Hurricane Help Tips From Our Readers

The best teacher is experience and our readers have a lot of it. Here are the tips they felt would be most helpful to you in the event of a hurricane. Do you have a helpful hurricane tip you'd like to share? Tell us about it. Just click here to submit your tip to us. You could win a free T-Shirt!

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From Katie in Florida
My community was hit by Charley dead-on, so we had about the worse damage in Florida last year. I got to see and experience it first-hand, so here are my suggestions...

• When a disaster strikes like Charley, none of cell phones worked during the day (if at all) for weeks -- cell phone towers are down, and the temporary towers that are brought in are inadequate to handle to increased demand. Land-lines are completely down for days, but useless for local calls for weeks -- all you get is a busy signal because the system can't handle all the traffic. The best thing to do is to establish an out-of-town phone number (like a relative) for people to check in at. I could get through to out-of-state numbers in just a couple days if I was willing to call after midnight. We were actually passing messages to family 3 miles away, through my sister-in-law in Ohio!!!

• Homeowner's Insurance... in addition to having a copy of your policy and making sure coverage is enough, you should also ask about emergency contact numbers, especially if your agent is local. Down here, those with out-of-state agents got through very quickly, while those with local agents had to wait weeks before they could even start their claims process. If the local phones are down, and the agent's office is destroyed, how are you going to start your claims process? Don't just write down whatever phone number they give you, CALL IT to make sure that it's a valid number! (We had people whose policy's "emergency out of town" phone number was "no longer in service!")

• 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'll 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.

• While you're at it, find a new place for anything on the floor within 10 feet of any doors and windows, if water would ruin it. At the very least, find a way to raise them 2" off the floor. If windows break or doors bust, they'll get wet no matter what, but if you only have the leaks, then that's high enough to keep them dry and safe.

• If you have any double doors, get extra ceiling and floor bolts to anchor them well. Many people we know spent half the storm trying to keep their 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.

• Make a list of account numbers, phone numbers, Internet logins and passwords for every account and bill you have. Put this list with your important information to keep safe. Banks and creditors aren't nearly as understanding as they should be when a hurricane hits, and if you're miles away from home, or can't find any of your paperwork in your ruined house, at least you'll be able to call them and try to make arrangements (once phones are back, of course!)

• Think about your computer and all the irreplaceable stuff that could be on it. Back it up and plan a quick way to take those records and digital photos and such with you. If you have a laptop, then make sure you also have a car charger. If your car's not damaged, then you'll be able to plug it in and prepare emails and download digital photos, etc. (We had wireless relief stations set up where you just park, turn on your laptop, and use their wireless connection right there while you're in your car.)

• Wash all your clothes and towels and clean your house well -- if you lose electricity and water, you'll be glad you did! Everything will get dirty faster, of course, but you're still better off if everything in the house is clean, than if you were just getting ready to clean the next day.

• Fill all the empty space in your freezer and fridge with some of your bottled water, juice too, while you're at it. Doing this will help your fridge / freezer stay cold much longer, and give you cold drinks (a precious commodity) for several days, at least.

• If you do evacuate, or last minute if the storm really does hit your house, take down all your pictures off the walls, and put them in to keep them dry. Ditto with other irreplaceable valuables. If your shingles come off (the first damage that happens) then the water comes through the roof, soaks your insulation, and starts running down the inside of your walls, soaking your drywall. Then your pictures get damp, and as the heat sets in in the days to follow (remember there won't be any air conditioning), they mildew and are ruined.

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