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Preparations for the hurricane season

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Gary

Hello neighbors in the Caribbean!

Although it's still April, the hurricane season will start in 6 weeks.
How do you prepare for the season?
Do you have a generator, do you have watertanks?
How do you protect your house?
Did you ever experience a hurricane?

To answer those questions myself, I have a generator (note to self: have it checked one of these days!)
For water, I have 4 tanks with a total volume of 2,000 gallons. Being an old engineer I automated the water system, so the tanks fill automatically and whenever we don't have 'aqua de la calle' as we call it here, a pump I installed automatically keeps the pressure in the house witer pipes.

Most houses, like ours, here are built in concrete and strong enough to withstand a hurricane.  I have to buy some more plywood for covering the windows. (somehow I always seem to use plywood and when the season starts I don't have enough :/ )

I never experienced a hurricane - 'only' a tropical storm. (Jeanne in 2004).
We hardly had damage here, but since the infrastructure in PR isn't as good as it could be, we were without water and electricity for three weeks. We live 'in the middle of nowhere' and services are reinstalled here when the rest of the island has been served..
I didn't have a generator back then, so we had to improvise a lot. My water system didn't work (electrical pump!). We were busy getting gallon bottles of water filled at the house of a family member in the next town who had his service restored after three days. Getting ice to keep food cool was another problem.

I'm considering signing up for mobile internet with one the cellular companies. The thing I missed the most during those three weeks was the internet!

My first stop in the internet in 'the season' is the National Hurricane Center.

I'm interested in hearing your experiences and preparations!

Flower

Most houses here built of concrete as well but we had plenty of damages the last three years from Frances, Jeanne and Wilma last year ...:(

Preparation will be the same as ever ..Get enough water and canned food, make sure you have a little gas stove - coffee is a must -especually in the aftermath

I am not fearing the Hurricanes, but the terrible aftermath ..Like a war zone...

After Frances we had no running water for two weeks, no power for four weeks, no drinking water nor fresh food on the island for at least 1.5 weeks ....

I just hope that this season will be a gentle one for us

Gary

Flower wrote:

I just hope that this season will be a gentle one for us


Same here! We've been extremely lucky during the last years. I sure hope our luck won't run out this season!

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