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Hurricane 2019: Get your documents and your data ready for a storm

June 4, 2019 by NHSI

As hurricane season begins, make an effort to implement a “set it and forget it” approach by preparing your physical and digital property ahead of time.
Missing Roof and Walls of Apartment on Gulf Coast in the Aftermath of Hurricane Michael
Missing Roof and Walls of Apartment on Gulf Coast in the Aftermath of Hurricane Michael

Preparing your property, papers and photos for a hurricane should start long before an approaching storm’s so-called “cone of uncertainty” falls upon the Tampa Bay area.

Implement a “set it and forget it” approach to this storm season by preparing your property — your home, your business and your most important documents and photos — ahead of time.

You may not have time to do all that as a storm approaches and handle other critical tasks, such as assembling food and water supplies. The following are some basic rules, and specific information that can be found online using resources such as the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (www.flash.org) or the National Hurricane Survival Initiative (hurricanesafety.org.)

Protect your home

Seal it: Make sure all of your windows and doors are tightly sealed to keep wind and water out. This will help keep your possessions safe. But if you’ve been taping your windows all this time, experts say, that’s not doing much to protect them. Skip this step in favor of installing heavy hurricane shutters or boarding up windows with plywood that is at least five-eighths of an inch thick. Google the best way to install plywood for your particular house. If you do lose a window, you’ll need more plywood and some tarps to keep it covered until it’s fixed.

Fix your roof: Got a leak? It’s going to get worse. If you’re having issues with your roof, have it inspected to ensure it will not let water into your home and that there are no serious structural issues before a storm arrives. If something goes wrong, you’re going to need even more plastic tarps on hand to keep the roof covered until it gets fixed.

Disarmament: Remove anything from your yard that strong wind gusts could turn into an airborne weapon. That includes lawn decorations, furniture, planters and anything that isn’t tied or bolted down.

Reinforcements: The most vulnerable part of your home might be the garage door, depending on how old it is. A garage door that fails during the storm will leave the house and roof far more vulnerable to wind and rain damage than a broken window. Kits and products for bracing and reinforcing garage doors are sold at home improvement stores.

Protect your business

All of the advice for your home goes for your business, too. Check the structure’s roof, board up windows, bring everything inside and make any necessary repairs.

Needs a trim: Cut away any branches from nearby trees that may impact your business’ office during a hurricane. That goes for any unhealthy or rotting trees, too.

Power down: Turn off utilities, such as electricity, before a storm hits to help prevent surges after power is restored. Don’t forget about large appliances, such as the break room fridge (clean it out before you turn the power off, too; in fact, just clean it out).

Information security: Crucial documents that have not been backed up on hard drives and the cloud should be placed in waterproof containers. If the building is in an endangered area, or you’ll need to access them right after a storm, consider moving them to a safer, more accessible location.

Road trip: Make sure you have the equipment, documents, information and passwords you may need to run the business remotely after a storm.

Protect your documents, photos

Make a checklist of all your important documents and photos and consider storing physical copies in another location.

One word, plastics: Store your important documents and photos in a waterproof container or bag to protect them from being ruined by rain or flooding. It could be a waterproof lockbox or just a binder with plastic sleeves.

Card game: Don’t forget to gather, organize and store important items such as your driver’s license, passport, insurance information, medical documents, financial records, checkbooks, birth certificates and Social Security cards. You’ll want to bring cash along, too, because ATMs and credit cards may not function after a storm.

Portability: If you have to evacuate, make sure to take physical and digital (or both) copies of important documents, photos and records that you cannot do without, just in case you’re cut off from home for a period of time.

Self-preservation: The same steps should be taken to protect irreplaceable family photos. But it’s 2019, are you on the cloud yet? Digital photos and scanned PDF of documents can be stored on hard drives and using cloud services such as Apple’s iCloud, DropBox, Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive, or Amazon Cloud Drive. Some services offer free storage space, so why not save multiple copies of your stuff?

Contact Malena Carollo at [email protected] or (727) 892-2249. Follow @malenacarollo.

Filed Under: Article, Get Ready, Florida Tagged With: 2019 Hurricane Season, Atlantic hurricane season, hurricane preparation, national hurricane survival initiative, Tampa Bay Times

How to Hurricane-Proof Your Home… Affordably

March 6, 2019 by NHSI

Close-up of craftsman hands in protective gloves measuring wooden plank with ruler and pencil. Woodwork and renovation concept.

Hurricanes can cause tremendous stress to homeowners, even before they hit. From grocery stores jam-packed with frantic shoppers to gas stations lined up with thirsty cars, preparing for an upcoming storm causes stress for just about everyone around town. And even after the storm has passed, it often may leave countless obstacles scattered in its wake. One of the most daunting post-hurricane challenges is assessing the damage to your home (and figuring out how to pay large, unexpected bills to repair the damage).

Now imagine a different way. Instead of the usual stress and frustration associated with such an ordeal, you can be calm and collected while assessing the storm’s aftermath. You’re able to do this because you were fully prepared to face the storm before it hit. Your home was already armed with a backup generator, storm shutters, and wind- and water-resistant measures securely in place. The best part is, you were able to do it all through 100% financing with no money down.

A unique and efficient program called Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) makes this possible. Scientific American has proclaimed the PACE program as one of its top 20 “world-changing” ideas; PACE is an affordable program that allows homeowners to make energy efficient and hurricane protection improvements to their homes that will continue to benefit them long after hurricane season has passed.

According to a survey by the National Hurricane Survival Initiative, 66% of Floridians identified installation of impact-resistant windows as one of their top three home-hardening preferences. With wind and water damage contributing significantly to a hurricane’s disastrous after-effects, PACE eligible storm protection improvements can greatly reduce the potential damage of a hurricane, including high-impact doors and basement membrane waterproofing.

“Everyone wants their home to be able to withstand the worst of a hurricane, but not every family’s budget has the means to make home hardening possible,” says David Kelly, Senior Vice President of Sales with Ygrene, a PACE provider and national leader in clean energy financing for storm home improvements. “Floridians are fortunate that the state is one of just three in the nation that allow residential PACE, so they should take advantage by investing in their future while increasing their property’s value now.”

The process for getting PACE financing approval is simple, taking just three easy steps:

  1.     Get qualified
  2.     Select a project
  3.     Choose a contractor.

Homeowners can get prequalified in less than thirty minutes with an online application, and their entire project is 100% financed with no money down. Even repaying the financing is easy; payments are added onto and made with the owner’s property tax bill and can be delayed up to a year or more, with the cost spread out over the lifetime of the financing agreement (sometimes up to 30 years). Eligibility is primarily based on factors other than credit score, such as home equity.

Hundreds of Projects Qualify including solar, heating and AC, and roofing.

PACE projects aren’t just proactive ways to start preparing for the inevitable challenges of hurricane season. PACE home improvement solutions can also result in a more sustainable home for you and your family. Options such as solar panels, electric vehicle charging stations, and wind turbines may help lower your utility bills.

In the end, the greatest value of PACE-financed improvement is the peace of mind that comes with knowing your home is properly hardened against the forces of nature, before they happen. The more prepared you are before the hurricane, the less you’ll need to worry once it arrives.

Ygrene PACE Financing How it Works from Ygrene Energy Fund on Vimeo.

For more information regarding Ygrene and how you can begin the PACE process today, visit Ygrene.com.

Filed Under: Get Ready, Florida, News Tagged With: Home hardening, hurricane preparation, PACE Financing, Storm Protection, Ygrene

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