The Prepper’s Hurricane Survival Guide

As I have been through a few hurricanes I’ll add my two cents. One was in the direct path of my house but changed direction at the last few minutes, literally. Don’t wait until the hurricane comes that close. Leave. If you have a Bug-Out-Location practice useing it before there a is mass exodus of panicky people. If not, expect motel/hotels to be full as far as the adjacent state. There will be no gas stations open, roads will be blocked for a hundred miles and backroads will be also be jammed. Being in a car when the hurricane comes close or makes ground … well, you will die. (or from the “Wizard of Oz”, “We’re not in Kanas anymore.)

A hurricane is a very, very powerful force of nature. Don’t imagine you can outwit it. I’ve been under the eye of a small ‘hurricane’ during the calm, no sound, period looking straight up the black hole that seems endless. The best I can relate there was a presence, not exactly evil but enough to make me feel like an ant. Roughly ninety to ninety-five of Florida’s population lives within ten miles of the coastline. That is the danger zone of a hurricane making landfall with catastrophic winds and tornados. The storm surge flooding comes afterwards. A strong hurricane, category 5, can make an inlet thru a barrier island if there is nothing holding it together. Unfortunately, a lot of the people living on the coast removed the mangrove trees and other plants that blunted the force of the hurricane so they could build on the barrier islands. Basically, people are living on a sandbar. A direct hit of a hurricane and no more sandbar, no condos, just water.

Mass exodus of panicky people. A better word would be locusts if you are in their exit path. During Hurricane Irma in the northern part of Florida all roads were traffic jammed from west to east coast. Three days before predicted landfall there was no gas to be found, supermarkets were bare of basic supplies, ie. toilet paper and … fruit cocktail (for the kids) in north Florida six to seven hundred miles away. Then when you thought they passed, they came back before the hurricane even passed to check on their houses causing more mass confusion blocking relief efforts. This time there was road rage and fights as the shock wore off as people were tried and frustrated. Parts of major roadways were collapsing from water saturated sand. Florida is one big sandbar prone to sinkholes.

Part of the blame for the mass exodus panic I put on the weather stations in creating a media frenzy of hyper twenty-four-hour panic mongering. Good for selling overpriced plywood. American weather forecasters were using old Fortran, think 1970’s, based predictions, from what I heard. American forecasts for Hurricane Irma were dismal. The path continually changed westward and at one period the hurricane/tropical storm didn’t appeared to be tracked as it headed north. Follow the European, British and German, models as their tracking record is better. And that’s the strangeness of hurricanes today, their paths are not like previous times.

Get Out of Dodge. Ahead of the hoards. Even if the hurricane passes your location it’s still good practice. Once you return you’re have plenty of opportunity to use your prepping skills as the hurricane was just the beginning. It could be months or more before things get back to normal. After a hurricane the news media will go on to the next event. The BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill is still having repercussions for the people of the gulf states to, from what I saw on the internet, weather pattern changes to the Gulf Stream effecting places as far away as Europe.