by Alex Lloyd Gross
ALEX LLOYD GROSS FILE PHOTO- DELAWARE VALLEY NEWS.COM aN EVACUATION SIGN GIVING DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO GET TO HIGHER GROUND.
When a serious hurricane is coming for you, it is best to not be in the path. Smaller hurricanes can be ridden out but not something like a Cat 5. Small creeks and pretty books that are serene and peaceful will turn into raging torrents of water, very quickly. If you live near one, You can anticipate flooding. Water will come at you from multiple directions and rise fast.
There are people that think that since they took all their lawn furniture in and secured their house they are good to go. Debris from a house two blocks away is capable of causing damage to your house, Holes poked in roofs, broken windows, boards ripped from windows.
The probability of large trees that fall onto roads is almost 100 percent. You will not be able to get out for provisions. Assume your house is fine, you don’t have power, how will you cook? Storing propane canisters in the house is dangerous. When the water subsides, you can take out a grill. Since there is no power, frozen food will spoil in about two days.
You need ice and lots of it. And a cooler to store your food. From stories of people on the ground in North Carolina and past experience with Hurricane Sandy, FEMA ties up the distribution process with bureaucracy. Charcoal works best. Get a lot of it and you can store it in your house. Do not dump a pile of charcoal in the grill. You will run out. Use no more than five pieces for food. The food will cook and you will save your resources. Should some of the charcoal get wet, it can still use used in conjunction with other charcoal that has not gotten damaged. It must be dried out first, but it will still serve it’s purpose.
Do you have pets? You better make sure you have food and water for them. If you do decide to evacuate, you must take your pets.Failure to do so will result in your arrest, should the animal be abandoned. Many shelters take pets.Serious lessons were learned from Sandy when people refused to evacuate without their pets.
Alex Lloyd Gross File Photo-Delaware Valley News.com, A barometer is pinned at the lowest pressure , which means a storm is imminent.
There is a myriad of problems that people have not thought of during an evacuation. Someone who is on the Megans Law watch list might have just lost their home and now they are relocated in a new community. If they skip from town to town every few weeks, they can remain under the radar until they are picked up by law enforcement..That happens months down the road.
Prisoners on GPS monitoring have no way to prove to the court where they are if the power goes out and they cannot charge the battery to the device.
When a storm is announced, people will flood hardware stores for provisions, It’s time for a battery operated portable radio. Do you have one? No power means no cellphone service, no way to charge your phone if you do have service. Charge everything up, flashlights, cellphones anything that takes a charge. If you have a generator, make sure it’s in working condition before the storm hits.
Power companies will work to restore power on the largest grid down to the smallest. You could be without power for six months or more, depending on the damage and what had be be done to restore your power.
Alex Lloyd Gross File Photo-Delaware Valley News.com MRE’s are ready for distribution after Hurricane Sandy.
When the order is given to evacuate, people will clog roads. Opening shoulders to traffic does not help very much at all. Now the shoulders are gridlocked as well. People will run out of gas. Take smaller residential streets, driveways, alleys, anyway to get a car going in the direction you want. The farther you go, the farther you are out of the path of danger. If you can stop for gas , do it, you may be glad you topped off with $10.00 in fuel when you are 60 miles from home.
When you ride out the storm and the water rises and keeps rising, first responders are not going to come and rescue you. In other words, you are on your own. They will not trade lives when you were given ample warning to leave and you ignored it. They will come after the storm, if they can, which means you may be stranded on your roof for days. History has proven that to be true.
When the storm has passed and you did evacuate, resist going back immediately.Roads may be impassable and you will be stranded.