light switch and the master breaker in your house. Also (best practice...) turn off all sub-breakers. When the power comes back on, and you turn the master breaker on, you won't have sudden massive surge/drop-out as everything in the house tries to turn back on at the same time. Turn on one breaker at a time, starting with A/C, then kitchen, etc.
If you have a stand alone freezer, get everything you can out of any refrigerator freezers and pack it in the stand-alone. The more you fill up one freezer, the longer it will stay "frozen". Put as many bags of ice in that freezer as you can along with the food.
If you do not have a stand alone freezer, turn the refrigerator off, and use coolers and ice for perishable items. The more ice, the better. Now's a good time to defrost the refrigerator and clean.... If you do not have coolers, but can get ice, put the bags of ice in the bottom of the fridge in the "vegetable bins". That way when it melts, it's in the bin for dumping...
Sort perishables into "play lists" to eat, and pack the items that you will eat into coolers with the "menu" in order of consumption.
If you have a generator hooked into the house system (with the switch box, etc.), great! But... fuel consumption is related to the load. Turn off the hot water heater and set the A/C to about 80. Be brutal and only turn on absolutely what you need. Avoid using stove/oven if you can. Microwave if necessary, they draw alot but cook fast.
If you do not have a generator, see if your neighbor(s) have one you can borrow for a few hours each day in return for paying for fuel later.
If using a generator, set the freezer or fridge at the coldest temperature.
Never open the fridge or freezer unless you absolutely need to remove what you are going to eat and know what you want in advance so the door does not stay open for very long.
Start cleaning up "stuff" now. That's where the 10,000 towels that I keep come in handy.... Dirty towels in a wallmart "tub", outside so the humidity is not added to the house. Wet but not dirty towels? Hang them outside to dry. Old school, but what the hey!
If you have a ladder, go on your roof and make sure any tiles "flipped up", are flipped down. If missing tiles, you can temp seal the edges and any exposed roof tile nails with silicone. Do not "nail" tiles down, or nail anything through the remaining tiles, etc. unless you know you will replace the roof..... Reason? Water is like nature... It will find a way to get in around the nails, etc.
If you had any leaks, get into your attic as soon as possible and find the wet insulation and get it out as fast as possible. You can replace it later. Reason? It holds water, takes forever to dry out and will grow mold on the ceiling drywall. Actually, you should get up there and check anyways, especially below ridge vents and along the areas where the trusses meet the walls.
If you have a small generator and it's not capable of a 240V feed to an A/C (usually 12K or bigger), try to obtain fans. Keep the fans running in only those rooms you occupy. Keep all other doors shut. If your Klipsch stuff is in another room, keep that door open and the fan pointed at your "electronics".
Humidity sits low and heat sits high. Aim fans up at a 30 degree angle to force the dry air to come down, pick up the humidity, etc.
If no A/C, keep windows shut until any flooding subsides to keep excess humidity out of the house. If you open windows, try to only open windows on the windward and leeward sides to keep a flow of air through the house. position fans near the windward windows to increase air flow.
Try to only open windows in the evening when the humidity condenses out of the air and there is less humidity in the air flow. If water got in, keep the windows open as described to accelerate the drying process.
If water got in anywhere, put bleach in a "squeeze" bottle. Ideally if you can find a store that's open, Tilex grout cleaner spray is the best. Spray this stuff every six hours on drywall, etc. and it will prevent mold. Do this for at least a week or until your drywall is "dry" and hard to the fingernail like before the storm.
If the water system is "city water", great!! If you are on a well like most of rural Florida.... here's the rule: If it's yellow, let it mellow... If it's brown, put it down.... 2 oz of bleach in the toilet will keep it safe for a number of "doo-doos". If there is standing water anywhere outside, get at least 3-4 buckets of water and keep them handy outside. Once a day "flush" the toilet with a bucket of water, and then add couple ounces of bleach. Use only ONE toilet until power/water comes back on.
If you have lawnmowers, drain the fuel to use in a generator or put it in your primary vehicle. If you are low on fuel in your primary vehicle and have another vehicle, "siphon" (the old redneck credit card trick...) that fuel out into fuel containers or milk/ bleach/ water jugs and put it in your primary vehicle.
Meat in the freezer that you will have to eat? Want to cook and have fun... Here's the chance to make an old style redneck BBQ.... 4 cinder blocks and a piece of "pressed metal" grating (or you can always use an old refrigerator shelf....). Piece of foil on ground (keeps moisture out of wood), line with the cinder blocks. Use "dead fall" wood or charcoal. Don't use "debris" wood as it is likely pine or spruce and has fire retardant chemicals like cyanide compounds that are not good for you... Use mineral spirits as lighter fluid (that's what BBQ lighter fluid is, and they charge you 10 times more for the "BBQ" label....)
Unless it's absolutely necessary, always have someone in yor house. Dependent upon where you live..... stay armed... People get pretty desperate after 2-3 weeks without gas, power, etc and sometimes wander around looking for easy targets.
Hope that helps some if you are going to be "refugees" for a week or so.
The devil made it tube it.
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