Prep Genrl Harvey experienes

[Bensam]

Ok, I know I would like to see the experiences and advice of those who endured the effects of Harvey. In my life, I have to ride out a number of hurricanes on the Atlantic coast and was sent to New Orleans to assist in the recovery efforts after Katrina (the worst hurricane I have ever seen). Any advice for preps which are based on your experience which would have made your life easier?

 

[nomifyle]

We evacuated for Katrina, if we had stayed we would have lost our vehicles and it would have been a bumpy ride, 54 inch tidal wave, moved the mobile home about 4 feet and stopped at the fence on that side. The tidal surge was in and out, but it left a nasty mess. I rescued a few things afterward and our mobile home could have been saved but my ex wanted nothing to do with it (he regrets that now). But for the most part ewr lost everything, except what I took with me when we left.

Judy

 

[RememberGoliad]

We rode it out ten miles from initial landfall. Got the wind....BOY did we get wind! 12 hrs >100mph.... but thankfully not the water. Less than 9" overall. Power was out for 11 days, internet is another story. Today is the first day we've had it most of the day. Landline phones, I hear, are still down off the main roads.

To answer your question, Harvey did the tree trimming I had neglected this last spring. Didn't matter much, as my branches landed in neighbor's yard, and upwind neighbor's entire chinaberry tree landed a piece at a time in our yard Next year, and years after, I'll do the tree trimming and really lean on neighbors to take advantage of me having the front end loader here to get theirs done too. "Tall" trees here are 20-25 ft tall. So a bucket loader on a tractor is all we need

What I am going to add to the bag of tricks is this: https://www.motorsnorkel.com/motor-snorkel-tri-fuel-natural-gas-propane-and-gasoline-conversion-kit-3527.html

We never lost natural gas service through the whole thing. And, for redundancy, I'm going to add a 200 gal propane pig, filled, hunkered down in an obscure corner of the back yard.

I store just enough gasoline to keep stuff cool enough while I can it all. It's a WAG system: I had 20 gallons that Friday at noon and called it good. I was able to replace it as I used it in *this* situation. If not, it would've been enough to keep the fridge/freezer cool enough to keep stuff long enough for me to thaw it and can it in a controlled manner and not have a panicked-looking canathon.

That, and a little more battery storage for the inverter, and some solar charging capability beyond some cutesy chicken coop bulbs. Don't get me wrong, they did their job, but I want to be able to run wife's hospital bed and wheelchair charger (or directly charge the chair batteries) without running the genny.

Other than that, we were back to "normal" before any more deficiencies were found. THAT is a good thing!

 

[Publius]

I'm neither Harvey or Katrina Vet. But I sat out a number of lessor storms on Long Island N.Y. The worst one I remembered was hurricane gloria and it gave us winds locally recorded at 130mph, it took down a lot of trees and power was out for us for 18 days.

Having grown up in a family that did camping we were equipped with a Coleman camp stove and lantern. Dad made sure there was always has two full gallons of camp fuel and if we went on a camp trip anywhere the fuel was replaced promptly. My self having been brought with camping I bought my own equipment and it served me well over the years.
I was in the Plumbing (Construction) biz so I had my own 5000 watt generator, so keeping the fridge cool and running the well pump was not an issue. Keeping gas on hand (stored) can be a problem and that old generator could suck it down too and had to take some gasoline out of one of my trucks.

Camp stove can be useful when the power go's out in the summer and cook outside and not heat up the house and the lantern is welcome after sunset, but keep it turned down to save fuel.
Best to get a few flat wick oil lamps and save the Colman lantern for when you really need allot of light. Buy a gallon or two of lamp oil or keep 5 gal of K1 on hand, they do good on fuel, so three or four oil lamps will go for some time with five gallons of fuel.

I was brought up with farmers and taught to put food up for storage and winter. This too was most helpful at a time like that, when gloria hit I had four people staying with me and they could not leave.
The caned foods and dry goods were something they will never forget and learned from it.
Coolers can be cleaned and filled with water before the power can go out, also large stock pots for water storage, trust me you will know the worth of water after the power go's out.