Prepare Early For Natural Disasters

A few weeks ago I spent some time in Orlando, Florida at Disney World. Naturally I have an interest in the area as hurricane Milton heads towards it and is expected to do some serious damage. It is no secret that I enjoy keeping up on hurricanes every summer and keep the National Hurricane Center's website up on my computer throughout the summer months. I watched from a safe distance as hurricane Helene came up the west-coast of Florida and slammed into the panhandle of the state. Now only a short time later I am watching what is happening with Milton.

I am safe in my home in Utah nowhere near the devastating storm and so it is fairly easy to lob suggestions at those in Florida. While it is easy to tell everyone to get to safety and evacuate, that is much more difficult for some to do. I don't have to worry about finding a place to go. I don't have to worry about lost wages from missing work. I don't have to worry about going on a long drive where I probably won't be able to find gasoline for my car along the way. About the only thing I have going for me is that my advice isn't tainted with emotion, only logic.

Hurricane Milton isn't expected to make landfall until Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning. To me that seems like a lot of time to evacuate from those areas most likely to be dangerous. The reality is that leaving is so much easier said than done. That is why my advice to everyone really is to prepare early. I imagine a last-minute flight out of Orlando is not going to be cheap. Local authorities plan to close the airport Wednesday ahead of the storm's arrival. Looking at Delta's website this evening, a round-trip flight from Orlando to Salt Lake leaving tomorrow and returning a week later is over $2000. Furthermore there is only one seat left on a single available flight. No you don't have to go all the way to Salt Lake to escape the storm but the options to Atlanta are not much better and still cost almost $700.

So how can you prepare for such events? Take some time and sit down with your family to think about all of the possible natural disasters that can happen in your area. Think about earthquakes, major storms, wildfires,  or other things you have heard about that have hit close to home. Then think about possible options on where you could evacuate, should the need arise. If you have nowhere to go, do you have the supplies you need to shelter in place?

One of my biggest concerns is a lengthy power outage during the dead of winter. While I heat my home with natural gas I still require electricity to run the blower motor to circulate that heat throughout my house. I have a generator that I can use but it would take a lot of work to disconnect the furnace blower from my home electrical system and connect it to the generator. I would also have to be very careful to run the generator outside and nowhere near any air vents into the house. I don't want to kill my family with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Once you create your plan of attack for a natural disaster, it is important to have your plan written down and kept in a safe place. Trying to remember all of the great ideas you had will be tough as you try to avoid panicking. It is also a good idea to review those ideas periodically as things change and you may have better solutions. There are also a lot of resources on the Internet that may help with your planning.

My heart goes out to all of those in harm's way right now. I hope the storm lessens in severity and it is a regular-old-thunderstorm by the time it makes landfall. Unfortunately mother nature doesn't care what I want and so I don't put any stock into that happening. Instead let's hope most are prepared and there is little to no loss of life.