Newbie from Texas/Hurricane IKE survivor

[rivka]

I found my way here from Backyard Chickens!
I survived Hurricane Ike and two weeks of no power.
I learned a great deal from it.
Here are a few things i learned. I am looking to learn from others too.
1. Don't count on the government to help you at all.
2. Don't listen to your friends or family who are making fun of you for preparing.
3. Stock up on little propane cans and camp stove single burners.
4. get even a small generator...you have no idea how much one light bulb and a little TV can make the dark nights easier.
5. if you live in a hot climate, get a small window unit you can run on generator.
6. you will NEVER have stored enough gas. All stations will be out or have no power to pump it. Fill up all your cars. get a siphon tube also.
7. Have some cash. Credit cards don't work when there is no power.
ATMs don't work either.
8. Your land line and cells will not work. Get some of the Family radio walkie talkie. At least you can walk around neighborhood and kids at home can get you. I sent my kids down the road where a restaurant was serving hot food. I sent kids with radios.
9. A HOT meal even in the summer is great!
10. Help your neighbors.

 

[2dream]

Glad to have you here.

You will find some great info here and sounds like you have lots of first hand knowledge on some wonderful things to do.

 

[k0xxx]

Welcome! I spent the first forty years of my life in the area southeast of New Orleans, so I very much understand and certainly agree with your observations. They are great recommendations for all types of emergencies.

These are some of the nicest folks that you'll ever meet, so I know you will feel at home.

Again, welcome to the group!

Mark

 

[keljonma]

rivka! You make some very good points! Always better to rely on yourself.

My daughter's in-laws have always been prepared for storms. Right before Ike hit their area, my daughter filled a couple kid's wading pools and put them in the garage. She let the kids play in the water so they would be cool at night. They slept better for it. They were in Lufkin area at her MIL's place. My son-in-law and his dad are x-country truckers and they used their cabs for power as well as their generators. They had a huge tree land on the second story roof and crashed into one of the bedrooms. Luckily no one was hurt. Ironically, when my daughter and her family got back to their place in Houston County, they found they only lost a couple fig trees! We were in the Houston area for almost 15 years, but were blessed to only have damage once from a tornado.

 

[rivka]

Thanks Mark...read about your Ham radio hobby. My dad was (is?) a huge radio hobbiest. He used to have a big gray radio with all kids of dials and gages. He talked to people all over the world. then he got the CB/radio that you could dial home phone! he did have the license and used to tell us we would have to talk fast if we wanted to say hi to mom on the way home cause we did not have license! But this was long before cell phones so dad would call mom to say we were coming home from store etc. Still recall how fun that was!

 

[big brown horse]

rivka,

Where did you live during Ike? I lived in the middle of Houston and it almost took our house that we were in the process of selling. Now we are faaaaaar away from those dreaded hurricanes here in western Washington state. After t.s. Allison, Katrina, Rita and then Ike, we had enough!

Never no more!

Oh, usually I am a happy go lucky gal, but I HATE hurricanes!!!!

AND

 

[rivka]

Bigbrown: we live up in Spring. The wind was insane and we have those massive pines and oaks, which only by G-d's grace did not fall on our house. We give credit to G-d , our constnat non stop praying, and the fact that we are one of the few on the block who have NOT cut down trees only to leave one or two. It is the people who cut down all the trees had that lone massive tree fall on their house...but for us somehow in our area most of the trees fell on detached garages.
It was so horrible, I lived thru Alecia and this was 100 times worse. i have waht I call post traumatic hurricane stress disorder. I think about it several times a day still, but thank G-d our family and house were OK. We did have some siding hurt, pool off for two weeks stained it, water blew in open window AFTER hurricane...

 

[user251]

hello from bama, its good to meet you. thank you for the advise. i was deployed to the coast with our Fire Dept. heavy rescue response team during katrina and the way people pulled together and lived was amazing. it was am amazing experience for me that i hope to never do again, the most strange part was that there were no bugs of any kind, no gnats, skeeters or flies weird.

 

[big brown horse]

hello from bama, its good to meet you. thank you for the advise. i was deployed to the coast with our Fire Dept. heavy rescue response team during katrina and the way people pulled together and lived was amazing. it was am amazing experience for me that i hope to never do again, the most strange part was that there were no bugs of any kind, no gnats, skeeters or flies weird.

Hey, thank you firem3 for your efforts. It was surreal wasn't it? Gulf coast cities and islands just wiped off the face of the map. I was very proud of my city to step up and invite the survivors over. We volunteered around the clock at community centers and the Astro dome.

rivka, we lost two nice trees but the buyers weren't scared off by that.

We had no power for 11 days, no ice, no phone service of any kind, all batteries and bottled water vanished off the shelves. Cut off from the world. Then to boot we flooded (not related) and couldn't leave the downtown area where I lived. Creepy.

I have to give a to the guys who came all the way from MS to turn our electricity back on.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

I'd like to add to your stored gas comment. I agree by the way, I live a good 3-4 hours from the coast and we lost power too. Only for a few days, but still. We couldn't get gas delivered because there was no power where the trucks could get filled, and no power to run the pumps at the local stations. Everybody laughed at me for filling up every single thing I had that could safely hold gas a few days before Katrina hit. They weren't laughing when they were running out of gas & couldn't get any more.
To keep your gas from getting gummy, you need to either add a preservative or rotate your gas like you would food stores. 3 months is a long time for gas if it doesn't have preservative.