As I've stated before, long-term survival for me is hurricane prep. This story is not about my first 'cane but about the first one I was truly prepped for. Now, this is not an Andrew or Katrina type story, complete with total or mass destruction. Rather, my experience with what worked and what didn't in an easily survivable scenario.

On Sept 25th., 1998 Hurricane Georges crossed the Lower Fl. Keys packing winds of 105 mph. Big Pine Key( my home island) through Cudjoe Key took the worst of the damage. Costal flooding, roof and tree damage were everywhere.

My family and I (daughters age 8 and 5) had bugged out to my in-laws home in Leesburgh, Fl.
Prior to leaving our wooden stilt house, built in the center of Big Pine, I closed up with my newly installed accordion shutters. Most of my tools, new generator, and preps had been laboriously carried upstairs and littered the living room. The trip out was uneventful as we left with plenty of time. Info during the impact was sketchy at best.

Sept 26 - My wife and I leave daughters with their grandparents and drive to Ft Lauderdale to grab a hotel. We knew that access to the Keys was still being denied so we wanted to pick up some extra gear prior to heading back. Shop keepers in Leesburg, Fl. were great when they were told we were "refugees", getting us an as yet unstocked in chainsaw from the loading dock so that we could be on our way.

Sept. 27 - 6:00 am finds us in at huge traffic jam at the Fl. City entrance to the Keys. Cars and people EVERWHERE in the small town and again shopkeeper are great, allowing folks to use bathrooms or park their cars. Everyone is tense but still being cool. Rumor is constant about when people will be let in. Through a fortunate bit of timing we are in the first hundred or so cars let in. We have heard from a neighbor that part of our roof is gone and a small storage room under the house is blown out. Traffic flies into the Keys for us. Not so much, later on.

4:00 pm - Upon arrival at our home we find a neighbor has cut up a downed tree from our driveway to allow us parking. The storage room is intact with all the crap from under the house blown against it, giving the illusion of it's being destroyed. A 25' section fascia, soffit, and roofing from the east side has flipped up, off and over the house landing 40' away from the west side of the house. I had previously painted my ageing shingle roof with Koolseal roof coating. While at the time not recommended for asphalt shingle, this stuff locked the tabs together and I lost not one shingle that wasn't attached to the flying roof section. Other homes lost huge numbers of tabs. Trees down everywhere but no flooding.


7:00 pm - Our first night back we were persuaded by our neighbors who had stayed to accompany them to a local church that was serving hot meals. I saw and talked to many old pals that night. Homeless were in line next to upper middle class. They were sweaty, dirty, tired, a little shell shocked, and every one had a story. I've never felt so uncomfortable in my life. Here I am, rested and clean with a great store of prep food at home, eating food others need. I vowed then never to go to a shelter in an evacuation. Took cash and a couple #10 can of beans to donate the next day to ease my conscience.

Sept 28 and on - My neighbor returned my genny he had borrowed with my permission. I had 2- 50 gal. drums of stabilized fuel with a crank pump. Worked great but the pump didn't fit the drum holes and was made for a 30 gal drum and wouldn't reach the bottom. Jury rigging fixed that. The food left in our fridge was minimal and contributed to our nightly block party cookouts.
I owned a landscape maintainence company at the time. Half my employees just never returned. Daytime meals for my crew was Dinty Moore or canned soup cooked on my propane coleman stove. If I didn't feed 'em some couldn't eat.
Tap water was at minimum pressure due to a pipeline breach. Power was out for 3 weeks.

This is getting long so let me make a list.

What worked -
1) Extra chain saw purchased at last minute was a godsend. A total of three kept my crew moving when one would go down. I had spare blades, oil, and files and used all during recovery.
2) Tire plugs and 12v compressor - fixed my tires 3 times and my friends’ several times. Roofing nails everywhere.
3) Extra cash. Paid my employees daily until banks opened. There was so much work to be had; it took perks to keep them. Paid for electrical weather head with cash and got quick response from electrician with that promise. Cash truly was king.
4) Fuel stockpile. No stations within 10 miles for 1 week.
5) Genny. You can imagine. Still need a transfer switch but extension cords worked fine. Running a small fan on the genny motor and daily oil changes. That Homelight 5500 never missed a beat. Loud rascal though.
6) Food and water preps. No struggling to get to an open store, no lines. Saved time, fuel, and available cash.
7) Stockpiled roof materials. Had just enough for quick repairs. None available locally for weeks. I have a tarp that can cover the whole roof but was unneeded.
8)Batteries, flashlights, radio. Had plenty but have upgraded since. Local radio WWUS was outstanding and the only game in town. They got a Murrow award for coverage. They went all talk for the first week. The call in's were chilling, sad, humorous, heart warming, and some whiners just pissed me off. Sort of a cross section of humanity.
9) Old school cord phone. We had the only working phone on the block.
10) All preps in total. I guess the best way to describe it is comforting. I saw many with nothing and I had everything I needed. Didn't open my wallet for 3 weeks for anything but the above described paychecks and elec.
11) Being established in a community. This got me my contractors quickly and the feeling of someone giving a damn about my family was the best.


What didn't work -
1) Didn't want to run the genny at night. No fan, no a/c. Sleeping was the worst. I have since purchased a great 12v fan and a couple deep cycle batteries.
2) No hot shower. Cold drips from the shower were the order of the day. Still it could have been worse.
3) Gas stove needs electricity to work. We used it when the genny was running but at night used camp stove on our deck.
4) Windstorm insurance. Had a jerk of an adjuster. Ended up with a public adjuster who doubled the payout from the ins. company for 10% cut.
5) Finding employees. Much of the affordable housing (trailers) was trashed. Only dirt bags and drunks were left for lower end jobs. A drunk or a user is what he is, no matter what you pay them.

I'm sure many other things worked or didn't work but time and intervening storms have blurred my memory.

The one thing that struck me was having food and water there to come back to. That's something I never would have thought of. I would naturally stockpile for bug-in, but probably would have taken it all when I evaced.

Not having to take food and water is one of the perks of bugging out to my inlaws home. Grandma takes great care of us. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> But, I always bring cash so we can go to grocery store as soon as we arrive.

Not to say we don't have some food and water for the trip. The added benifit of carrying reduced consumable supplies is more room in the vehicle for other keepsakes.

Having a bag or suitcase or whatever at your BOL is a big plus. Between that and what's in the car/EDC , you couylkd be OK, even if you couldn'r grab anything else. And if you have to walk, it's even better.

Dave

That was great, helpful. I enjoyed reading that.

I didn't intend to make my post above anonymous, as though surreptitious. I haven't been having to sign in on the preexistent thread for my name to be picked up.

Thanks for the heads-up Duke. We were kinda wondering about the Anon. posts on the Campfire forum.