my family has owned the house since 1955, so Donna in 1962 was my first... I inherited it after the passing of Mom and Dad...it is hard to tell the actual wind speed without an anemometer... the posted 90+ is from Doppler radar... IIRC we had gusts of 125 measured from Donna a couple of miles nearer the Gulf ... the trees really do their job of knocking down the wind... and IIRC we were on the western side of the eye for Donna also... thankfully not that much rain... 10" or so

I can't but help thinking about lessons from these recent hurricanes that might apply to the big potential disaster in my neck of the woods - earthquakes.

A big quake will really disrupt the infrastructure and the grid, just as these hurricanes did. Plan for three weeks of self-sufficiency, not a piddling three days. This is probably true for other large scale disasters, as well.

Even in the best of circumstances, don't utterly depend upon outside help. It will probably be you and your neighbors, especially right at first. Think through and discuss at least a general strategy.

Here, here!

We came through Irma almost entirely unscathed. We lost power for about 23 hours, and for most of this we were up and running on a standby generator.

Lessons learned:

Make sure you have spare consumable parts and a troubleshooting plan for the generator BEFORE the storm. Then when it kicks on as the power fails I won't spend a couple hours running around in the rain and rising wind trying to get the electricity going to the right place (yes, it was that one breaker I hadn't checked).

Have plenty of spare hardware for the hurricane shutters. I had plenty for me, but had to scrape and scrounge to help a neighbor.

Otherwise, I think things went well. Much of this can be attributed to Irma arriving in my neck of the woods as a Cat 2 rather than 4, but also because my preps were timely and comprehensive, and the previous owner of this house planned well too.

Bravo Zulu!!!!

Thank you!

I will say it was surreal watching as a typically laid-back area, which has not seen a storm of this size in 55 years, lose its collective mind trying to get supplies and equipment at the last minute. As the winds picked up there were still people looking for plywood. All of the stores were closed 24 hours before the storm arrived, and no one seemed to know what to do without Wal Mart open and functional.

That tells me how most people would react if and when there was an EMP event.

More solar gear for me ( see realated post)

Watching P.R., I am now extending my planning to at least 7 days maybe ten.
100 gals of water in reserve.

TeacherRO... lessons learned from 2004/2005 tropical season with a 9 day power outage caused some major changes in my plans...at the time I was still working, didn't have a generator, and simply trying to sleep in a 85-90F house and still get up a 0600 was a challenge... even had to find my old college wind up alarm clock...

I'm retired now, so have a different perspective on the situation...but still learning... had Irma moved another 75miles west before turning north, I would have faced a much different situation