Posted originally on the conservative tree house on October 29, 2022 | Sundance 

The ‘context’ of Ian was shared previously {Go Deep}.  Here we outline things to consider if you are prepping for a hurricane impact and/or deciding whether to stay in your home or evacuate.  Standard hurricane preparations should always be followed.  Protect your family, secure your property and belongings, and prepare for the aftermath.

What you do before the hurricane hits is going to determine where you are in the recovery phase.

Additionally, and this should be emphasized and discussed within your family, if you cannot be self-sufficient in the aftermath – for any reason, then you should evacuate.

Self-sufficiency in this context requires being able to cope for up to several weeks:

(1) potentially without power; (2) potentially without potable running water (3) potentially without internet service; (4) potentially without communication outside the region; and (5) with limited municipal and private sector assistance.   If you decide you cannot deal with these outcomes, you should evacuate.

Additionally, as a family or individual, you should also honestly evaluate:

(1) your physical abilities; (2) your emotional and psychological ability to withstand extreme pressures; and (3) your comfort in losing daily routines, familiar schedules and often overlooked things you might take for granted.  Post hurricane recovery is fraught with stress, frustration and unforeseeable challenges.

I saw a video presented by a structural engineer who was sharing his experience with Hurricane Ian.  I am going to use his video for a few references because even with professional credentials, some of the common mistakes people make are highlighted in his experience.  Keep in mind his video is taken about 30 miles inland from where the majority impact area (coastal region) is located.

The video below was shot from the soft side (western side) of the storm, and if we were to scale the difference between his experience and a person who was located in/around Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, Pine Island or Cape Coral, he would be around a “5” on a ten-point impact scale.

Meaning the severity of conditions 30 miles southeast of him was twice as severe as his inland experience.

Key Points – At the 21: 35 moment (prompted), notice how his #2 vehicle is parked outside.  Also, at the 22:00 minute moment, notice what he is describing and showing with his garage door and how his #1 vehicle (a pickup truck) is positioned inside the garage. WATCH:

.

♦ This is exactly what I was talking about in hurricane preparation when discussing the garage door.  If that videographer was located 30 miles southeast, and/or his house was positioned facing West, instead of North, his garage door would have failed.  If you lose the garage door, YOU COULD LOSE YOUR ROOF.

You can always tell those people who have been through direct hurricane impacts by how they parked their cars.  I have never included this in the hurricane advice before so it’s worth a mention.  If you lose your Florida garage door you will more than likely lose your roof.  That’s just the reality of having a massive opening in your structure to 150 mph winds that will lift the trusses.

If you have two vehicles, put one vehicle inside the garage with the front bumper against the door to help stop the flex (do this carefully).  Put the other vehicle outside blocking the garage door facing down the driveway or facing parallel to the garage.  The goal is to use the aero dynamics of the car to push the wind away from the door and provide protection.

Purchase a cheap car cover to protect the outside vehicle and/or use old blankets (cable ties, bungee cords) to stop the outside vehicle from getting sandblasted and destroyed.  Place double folded corrugated cardboard in front of the radiator to protect it from storm debris.

Additionally, if you live in a flood zone, or if you are concerned about storm surge, the day before impact take your #1 car to the nearest airport or hotel with a parking garage and park in the upper levels.  Take an uber back home if you don’t have a friend or partner to help you.  This way you know you will have one workable vehicle, just in case.

♦ Another lesson from Ian, if you drive an electric vehicle and sustain saltwater intrusion (of any level) your car is not safe.  Saltwater makes the vehicle batteries extremely dangerous, and they could spark or catch fire.  Multiple homes survived Hurricane Ian only to have the electric car catch fire in the garage and burn the house to the ground.  Hurricane rain is saltwater rain.  The fire department was begging people to put their ev’s outside and not to plug them in.  Dozens of ev’s also erupted in flames while driving down the streets after the storm.

Back to the video above…

♦ Notice at 24:30 of the video this professional structural engineer is standing and physically supporting his glass patio doors, with his wife, trying to keep them from breaking in due to wind and pressure changes.  DO NOT DO THIS !   That is beyond dangerous.  Any small item of debris (even a small twig or branch) could hit that window and shatter it, turning flying glass into instant flying blades.

Put 3/4-inch plywood or steel bolted hurricane shutters over all your windows and doors.  Period.  This is not an option.  My steel bolted hurricane shutters were hit with debris so hard – whatever it was physically dented the steel.  Every window and door need to be covered and protected, especially glass patio doors (even if tempered). Do not think you can stand there and protect glass doors.  It’s beyond dangerous.

♦ Hardening your home is a matter of careful thought and physical work.  However, every opening into your structure must be protected, leaving yourself with one small exit opportunity just in case. Hopefully you have a bolted door with no glass windows you can use as an emergency exit.  If not, select a small window and leave only enough room uncovered for you to get out in case of emergency or structural collapse.

Beyond the ordinary supplies like drinking water, batteries, flashlights, battery or hand-crank radio, generators, gasoline, etc.  Evaluate the scale of what you have against the likelihood of weeks without power or water.   A few pro tips below:

♦ Put three 30-gallon trash cans in the shower and fill them with water before the storm.  This will give you 90 gallons of water for cooking and personal hygiene.  You will also need water to manually flush your toilets.  Bottled water is great for drinking, hydrating and toothbrushing, but you will need much more potable water if the municipal supply is compromised or broken.

♦ A standard 6,500-to-8,500-watt generator will run for approximately 8 hours on five gallons of gasoline.   Do not run it all the time.  Turn it on, chill the fridge, make coffee, use the microwave or charge stuff, then turn it off.  Do this in 4-hour shifts and the fridge will be ok and your gasoline will last longer.  Gasoline is a scarce and rare commodity in the aftermath of a hurricane.  Gas stations don’t work without power.  Check the oil in the generator every few days.  Also, have a can of quick start or butane available in case the generator starts acting up.

♦ Extension cords.  If you are purchasing them buy at least one 100 to 150′ extension cord with a triple ponytail.  This way you can use one cord into a central location to charge up your electronic devices.  Establish a central recharging station for phones, pads, laptops, and rechargeable stuff.

♦ Purchase a box of “contractor garbage bags” and just keep them in the garage.  These are large, thick, industrial trash bags that fit 40-gallon drums. They can be used for trash, or even cut open for tarps in the aftermath of a storm.  These thick mil contractor bags have multiple uses following a hurricane.

♦ Do all of your laundry before the hurricane hits.  You will likely not have the ability again for a few weeks.

♦ Cook a week’s worth of meals in advance of the hurricane. Store in fridge so you can microwave for a meal.  Eating a constant diet of sandwiches gets old after the first week.  Dinty Moore canned beef stew and or Chef-boy-ardee raviolis can make a nice break…. anything, except another sandwich.

♦ Have bleach for use in disinfecting stuff before and after a hurricane.  Also have antibiotics and antiseptics for use.  Hygiene and not getting simple infections after a hurricane is critical and often forgotten.  Again, this is where the extra potable water becomes important.  Simple cuts and scrapes become big deals when clean potable water is not regularly available.  Keep your scrapes and abrasions clean and use antiseptic creams immediately.

♦ Do not forget sunscreen and things to relieve muscle aches and pains.  Hurricane recovery involves physical effort.  You will be sore and/or exposed to the elements.  Remember, it’s all about self-sufficiency because the normal services are not available.  A well-equipped first aid kit is a must have.

♦ Buy a small camping stove.  Nothing big or expensive, just something you can cook on outside in case of emergency.  It will be a luxury when you are 2+ weeks without power and all the stores and restaurants are closed for miles.

♦ Those small flashlights that you can strap around your head that take a few AAA batteries?  Yup, GOLD.  Those types of handsfree flashlights are lifesavers inside and outside when you need to see your way around.  Nighttime is especially dark without electricity in the entire town.  Doing stuff like filling a generator with gasoline in the middle of the night is much easier with one of those head strap flashlights.  Strongly advise getting a few, they’re inexpensive too.

♦ Cash.  You will need it.  Without power anything you may need to purchase will require cash, especially gasoline.  Additionally, anyone you hire to help or support your immediate efforts will need to be paid.  Cash is critical.  How much, depends on your individual situation, but your cash burn rate will likely go into the thousands in the first few days.  Also keep in mind, you may or may not be able to work and without internet access even getting funds into place could be challenging.

♦ Hardware. A box of self-tapping sheet metal screws (short and long) is important, along with a box or two of various wood screws or Tyvex screws.  A battery drill or screw gun is another necessity.  Check all of this stuff during hurricane prep.

♦ ADD.  I forget my #1 personal nemesis in the aftermath (pictured below):

Roofing nails.  The pesky roofing nails.  Thousands of em’, all over. Those buggers are everywhere, and they will go through a flip-flop, sneaker sole or car tire perfectly. Most of them are black (not yellow) like the ones above.  Some of them have square of flat tops to help them stand up just perfect to find your tires.

I happen to believe roofing nails are actually tire magnets with some sort of automatic triggering system to jump in front of your car at the worst possible moments.  On the positive side, I think my neighborhood is safe because my tires have picked up every one of em’.  LOL and Grrrr…

More later…. but I hope this is useful.  [Lie to me, even if it ain’t. lol.]

Love to all,

~ Sundance

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on October 29, 2022 | Sundance

Many CTH readers know I have been involved in hurricane prep and recovery as a longtime member of a civilian emergency response team.  I have physically been through four direct hurricane impacts and responded to recovery efforts in more than fifteen locations, often staying for days or weeks after the initial event.

Through the years I have advised readers on best practices for events before, during and after the storm. In this outline my goal is to take the experience from Hurricane Ian and overlay what worked and what doesn’t work from a perspective of the worst-case scenario.

Hurricane Ian was a worst-case scenario.

Let me be clear from the outset, I am not advising anyone to put greater weight on my opinion or ignore local emergency officials or professionals in/around the disaster areas. What I am going to provide below is my own experience after decades of this stuff, against the backdrop of Ian, and just provide information that you may wish to consider if you are ever faced with a similar situation.

Hurricane preparation can be overlaid against other types of disaster preparation, there are some commonalities.  However, for the sake of those who live on/around the U.S. coastal areas where hurricanes have traditionally made impact, the specifics of preparation for this type of storm are more pertinent.  I’m going to skip over the basic hurricane preparation and get into more obscure and granular details, actual stuff that matters, that many may not be familiar with.

Let me start by sharing a graphic that you may overlay with the information you may have already seen from national media coverage.  The graphic below shows Hurricane Ian in relation to Southwest Florida and points to locations that you may have seen on the news.  The context of understanding Ian is going to be critical when contemplating preparation, so it must be emphasized.

This satellite image was likely taken around 4 to 7 pm on the evening of September 28, 2022, approximately three hours after Hurricane Ian officially made landfall at Bokeelia, a small community on the Northern end of Pine Island. All of my discussion below is from the ‘major impact zone’.

The satellite image above was taken during daylight after five or six hours of hurricane force winds (150+ mph) had already been impacting the SWFL coast.

For the areas of greatest impact, the event began roughly around 1:00pm and lasted until around 9:00pm.  Ignore the red and dark area (rainfall) and instead focus on the green/blue ring around the eye, that is the “eye wall”, or what we call the “buzzsaw“.

From the perspective of the Fort Myers Beach, Cape Coral, Pine Island and Sanibel area, the first round of severe winds came from East to West around lunchtime on 9/28.

By 2pm the entire SWFL coastal region was without power.  The easterly wind lasted about 2 hours, then as hurricane Ian meandered off the coast (retaining fuel) in a generally north-northeast direction, the winds shifted coming from the South.  This is when the buzzsaw really started destroying buildings and infrastructure.

Ian was only moving in a forward direction around 5 to 8mph.  That 150 mph buzzsaw (eyewall) is about 40 miles wide.  Only half of the buzzsaw (the eastern side) was over land.  The western side was providing hot water fuel the entire time.  That buzzsaw was over the SWFL coastline for more than 8 hours.

Sanibel Lighthouse, Before and After 

At approximately 5pm the most severe part of the storm surge started coming into the SWFL coast as the South and West winds began pushing massive amounts of water from the Gulf of Mexico onto the coast.

You have likely seen video from Fort Myers Beach as these moments were happening.  The storm surge continued growing in scale for several hours.  Combined with the wind, this storm surge is what erased most of the structures on Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel, Captiva, Upper Captiva Island, Saint James City, Pine Island, Matlacha and Bokeelia.

The 5 to 9pm timeframe is also when most of the flooding and storm surge damage took place in South Fort Myers and Cape Coral.  Even after the buzzsaw cleared the area (9pm), the winds from the West at the bottom of the storm kept the water level high.

The water exit (back into the Gulf of Mexico) did not begin until the tidal shift after midnight.  Due to the slow movement of the storm the total time of the storm surge impact was a jaw-dropping 8 to 10 hours.  Many people drowned.

The old axiom remained mostly true, “hunker down from wind, but run from water.”

Now, I say “mostly true“, because to be brutally honest -due to the unique nature of Ian- if you are going to be inside that killer buzzsaw for 8 hours, hunkering down is really not a safe option.  Fortunately, Ian was a rare system in terms of its slow-moving nature, even after hitting land.  Most hurricane impact events are less than 3 hours in duration.  Ian was dangerously unique.

To give scale to the size of the buzzsaw, again we are talking about the most dangerous part of any hurricane – the eyewall itself, this next image shows a comparison between the eyewall of Hurricane Charley in 2004 and the eyewall of Hurricane Ian in 2022.

That is the eye of Charley overlaid inside the eye of Ian in almost the same location.  You can see how much bigger the buzzsaw was for Ian as opposed to Charley.

Both Hurricane Charley (’04) and Hurricane Ian (’22) came ashore in generally the same place.  Charley made official landfall at Upper Captiva Island and Ian at Bokeelia. The distance between both landfall locations is only about 4 miles apart as the crow flies.

Both storms were Cat-4 landfall events.  However, Charley was much smaller, had a smaller buzzsaw and moved quickly around 20 mph.  Ian was big, had a much bigger buzzsaw and moved slowly around 5pmh.

The duration of Charley was around 2 to 3 hrs.  The duration of Ian was around 8 to 9 hrs.   Ian was bigger and just moved slower.  Inside this distinction you discover why, despite their almost identical regional proximity, the damage from Ian was much more severe.  Topography was changed.

I am focusing a lot of time on this similarity aspect because you cannot take a previous storm reference as a context for your ability to survive the next storm.  They are all different, even when they hit the same place.

While more SWFL people evacuated for Hurricane Ian, and that is a profoundly good thing, the memory of getting through Hurricane Charley likely made many people think they could just prep, hunker down and get through it.  The “I got this” reference of surviving through Charley may have led to people dying, because Ian wasn’t Charley…. not even close.

Having said that, I personally over prepare for these events.  This time it was critical.

You have likely seen video from the hurricane area during the event.  You have likely seen video from areas in/around the impact zone.

However, let me tell you something you have not seen…..

…. you have not seen any video of what was happening inside that eyewall.  You have not seen any video of the buzzsaw at work.

Why?  Because anyone who would attempt to step outside a structure into that buzzsaw would not survive.  Any CCTV equipment, camera or video recording attached to a structure inside that coastal buzzsaw was almost certainly destroyed.

A physical human body does not step into 150 MPH winds and return.

This is a fury of nature, a battle where the odds are against you, that you may or may not be aware you are contemplating when you are choosing to stay or evacuate.  It’s not the hurricane per se’, it’s that much smaller killer buzzsaw – the eyewall- that you are rolling the dice, never to see.

When it comes to the eyewall, the truest measure of the “cone of uncertainty“, the difference between scared out of your mind and almost certain death, is literally a matter of a few miles,….  and there ain’t no changing your mind once it starts.