Don't see how I can get in any trouble by posting this, but I'm sure someone will object....
Hurricane season in the Atlantic, Gulf & Caribbean begins June 1st and ends November 30th.
Since many either live in, or vacation in, areas likely to be impacted the question you need to ask is... Do you know what to do?
As a former FL resident of far too many years, I am too familiar with the steps required to ride out a hurricane... IN A CONCRETE BLOCK HOUSE. Not in a metal tube on wheels. If simply vacationing or unfettered by mundane things like jobs, we would leave at the 72 hour warning. Head inland (north west track) roughly 100 to 150 miles, pull into a parking lot and reassess our options (stay put & find a campground or head further inland). If in FL (not that we would be), we would leave MUCH MUCH sooner. I would not want to be caught stuck on an interstate with a hurricane heading towards us.
These are the weather related pages that always open when I launch my internet (I like to know what the weather is doing... tornadoes have always scared the crap out of me, more so since the mile wide one that hit
came within 1/2 mile of the campground we were in at the time):
Weather Underground local map So I can keep track of local weather
National Hurricane Center I keep track of the Atlantic/Gulf/Caribbean waters
Hydrometeorological Prediction Center Lots of good info on this page but I am most interested in the
National Forecasts
The
National Forecasts shows the locations of the High Pressure Systems & the Low Pressure Systems. A Hurricane is a Low Pressure System. A strong High will push a weaker Low away. Conversely a strong Low will pull a weaker Low towards it. A group of Lows will pull another stronger Low towards them. The 3 day projections allows us to figure out where the hurricane will make landfall. David & I have been watching Hurricanes for a long time and if we have access to the locations of the various high/low pressure systems, we can determine where a hurricane will make landfall (with a 50 mile variance on each side) usually by the 72 hour warning. We have a pretty good track record on it. Since I have an outside job (I work for some one other than ourselves) We would lean towards staying put for a midrange to weak
Cat 1 Hurricane. These type usually get downgraded to Tropical Storm Status when they hit land. We have experienced sustained Cat 1 hurricane winds here in NM while in the bus. We do need some stabilizers on the bus due to the rocking but we feel it will hold up okay at that level. Bear in mind, we would not be directly ON a beach or a barrier island and we would pay attention to the flood areas. When we were staying in Corpus Christi (winter) we were in an area that would flood first (and was "protected" by Padre Island which is a barrier island). We would not have ridden out a Cat 1 hurricane (or strong tropical storm) on Flour Bluff due to the almost certain flood risk.
Emergency Preparedness old Skoolie.net thread... very good info if you wade past the squabbling
National Hurricane Center
Hurricane Preparedness
Evacuating Yourself & Your Family
Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale watch the little computer animation towards the bottom of the page.
FEMA Mapping Platform Flood Risk
FEMA Mapping Platform Hurricanes, fires, earthquakes etc.... check off the filters you want to look at and refresh the map. I was looking at the hurricane history
US Evacuation Routes
Wildfire Incidents You need to know what the name of the fire is but if you use
Wundermap (also one of the pages that open when I start up my internet), set the filters for "fire" and hover over the fire, it will pop up the name of the fire if it has one. You can also set the filters to show the smoke coverage, good if you have breathing problems but will not show if the smoke is high up like here or low to the ground. David has asthma and the smoke from Little Bear has bothered him only a few days,mostly in the AM. You can turn on/off the satellite detection as sat will even show big bonfires from clearing off fields. That said, I started watching the Little Bear fire when it popped up on the satellite detection setting which was long before it was reported on the semi local news. I had been watching the Whitewater Baldy fire over near the NM/AZ state lines so I have been looking at the fires for quite some time.
You don't need to prepare for just hurricanes but any disaster. Like the fires (the one up in
Ruidoso has become pretty big. Luckily we aren't close but if we were staying in Capitan, we would have been long gone), Floods (due to the fire, Lincoln County is now at risk for flooding when it rains), tornadoes & severe storms, all require some preparation. Like keep your fuel tank full (add a fuel stabilizer to diesel... is there one for gasoline?) fresh water full, waste tanks empty (even if you have to dump before completely full). A well stocked pantry means you can leave town without worrying about food. You may end up staying in a parking lot or rest area some place for a night or two.
Jack
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