HURRICANE HELPER

American Digest has a list of how to prepare for a hurricane.

Florence’s Evac To-Do List — Short Form: “If you didn’t start last week just head for the hills and pray.”

and don't forget the shark repellant:

but it does have a lists for folks who are not evacuating that sounds good.

a lot of it is about storing water. Yes, very important: we have our own pump, and were able to help out the neighbors, but most folks just had to buy jugs of water to use to drink.

this hurricane is supposed to be as bad as Hurricane Hazel. I remember that one: we were not in it's path, but they closed the schools and a lot of trees were blown down, bringing down electric lines...

electricity is important: here, the neighbors all came to charge their cellphones, and entrepeneurs set up cellphone chargers for 25 pesos a charge. Why cellphones? they are used for getting information (instead of using radios with batteries) and of course let you keep in touch with your relatives.

one hint: if you can't afford a generator, get an inverter. It won't give you a lot of power, but it will let you use your cellphone and give you some light... if you have enough gasoline for your car.

we have one connected via the "lighter" socket in our car, so we can recharge our computers/cellphones on the long trips to deliver rice etc.

But at home, we usually use our generator. Again, the problem? if there are no gasoline/diesel deliveries in a bad storm where the roads are flooded or blocked by trees.

Here, most businesses and middle class homes have generators.

the government here is busy preparing northern Luzon for a nearby typhoon: but no one expects efficiency, and they are suprised when things are done correctly.

here, the poor people are all lined up to buy rice from the gov't subsidized rice center... and I gave the staff extra money to buy supplies today to be prepared.

We might only have minor winds, but as I noted: Rain (and run off from the mountains north of here) are the real danger: and we just had a Low Pressure area storm that saturated the soil, so run off might be worse than normal.

the evacuation center (city gym) is up the street: (we are on "high" ground), but our relatives homes often flood, and my maid and the cook's family live on the ground of our relative's home, so they often get flooded out too. They are busy moving their stuff to be safe.

Unlike coastal areas, we rarely have huge floods: But people do drown...often when they are caught inside the house or get swept away by the pressure of the fast flowing water.

Lolo's childhood home is nearby but closer to the river, and is a traditional "split level" type: The ground floor is storage (and for chickens etc), the kitchen halfway up, and the living room/bedroom is on top of the storage area. originally the floor of the living room was bamboo, with the slats leaving quarter inch openings between them, so the dirt/food/bugs could just be brushed down easily for the chickens to eat.

and of course, when the area floods, the staff and family go up there to stay.

the more "Modern" type houses often are built on a mound of dirt since floods here tend to be only a few feet, but most modern houses also have second floors.

Our house is built high, so we only got flooded out once, and then it was only 4 inches (of muddy water). But we do have a second floor with bedrooms and an apartment, so have plenty of space. we only had neighbors there once, when it flooded badly, (they opened a nearby irrigation dam to prevent it from overtopping and failing) but they left in the middle of the night when the water level went down.