Hurricane Irma & Readiness

I write this because I feel it is important for everyone that lives in an area that gets Hurricanes to be ready. My son and I moved to the west coast of Florida about 5 months ago. I picked the west coast mainly because they hadn't seen a hurricane in over 100 years. I felt safe. We were leaving Texas where our house had just gotten pummeled by the wonderful Texas storms. Of course that is what insurance is for, and it all worked out in the end, other than getting totally taken advantage of by contractors and loosing most of the insurance money to a con artist. But we lived thru it all, finally got everything repaired and moved on to wonderful Florida.

I have lived thru earthquakes in Alaska, then tornadoes and hail storms in Texas. Now I can say that I have lived thru a hurricane. I still have to say that Texas tornadoes scare me more than anything. Although the day before the eye of Irma was supposed to hit, I was pretty panicky and scared. I had decided that my son and I would "weather" out the storm in our house....until I saw that the eye was supposed to come directly over us and we were urged to evacuate. I hesitated, I did not want my house destroyed, as if staying would have kept it up. In the end, we evacuated late Friday night and just drove east. Of course we were not prepared and there were absolutely no hotels to be had. Luckily I have some wonderful friends who found us a place to stay.

Then to find out the storm had shifted more east and was now on track to go directly over us where we had evacuated to! At this point, all we could do was hope and pray that we would be safe. It was tremendous, the wind, the noise of everything rattling and wanting to collapse and the torrential rain coming down. I had parked my car in a spot I felt was the most safe. The power went out and we were in total darkness, and all we could do was wait. Wait until it passed and wait until the calm. And it did come, the wind basically stopped, along with the rain. Seemed kind of strange. Of course, it was like a moment, that moment to take a breath and check on everything.

We had very little gas, no food, nothing open, no gas at the pumps...so really wasn't sure how we were going to get back home or if it was safe due to floods or what not. At this point, I just wanted to get home. Irma had made her path, and I just wanted to be home after two nights of no sleep and worry. I checked the gas in our car and if there was no problems getting home, we would arrive in fumes. We decided that is what we wanted to do. My son and I just both wanted to be home.

We did make it with just enough gas, and I knew at least we were home and the pumps would have something soon. It just felt good to be home. Our house survived with minimal damage, I say that because everything is fixable....just not lives.

Lesson learned? I am going to be prepared for the next one. It may not hit in my lifetime, but I will have everything I need just in case. Because let me tell you, trying to get prepared after you know it is coming is next to impossible. I got to the store fairly quickly and they were already out of flashlights, water, water jugs, gas jugs, gatorade, and the rest of the canned food was slim pickings. We had to compromise with candles and such. Be ready, be prepared, as you never know when a disaster is going to hit. As I said, after the fact, it is hard to prepare when so many are doing the same thing.