How to Survive a Hurricane
- By Karla Solis
- Feb 26, 2017
How to Survive a Hurricane
If you have ever lived through a hurricane, you have already witnessed first-hand the indescribable power of nature itself. If you haven't yet experienced the full force of a hurricane, your imagination is your best ally. Whatever you are imagining, just make it worse, and then prepare for that. Power outages, contaminated water, contaminated food stores, mold and mildew, feral animals, feral people, rioting and looting and danger as far as the eye can see.
In this post, take your survivalist skills to the next level by learning how to survive during and after a hurricane.
Tip 1:Start your stockpiling NOW.
Imagine your community has just received word that a ferocious hurricane is heading in your direction. An hour later, everyone you know (and plenty of folks you don't know) are clogging checkout lines at the grocery stores and forming lines that stretch around the block at fuel centers. Soon, there is no clean water, food or fuel left to be bought.
This is what you will face if you delay stockpiling food and critical supplies until a storm is reported. You need to start now and stockpile intelligently in case of the worst. Some victims of Hurricane Katrina still are not able to go back to their homes and that storm happened in 2005! If this was you, would your stockpile have lasted?
Tip 2:Don't forget to stockpile cash.
One strategically aimed solar flare could knock out the world's power supply for a decade or longer. A hurricane is perfectly capable of disabling power supplies to an affected area for weeks or longer. In this scenario, how will you get money? ATMs are powered on electricity. Banks won't be able to power up their computers and people won't be able to get to work to help you withdraw funds.
So you will need a ready supply of cash, preferably in small bills, so you can travel to a safe area and be able to obtain anything you may need along the way that you can't carry with you.
Tip 3:Learn basic emergency first aid.
If a hurricane strikes and you or someone you love gets injured, it won't be enough to have the world's fanciest emergency first aid kit packed and ready. You will also need to know how to use each one of those essential supplies in a crisis situation.
And you will need basic skills in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), tourniquet application, wound sterilization, sewing stitches, stabilizing fractures and broken bones, treating stings/bug bites and cuts/scrapes and other similar common first aid techniques to help out family and friends.
Tip 4:Build yourself a safe room.
EvenFEMA(Federal Emergency Management Agency) recommends building yourself a safe room if you live in an area prone to hurricanes and other natural disasters. A safe room must be built to withstand just about anything - gale force winds, torrential rains, falling debris and other unknown hazards.
Ideally, your safe room should be independent of your regular home so that storm damage to that structure will not negatively impact your safe room. Your safe room should also include sufficient space to house your stockpiled food and emergency supplies as well as yourself and your family.
Tip 5:Be sure to have a plan for purifying your water supply.
There are a number of different tools and methods for purifying water. You can use tablets or drops, portable water filters, boiling or even makeshift coffee filters or burlap material as well as other techniques.
What you need to do is be sure you have sufficient options for obtaining water in the event the hurricane renders your local water unsafe and you run out of your stockpiles of fresh water. You should have at least three days' worth of fresh potable water to carry if you have to leave in a hurry and sufficient water purification options to tide you over for a week or longer.
Tip 6:Don't forget about self defense.
One of the most tragic consequences of severe natural disasters can be the behavior of some people when traditional legal systems are suspended. Rioting, looting, burglary, attack and violent crime can all affect your family's safety during and after a hurricane.
So you should stockpile self defense items suitable for use by different aged family members and make sure everyone knows how to use them. For instance, a young child might be given pepper spray or a push-button whistle. An older child could be taught to use a taser and a young adult might be entrusted with a firearm. It is also wise to enroll your family in a basic self defense class, which will teach each family member confidence along with some basic self defense skills.
Tip 7:Make each family member a personal survival bag.
This is one of the best ways to ensure each person in the family will have sufficient stockpiled supplies to make it for some minimum amount of time following a hurricane or other severe storm.
In the personal survival bag, you should include food, potable water and water purification options, a flashlight with extra batteries or a kinetic energy flashlight, waterproof matches and candles, kindling, an emergency shelter blanket or tarp, a change of clothing or two, a compass, a waterproof jacket, first aid supplies, a hand-crank radio and your family's emergency plan in case you get separated.
You should also practice as a family to use the supplies in each personal survival bag, especially if you have children who are old enough to learn yet young enough to forget in a moment of panic. Here, pre-training can make all the difference.
Tip 8:Do everything you can do to protect your primary home.
While you will not know in advance what impact the hurricane may have on your primary place of residence, you can do everything in your power to protect the fundamental integrity of your home by preparing it to withstand the storm just like you prepare your family to do the same.
You can board up windows and doors, turn off the power and water, secure your garage doors, bring all loose objects (large and small) inside the garage, clear out all gutters and rain spouts, drain the pool or jacuzzi, trim trees to remove dead or weak limbs, move cars and bicycles inside the garage, and bring in sand bags or extra clay to redirect water away from trees and your home itself. With any leftover funds, consider investing in a garage door lock and a roof clip to keep doors and roofs in place during high wind conditions.
If you plan to remain in your home and only leave if conditions become life-threatening, it is also smart to invest in a generator to run your refrigerator/freezer and recharge your cell devices.
When you follow these eight tips from storm survival experts, you give yourself and your family an improved chance of surviving a hurricane. You also position yourself to make a quick rebound after the storm passes.