It’s that time of year again here in Florida where talk is turning to hurricane season. We’ve learned from past experience how important it is to be prepared in case a hurricane does come our way, and it’s much easier (and cheaper) to buy supplies now rather than when an actual hurricane is looming off the coast and the warnings have been issued. Here is our hurricane preparedness plan that we use from year to year:

1. Adequate supply of drinking water. With all the rain we get during a hurricane, it’s hard to imagine that one would actually need to buy water. However, in the past we have had “boil water” alerts following a hurricane (which can be hard to do if you don’t have any power to turn your stove on). We plan to have enough drinking water to last for 7 days. We store these bottles of water in an area in our garage that we’ve designated just for this purpose. When a hurricane warning is issued, bottled water is very difficult to find on grocery store shelves.

2. Built a stockpile of shelf stable food. I’ve been working on this already, mainly from the big discount sales going on at my local grocery stores. Our goal is to have enough non-perishable food to last 7 days. This is all stacked orderly on shelving in our laundry room. When hurricane season ends, we’ll eat from this stockpile anything that has an expiration date before next year’s hurricane season begins.

3. Stocked up on supplies such as flashlights and batteries. We have flashlights and a portable radio from prior years. We’ve been stocking up on the batteries for a while now so I won’t need to get any more this year. This also includes having a fully stocked first aid kit. In past years we have noticed that when a hurricane is approaching you can usually find a flashlight at the store, but not the C or D batteries they require.

4. Home repair items including duct tape, masking tape, and tarps. We have these from last year. Honestly, when a storm comes near you can’t find a tarp in a home improvement store for miles and miles.

5. Stash of emergency cash. It’s important to keep cash on hand as many times when electricity goes down, there is not a way to withdraw funds from the banks or ATMs.

6. Financial records are secured. Since our financial records are all in order, we will simply take the file containing all our important papers with us (including our Quicken backup disk) if we have to evacuate our home (or go into the closet, if need be).

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