What is it, when a hurricane comes along, that makes everyone rush out and buy batteries? As an elderly Louisianian, I have lived through 27 major hurricanes and have never once needed to rush out and buy the first battery. And who started the ridiculous rumor that the time to prepare for a hurricane is when the Weather Bureau tells you to? If you live in an area that is likely to be hit by a hurricane, don’t you already know to be prepared for a hurricane all the time?
There are at least eight things you can do to ensure your safety during a hurricane, and not a one of them includes buying batteries.
Find the nearest shelter to where you live. Please. Long before it is hurricane season, score the nearest shelter to your home. You want to know how many people it will have and if there is any way more than that number could note up during a storm. You also want to know if you should bring your own food, water, blankets, and cots. If so, you want to stockpile whatever they ask you to bring with you. You cannot be certain that your home will be a safe residence to either ride out the storm, or to live in once the storm is over. So – find that shelter, know the quickest way to get there. Regain out what to bring and stockpile it before hurricane season.
Learn to employ the radar on your computer. You must be able to see these monsters coming. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on the cable weather channels. They give weather for the entire country. While the hurricane is marching down on you, they are not checking back often enough to do you any good. You need something like Intellicast. They have revamped their plot and it is hard to learn now. If you have problems, unprejudiced go to the bottom lawful corner and click on Site Map. That is easier to read than the main page. Intellicast is updated every 15 minutes. If someone knows of a better, simpler satellite that is updated at least every 15 minutes, please let us know in the comments. The time to start learning how to use your computer is not when a Category 5 is barreling down on you. Instead, learn to navigate to the weather with ease right now, while no hurricane is headed your way.
Find – or Build – Local Civil Defense. If your city still has a Civil Defense organization, find out how to stay in touch with them for bulletins. Civil Defense is fair much useless now that Homeland Security took it over and split its duties among dozens of other organizations, including FEMA. In effect, Civil Defense no longer exists in the U.S. today. If you live in a hurricane zone, you do not have time to “effect nice” with diplomacy. They are not going to support you. If your city has nothing organized in this area, try to get something going on a volunteer basis. Do it now, while no hurricane is headed your way.
Plan for Pets and Lone Friends. If you need to go to a shelter or to a hotel, will they take your pets? What if you can’t go back to your home? Where will your pets stay? Do you know anyone who lives alone? Will they need a ride to a shelter? You must have answers to all of these questions. We have more and more people, especially the elderly, living alone with pets, and we have pets ourselves. It is up to everyone to resolve these issues before tragedy strikes – not after we peer dead old people and pets floating past us in the aftermath of a hurricane. Talk to your neighbors. Talk to your vets. Make plans now, while no hurricane is headed your way.
Plan for Cash and Gas. If you have to leave home, ahead of a hurricane, you are going to be gone a minimum of 6 days: one day driving out, 2 days for the storm, one day to rep the roads open, and the last day driving support. You need cash and gas to get you at least 200 miles away from the path of the hurricane in a northwesterly direction. Be sure you keep enough to stay on the road for six days at all times. That means hiding it in your checkbook (unprejudiced don’t add it into your total) and not spending it on some laughable toy on sale at the local discount store. That toy won’t save your life, but the cash will win you out of harm’s way. As soon as you know that a hurricane is coming, take the cash out of your ATM and keep it with you. Then fill your vehicle and keep it full at all times. If the electricity goes, so will both the ATM and the gas pumps. A full tank of gas will bag you far enough away so that local pumps will be operational. If someone starts trace gouging on gas prices, do not argue. Pay it, but take their name and address. Turn them in to the police later. Please testify against them when they come to trial. The second they tell you that your town will be hit, put the pets and kids in the car and drive away. It is as simple as that.
Plan for Camp-Style Cooking. You can start cleaning out your freezer at the beginning of hurricane season. Try not to preserve excessive amounts of frozen food in your freezer during hurricane season. If there is something you need, the markets are still originate. There is no reason to stop “stocked up,” only to lose everything in a hurricane. The kinds of foods that are kept in freezers are usually relatively expensive and that is a lot of money to risk for no real reason at all. Do not rely on the fact that you may have a generator designated to save your freezer. Generators are incredible, unbiased so long as the electricity comes aid on at the gas stations before you urge out of gas for them.
Do buy a camp stove and gas grill and learn to use both now. Ladies, this means you. Do not depend on your husband, significant other, or neighbor down the street. People get separated during hurricanes. You could bag yourself alone. Learn to work your own stove and gas grill. You may not be able to cook on your own kitchen appliances for a few days, so a camp stove and a gas grill are important insurance against that possibility. The camp stove will be small, so fabricate obvious you have pots and pans that will fit on it. When the time comes, make sure that both your gas grill and your camp stove are inside and secure, away from high winds. You may be able to come home as early as about 72 hours, so you want to be able to cook when you get there, no matter what circumstances you find in your kitchen.
Plan to Protect Your Home and Furnishings: Next, you need to protect your home, as best you can. This means planning now for shutters on the windows and doors, picking up anything in the yard that could become a flying object, and finding all of the places, in your house, where you need to turn off the utilities. Now, this could be a predicament too, in that a totally sealed home can experience dreadful pressure changes during a hurricane, so shutters might be appropriate for one side of the house, while plywood might be appropriate for the other. Do check with others to find out from which direction most hurricanes approach your house, so you can make that determination. Buy what you need to protect your home now! Why wait and risk not being able to score the necessary materials?
If you live in a flood area, plan now to put all large pieces of furniture – and your appliances – on concrete blocks. Count how many concrete blocks you will need and go get them now. When the time comes, get everything you can up off of the floor. If you have nice china and artwork, you will need to pack them in plastic containers or wrap them in plastic and do everything up in a closet. Why not have those packing resources ready now? Remember, you will have 36 hours lead time, so you will need to acquire every second count. That will be enough time to pack, not enough time to shop for protective packing materials. You will be packing just as if you were moving, and will be glad you did when the hurricane is over.
Protect Important Documents. Looks like the only thing left to do now is make determined that all of your significant documents are safe. Go to an office supply store and buy one big plastic, 3-ring binder, and enough dividers to have a section for each person in your family, each vehicle you own, each of your pets, and one for the house. Then buy a big box of those clear plastic, 3-ring, document protectors. Now, all you need is a plastic container, with a waterproof seal, to achieve it in. Organize each person’s documents in their own fraction of the binder, each individual vehicle in its own section, each pet in its own piece, and the house in its fraction. Drop the binder in the container, along with traveling and gas cash, seal the lid, and you are done. The last thing you save in the car, before you drive away, is the container with all your documents in it. If you have tons of pictures, put them in plastic sleeves and binders. Seal them in plastic containers and put them in the top of closets. Be sure to put one of those little humidity packets in with them so they will be safe while you are gone. If you do those 8 things, plus making definite you have enough canned food to last your family two weeks – and yes, batteries for your flashlight – you should come through any hurricane just fine.
Filed under Vehicle Wrap Insurance by on Feb 23rd, 2011. Comment. 
Next week marks the five-year anniversary of our moving into our 1927 Craftsman two-story house.
I love my house. The fresh part contains just enough hardwood and architectural nuances to please without being fussy. The rear addition came in the mid-1990s and features a huge kitchen, family room, and master suite. Every night I lay in bed and look out over a bank of windows to a tangle of oak branches decorated with the intermittent flash of fireflies and contemplate, “God, I love this bedroom! God, I love this house!”
The last thing we wanted was to buy a house at the time we bought this one. Believe riding the crest of the real estate wave in 2004 unprejudiced before the bubble burst, and I am ashamed to say we paid far more for the house than what we can sell it for in today’s unfortunate market.
I happened upon it during a brokers’ inaugurate house and dispatched my dispassionate husband to have a look-see. We had a perfectly serviceable house just a mile away and were in the process of remodeling the kitchen. I figured he wouldn’t even peek, and even if he did would put the kibosh on it in no time.
I was foul. He was more enchanted with the house than I was.
Before a sign was planted on the lawn, before it hit the MLS, before evening, we put in an offer. Even though both of us vowed to never move again.
One can accumulate a lot of junk in six years with two kids, two birds, two cats and the accoutrements of a four-bedroom house. Even with the close proximity and a Tahoe in the driveway, we were going to need some serious befriend getting all of our belongings from Point A to Point B. When moving into the old house, the van line we used dispatched a full semi and an additional tremendous truck. Moving out was definitely going exceed those vehicles.
Being the savvy consumer I like to think I am, I called around to various moving companies. Phone estimates were approximately the same. I’m a shrimp business person, so I like to use local small businesses whenever I can. I chose a local company, franchise of a larger one based in Lansing, Michigan. The fact that they are Michigan-based swayed me away from the Ample Dogs, plus their company motto of “Movers Who Care.”
I should have known something was up when no one came out in advance to survey our belongings and tally up an estimate.
Piquant day was set for the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. The new house was vacant for two weeks before and we boxed and moved most of the smaller items ourselves. The kitchen in the old place was still in the process of being reconstructed and it was nice to be able to eat a home cooked meal after a month of takeout and restaurants.
I should have known something was up when the “movers” arrived two hours slow on moving day.
The three guys who eventually showed up with a single truck came in reeking of alcohol and body odor. From their conversation, I gleaned that they had been partying at a club just hours before. I’m resplendent laid back and friendly and didn’t really care what they looked like or how they smelled as long as the job was complete before dinnertime. Besides, these were movers who “cared.”
That was before we found out we were sent three dimwits with a truck.
Lackadaisical would be a polite term to describe the work ethic of these movers. If my husband and teenage son hadn’t helped by loading the truck, it might have taken three days to move.
One item they were scheduled to capture was my upright piano. This required an extra fee I was more than willing to pay. I had purchased the piano mark new in Minnesota when I thought I would take it up as a hobby, but swiftly realized both my son and husband were much better at it than I could ever hope to be. The three movers took a look at the piano and the stairway and shared dubious expressions. I told them to leave it if it was too much and I’d have a piano mover lift care of it later, but the head mover assured me they could handle it.
I then left for the new house to let the satellite TV guys in.
Much, much later in the afternoon, the moving truck arrived with my husband and son not far late. One of the first things to be unloaded was the piano. My husband, who was shaking his head the entire time after spending most of the day with these knuckleheads, implored them to use the front steps of which there are only four tiny ones, instead of the back steps which has a steep wooden deck. They didn’t listen. All three of them struggled with the piano, gouging the deck steps with it along the way. However, that wasn’t the worst of it.
They also moved the piano upside down.
When the shrink wrap was removed, my piano literally fell to pieces. My heart could be heard dropping as I collected screws that were stripped clean from the lid. My husband was apoplectic, but wanted the rest of our belongings out of the truck before he said anything. The last thing he wanted was for our stuff to be held hostage in a warehouse on a holiday weekend. He paid the bill (including the extra charge for the piano) even though there was no apology for the damage and the three boneheads and the truck feeble into the horizon.
Further inspection revealed slight scuffs to other pieces of furniture but nothing afflict as worthy as knowing my prized piano had taken a one mile truck trip upside down.
In the meantime, I called the moving company office and left heated messages that went unreturned. The next day I called nearby franchises of the same company and left similarly tense messages that were returned, but sadly since each franchise was independently owned and operated, they couldn’t aid.
Tuesday morning arrived, and I called early to file a claim. The office manager was unaware of our little moving mishap, but promised to wait on me. I faxed over the current invoice of the piano. I had purchased it for $3,000 and a replacement would be around $4,000. Two independent piano reconstruction companies came out and declared my piano totaled. Not only was the case trashed, the soundboard likely incurred injure from being jarred. After faxing this information over to the moving company, a curious thing happened.
Nothing.
Finally after a few weeks, the moving company told me to file a claim with our homeowner’s insurance. Unfortunately, our homeowner’s rider on the piano didn’t cover it while it was in transit.
Certified letters to the franchise and the parent company in Lansing brought no results at all.
With no satisfaction from the “movers who cared” on the horizon, I decided to file a suit in small claims court. In addition to being heartsick, I was now exasperated. Very angry. It took a while, but about three months later, we got our court date. I was armed to the teeth with documents, photographs, a Ziploc baggie full of screws, and messages from the inviting company.
The opposition was ready with the office manager and the head mover. When he appeared, the contemplate had to recuse himself and station another court date. It seemed that he himself had his own unsavory experience with the “movers who cared” and was therefore biased.
Several months later we approached the modern court date with a new judge with a fair amount of trepidation. Small claims court is a crap shoot and we could just as easily lose as win. This time the owner of the franchise was in attendance. He attempted to cut a deal with us while the judge deliberated. I refused to back down on principle. After all, I’d spent the previous six months wanting to mow down every moving truck I saw with their stupid company logo on it.
We won (handily), but even armed with a legal decision, getting $3,000 from the moving company was not easy. They had 28 days to pay up, or I could file another document and have a process server on the case. They elected not to pay.
My process server was a nice guy, a fellow parent from my kids’ school. He explained he could go after cash or assets. I informed him in lieu of cash, I would take one of those big moving vans, preferably the one used in my move.
A week later I had my money, plus expenses. Two weeks later, a brand new piano came to the house.
In the years since my moving misadventure, I’ve mellowed a bit. You’d be wrong to assume I can laugh at the site — I’m never going that far. Oh, I still steer people far, far away from this particular company with the litany of my mishap. However, I no longer aim my car toward passing moving vans. I don’t throw things at the TV when I see their inane commercials, especially the one where gentle splendid movers who probably smell like Axe deodorant expertly take a little girl’s treasured dollhouse and install it in her new abode. I’ve also vowed never to use the “movers who care” even if they’re the last movers on the planet.Of course, I’ve also taken the solemn oath never to travel again.
Filed under Vehicle Wrap Insurance by on Feb 21st, 2011. Comment.
