Your Home Is Important -- Protect It

There are so many things to do to secure your home, both during the calm and right before a hurricane hits. Here are some things you may not have thought of to help you protect one of your most precious assets.

• Consider shutters or pre-cut boards for securing your windows. Taping is very ineffective and definitely do not plan on cracking them open.

• Get simple latches for your attic access panels so the air pressure can't suck them up and then blow insulation into your house making an even bigger mess.
  
  

• Have at least 4-6 large gas cans available. You'll need to get around and many gas stations may not be available.

• Have four to six large plastic storage bins empty and available. You'll want to fill up at least two with water last minute. (Note: 70 gallons from your hose really cuts back on how many bottled gallons you have to buy, and it's more than good enough for pets, hand-washing, boiling for cooking, etc.) The others will be handy to have for keeping valuables dry last minute, if the worst happens.

• If you have a gas grill, buy an extra full tank to keep ready. If you have a coal grill, but plenty of extra coals. If you lose electricity, this will become your stove, and both gas and coals will be in short supply afterwards.

• If you are in the market for a new refrigerator, buy a good energy efficient one. Some of the newer styles can keep frozen food fresh for days without any electricity -- plenty of time to eat it all and keep it from being wasted. When a storm is coming, turn your fridge/freezer temps down to their coldest settings 12-24 hours before the storm hits.

• Take a hose and blast water around your door frames and windows as hard as you can, then look for any signs of water inside. If you find any, then figure out a way to seal it well. No matter how hard you blast, it will never reach the pressure and force of hurricane rains, which will break most seals, so any leaking will be far worse then what you get with your hose.

• If you have any double doors, get extra ceiling and floor bolts to anchor them well. You don't want to spend an entire storm trying to keep your double doors closed against the wind.

• Brace your garage door! You can buy hurricane kits, but if you must do something last minute, then extra long screws and tarp / motorcycle tie-downs and bungie cords can work wonders. Just find any way you can to anchor that garage door to the frame, because that's usually where the system fails -- the wind pushes the door off the track. Of course, if you anchor it shut, then you can't do this until a storm threatens, but you should have a plan in place.

• Bring in any lawn furniture, trampolines -- potential missles -- that you have outside. It might not be a big deal to you if they get blown away, but if they blow into your home, breaking windows and causing worse damage, that is a big deal! If there are homes with tile roofs near yours, try to find another place to park your cars during the storm. Tiles may not stay on the house in hurricane force winds, and they will completely ruin your car and there will be no rentals available for miles around for weeks.

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