preparednessblog

The situation in the Midwest has had me researching the best ways to cope with flooding.  The best suggestions I’ve found:

1. Carry flood insurance. Floods are not covered under your regular home-owners’ or renters’ policy.

2. Sand-bags, all in all, seem to be pretty useless. Most sources agree that getting yourself and your stuff out of harm’s way is a better use of your energy.

3. This is not a situation where bugging in is appropriate. If there is an evacuation order for flooding, get your family out of the area as quickly as possible. Since you keep a bug out bag by the door, you can do this on short notice, right?

4. Anything you can’t take with you, get it up as high in your house as you can. Put it in the attic or second story if you have one, on counters if you don’t. Flood waters may go higher than you can get your stuff, but it’s a chance to save something.

5. Don’t wade in flood waters without proper protection. All sorts of dangerous stuff, from sharp objects to angry animals to harmful bacteria can be lurking under the surface.

In order to make this blog more useful to all my readers, I’m looking for a widget that will show the reader his or her local weather.

So far, almost all of what I’ve found can only be set to one city. I chose the one that is currently on the left because you can at least click it to get information for your location.

If anyone knows of any small weather widgets that do automatic geo-location, please comment and let me know!

The Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1st, and runs until November 30th.

The NOAA has released their predictions for hurricane activity this year. They are:

• - 6 to 9 hurricanes
• - 2 of which will be major, which means sustained winds of 110 mph or more.
• - 12 to 16 named storms

This year, the organization also added that they consider their forecast about 60 to 70 percent probable. Officials say that they included this information this year because many people take the predictions as a hard figure, and relied too heavily on the forecasts.

I think this observation sums it all up perfectly:

“Living in a coastal state means having a plan for each and every hurricane season. Review or complete emergency plans now — before a storm threatens,” said Conrad C. Lautenbacher, NOAA administrator. “Planning and preparation is the key to storm survival and recovery.”

You can read the Yahoo! News story here .