The hardest part of hurricane survival is answering all the email
Three hurricanes have passed over Florida in the last month. My wife and I live in a mobile home in Florida, and half the TV pictures of Florida hurricanes seem to show damaged or destroyed mobile homes, so it’s natural for out-of-state friends and relatives to worry about us. But the part of Florida where we live (Manatee County — about an hour’s drive South of Tampa) was not hit hard by any of these storms. The worst damage in our neighborhood was a couple of twisted shutters and some palm trees losing a few fronds that were due for trimming anyway. In other words, we’re fine. Not only that, we have a healthy awareness of a hurricane’s power and spent the hours when Frances passed nearby in our neighborhood storm shelter. Some people in Florida are prepared for hurricanes and some aren’t. We like to think we’re among the prepared ones. Except there’s no way to prepare for the endless phone calls and emails from people elsewhere who don’t realize that what they saw through the eyes of news cameras didn’t tell the whole story; that the camera focused on the worst damage and ignored all the homes — including most mobile homes — that sustained little or no storm damage.
Let me start by saying the obvious: that most of the damage was to buildings on the barrier islands or near the waterfront. We’re eight miles inland, unaffected by storm-surge waves.
While Hurricane Charley did plenty of damage inland, during a drive from Orlando to Bradenton via State Route 17 the day after Charley passed through we saw damage but not devestation. Well-built mobile homes and buildings were generally okay. The biggest problems seemed to be trees and powerlines, especially what I call “root ball” trees that are planted partially-grown instead of growing naturally where they stand. These trees tend to have underdeveloped root systems and blow over easily in storms. If one lands on your home (mobile or otherwise), you are going to lose some or all of your roof, if not part of your main structure. And if one lands on the power line that feeds your neighborhood, you are not going to have electricity until that power line is fixed.
Our neighborhood has underground utilities, and the above-ground lines that feed our local system are generally on sturdy poles, with trees trimmed well away from them. Some parts of Manatee County lost power, but it was restored within a few days. Not only was damage here light, but repairs were rapid.
Preparing for hurricanes
When we first started spending a substantial amount of time in Florida (before moving here full time) we read up on hurricance preparedness. We bought flashlights and made sure we had batteries for them, stocked up on “snack” food that could be eaten without cooking, and got several five gallon jugs we kept full of water. We made sure our important papers and “priceless” items like family photos were easy to get hold of and load in the car in case of evacuation. Most of my important work documents and notes are stored on a pair of laptop computers anyway, and since I travel regularly for my job it only takes me a moment to shove those laptops and all my critical “office stuff” into a pair of laptop cases and take them out to our Jeep. Candles are something we’ve always had; we like candles in general.
We already had a battery-powered radio and a battery-powered TV, a propane stove, and other “self-suffuciency” items for my sailboat; primitive “boat camping” is great preparation for post-hurricane possibilities. And, most important, both our original “vacation place” and our more permanent full-time, double-wide trailer are in parks that have hurricane shelters we can go to instead of imposing on friends, renting hotels rooms or relying on public shelter facilities, which are so abundant here in Manatee County that they never run out of room but are a bit short on amenities.
Bogus evacuation orders
Two and three days before any of the storms could possibly have gotten here, Manatee County Sheriff patrol cars were roaming mobile home parks and low-lying coastal areas, ordering everyone to evacuate. Uh, huh. Why should we spend the next couple of nights in a shelter even though the nearest hurricane is 300 miles away and moving slowly? It takes us — at most - 30 minutes to load up our hurricane supplies, drive to the shelter (two blocks away), and unload everything there. 20 of those 30 minutes are spent waiting in a car-line in front of the shelter to unload, which is not onerous because people pitch in and help each other. When you have a neighborhood shelter, evacuation is no big deal, especially when your shelter is normally used as a recreation center and has bingo supplies, board games, decks of cards, even a piano.
People who live along the beach may want to get out sooner than mobile home residents inland who have neighborhood shelters, but if they have friends to stay with there is no reason for them to evacuate early. If they expect to stay in hotels they may need to get rooms several days in advance — hotels outside of evacuation zones fill up early — but they don’t need to actually stay in those rooms until the hurricane is nearby. And they may not need to stay in them at all; two out of the three “mandatory evacuations” so far this year have been false alarms because the “threatening” hurricanes came nowhere near here, and the third (Frances) was more scary than harmful. We went to the shelter for the height of Frances as a cautionery measure; you never know when a sudden 160 MPH gust might hit. Luckily, none did. But better safe than sorry, right?
If we die, we’ll let you know
Don’t worry if you don’t hear from us during a hurricane or right after one. Chances are we’re fine — or at least fine personally but lacking electricity and Internet access. And I promise: If we die, we’ll call you right away. So if we don’t call, please assume everything’s okay — because it almost certainly is.