huxandthehound:

I’ve got to get this off my chest, so listen up.

This is for anyone on the east coast of the US that is about to be affected by Hurricane Florence. Just some tips from someone who evacuated from Hurricane Katrina and lived through the aftermath.

• Evacuate. Please. For the love of god. If you have the means and transportation, there is no reason for you to stay. Whatever is going to happen to your house is going to happen whether you’re there or not. It might take a while to get back into your home or neighborhood if there is damage, but it’s for your own safety. Don’t push it.
• Check on your neighbors too. Make sure they have a place to go, especially elderly neighbors.
• If you take any non-essential personal possessions with you when you evacuate, let it be pictures. Actual photographs. I’m sure everyone has tons of digital images, but don’t forget the paper photographs that came from a roll of film and cannot be duplicated. Some things can be salvaged from water damage. Pictures are not one of them.
• Phones will probably be down for a while and it’ll be hard to get in touch with other people. The one thing I was able to do after Katrina was access the Internet. Granted, it was on a desktop in the hotel lobby with limited hours and we didn’t own a laptop yet. But I was still able to get emails out and check message boards. Make sure you have email addresses for people you might want to be in contact with in the likely event cell phones are not working.
• This is obviously considering a worst case scenario, but I lived through this so, here it goes. If you’re still in high school, bring your school uniform with you. You’re likely going to think you’ll be home in a few days and will go back to school and you won’t need it in the meantime. Uniforms are expensive and that is not something you’ll want to think about replacing if something bad happens. I had to attend a new school for 6 months while mine was being repaired. We got lucky that the school was kind enough to give us uniforms to wear instead of buying new ones. But my school shoes got left behind and ruined.

There’s tons of other things I’m probably missing and tons of other things that were applicable in 2005 that aren’t even remotely relevant in today’s day and age.

Please feel free to add anything if you have any insight.

I’m open to talk to anyone that might need guidance or encouragement or just someone to vent to. I’m willing to discuss my personal experiences as well.

Stay safe.