Heads on a swivel you folks on Eastern Seaboard. Flo's coming.

[Donna R. Raybon]

Make certain propane tank is tied down tight! Nothing worse than one of those 500 gallon ones floating, breaking free!!! All are in my prayers as it sounds pretty bad, what is coming!

 

[Baymule]

Don't forget the generator oil!

Things I learned by living in hurricane country,

1. Bake a huge pan of brownies. Aw hell, bake 2!
2. Buy a box of cheap wine or whatever your taste buds desire. When a tree falls on your house and it is raining on the inside, eat your brownies, drink your wine. It will still be raining, but you won't care.
3. Buy brand new plastic trash cans with lids, place in various places and fill with water. This will enable you to water livestock, bathe, and flush toilets.
4. Fill all pots and containers with water for washing hands and cooking.
5. Place 5 gallon buckets in bathrooms for flushing toilet. Pour water directly in toilet, it will flush.
6. Take in friends that live in a flood zone or trailer homes.
7. Bread is stripped from stores. Bake some before the storm hits.
8. Buy flour tortillas or make them.
9. Cook a large roast for sandwiches or for rolling up in flour tortillas.
10. Boil eggs for a quick snack.
11. If you have empty freezer space, fill containers with water and freeze. This will help keep freezer cold.
12. Stock up on feed and hay for animals.
13. Have a BBQ pit, pile wood in dry place, have plenty of charcoal and lighter fluid. Or have a gas grill with plenty of propane bottles.
14. Candles. Matches. Oil lamps. Flashlights.
15. Canned soup and crackers. This is comfort food when you are sitting in the dark and a hurricane is hammering at your home.
16. Paper plates, paper towels and disposable cups.
17. Fill all prescriptions.
18. Anything outside that is loose, put it in a shed, barn or garage. Tie down everything you can.
19. Halter your livestock with your contact info and address written on the halters, Spray paint your address on their side.
20. If YOU live in a flood zone, load your animals up and LEAVE.

Been there, done that.

 

[Donna R. Raybon]

Bleach pen phone number on horses rump works well! Bit trickier on longer haired critters like goats.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Solar landscape lights are cheap and give a nice glow in the evenings. During the aftermath of Ike when we had no power for 2.5 years (felt that way, lol) we loved them.

French press for coffee, camp stove with those little gas canisters are great to cook on.

My thoughts and prayers are with ya'll!

 

[Baymule]

21. Duct tape. It fixes almost everything.
22. New tarps and a roll of some very heavy duty plastic. Some lumber and nails/screws for holding the tarp/plastic down. If laying on a roof, run the lumber up and down vertically, not horizontally. Horizontally, the boards will catch the water run off and make it leak worse.
23. SAVE RECIEPTS for anything spent to minimize damage to your home. Most insurance will reimburse you 100% on expenses that you spent to keep more damage from happening.

 

[Mini Horses]

RAIN -- we have had so much along Carolinas & VA already. This storm is packing huge amounts of more rain. We all know the flooding, downed trees, etc. Flooding is going to be worse than they think because we have many road areas closed from just the fronts on top of us now. My farm is high but leaving to go far is near impossible with these events. Generator gas gathering is today's job. In case. I'm collecting my thoughts over coffee now … done with pasture moves and nose counts. Did a general "look around" while out there. I think we are mostly ok. Picking up some extra propane for the outside cooker in case we need it for more than a hamburger. Will grab a couple loaves of bread for the freezer -- I don't use much but may over weekend. Plenty of PB&J. Also freezing some xtra jugs of water in case someone needs it for a cooler or their frig.

Tape, batteries, candles, etc. I'm good on all that already.

Right now it looks like NC will get direct -- can change -- but I am only 12 miles above NC line and this Southern area of VA is getting hit hard. Navy pulling ships out of harbor.

 

[Bunnylady]

Navy pulling ships out of harbor.

There were dozens of rip-current rescues over the weekend locally; we have now officially had a State of Emergency declared. Some of the school buildings are used as evacuation shelters, so school will not be in session starting tomorrow.

 

[greybeard]

Neat broadcast.

I was 11 when it happened, and was holed up with the rest of my family SE of Houston as Carla battered us with mostly heavy rain and frequent tornado warnings. We were quite familiar with Dan Rather, as he had been the guy that did the radio broadcasts of the Houston Buffs games. It was a big deal then, seeing those maps, listening to to the guys at the weather station explain stuff, and it began a lifelong fascination of weather events for me. Power went out some hours after Carla made landfall at Port O'Conner and made her curve to the NE. Carla was a HUGE storm, covered almost the entirety of the Gulf of Mexico and we were on the 'dirty' side of it. An 18 1/2' storm surge came with it at Port O'conner area and 150 miles to the north it pushed water high enough to float Battleship Texas off it's berth and topple a statue of Sam Houston that had stood for decades. I snuck out of the house thru the garage in the height of it, just to stand in the horizontal rain for a few minutes......I wanted to see what it was really like.

Sandy got the 'super' notoriety simply because of where in landed. Katrina was a political football disaster and tragedy only because of the Mississippi River. Ike was powerful and compact and hit a main channel in a resort area. Harvey, really wasn't much of a storm if you take away the extended time it stuck around. Carla, was just a strong monster and today still ranks as the most intense (Dvorak 'T' scale) Atlantic hurricane ever to make landfall. (Saffir Simpson 1-5 scale only measures wind speed)

Everyone remembers the before/after pictures of Bolivar Peninsula when Ike came in 2008, but Ike wasn't the first hurricane to wipe most of Bolivar clean. The difference? Ike made a direct hit on Bolivar, Carla did it, from 150 miles away.

 

[RollingAcres]

My thoughts are prayers are with y'all. Stay safe!

 

[greybeard]

Make certain propane tank is tied down tight! Nothing worse than one of those 500 gallon ones floating, breaking free!!!

I still have one sitting in my pasture that belongs to one of the neighbors...a year after it floated here.

For me, making sure the livestock had water was not a problem, Ike, Harvey or Rita.

Do the best you can to survive the coming storm. It's all you can do.

camp stove with those little gas canisters are great to cook on

Winner!
(the day before the flood..had coffee from the same source earlier during the day)