National Hurricane Survival Initiative

Saving Lives & Minimizing Damage -- Is your community prepared?

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

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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.

Column: For hurricane season, keep a hand-crank or battery-powered radio at the ready

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Article Written By: Craig Fugate

All Floridians should have a battery-operated or hand-crank broadcast radio in their hurricane emergency supply kit. That’s a key lesson I’ve learned from a career spent in public safety, including nearly eight years as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

It is easy for Americans to trust that their smart phone, the internet or pay-TV will be there when they need critical information when disaster strikes. Time and again, though, we see cellular networks go down or become congested. Our cable or satellite TV system is knocked offline. The power goes out and we are left in the dark, literally and figuratively.

That happened to me in Gainesville during Hurricane Irma — the power went out, taking out my cable and with it went the internet. My cellular data stopped working. Good thing I had a battery-powered radio. It was the only news source I had.

Last year was a wake-up call. Americans watched as Hurricane Harvey slammed into Texas’ Gulf Coast and caused unprecedented flooding. Hurricane Irma tore a path that left millions of residents in the dark from Florida up the Atlantic Coast. And, in Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands, Hurricane Maria caused devastation from which residents are still recovering and its effects may be felt for decades to come.

As we approach the heart of hurricane season, Americans should heed the lessons from last year and prepare themselves. And they need to know where to find live, local and detailed information during times of crisis. Knowing what is going on, where to find help and how to avoid trouble can make the difference between staying safe or getting caught in a dangerous situation.

That is why – from a career spent in public safety, including nearly eight years as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency – I believe all Americans should have a battery-operated or hand-crank broadcast radio in their emergency supplies. Local broadcasters remain our communities’ most important “first informers,” working closely with public safety officials at every level to keep Americans updated on the situation. During last year’s hurricanes, local radio and TV stations went wall-to-wall with coverage, providing critical information about evacuation plans, places of aid for those in need and how to avoid disease for those stuck in their homes.

Yet, despite broadcast radio’s role as a source of lifeline information, many Americans fail to include a broadcast radio in their emergency plans. Thankfully, an innovative feature can turn many smartphones into an FM radio receiver during times of emergency, without having to stream over the internet or waste excessive battery life.

Mobile devices have for years been manufactured with FM radio chips which, when paired with headphones acting as an antenna, allows users to tune to local radio broadcasts even when a cellular network goes down. Though a popular feature in the rest of the world, many wireless carriers in the United States kept these FM chips deactivated until relatively recently.

The 2017 hurricanes showed radio-enabled smartphones can play a significant role in keeping people safe. Radio listenership on smartphones exploded in Texas and South Florida as hurricanes Harvey and Irma barreled down on the areas, allowing residents to use their mobile devices to get the latest updates about the storm from their local radio stations. In the Tampa Bay area, the NextRadio app — which enables over-the-air radio listening — had more than eight times more listeners on the Sunday before the storm hit than the previous week. Before a storm hits, test to see if your smartphone has this capability.

If you have an iPhone, you’re out of luck.

While the rest of the wireless industry has recognized the public safety benefits of radio-enabled smartphones — and despite calls from newspapers, lawmakers and even the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission — Apple continues to resist this innovative public service.

Americans need more access to lifeline information when disaster strikes — information local radio stations provide day-in and day-out. I strongly urge Apple to do the right thing and equip iPhones with FM radio capability. In the meantime, have that radio ready.

Craig Fugate served as FEMA administrator from May 2009 to January 2017. Previously, he served as Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s Emergency Management director from 2001 to 2009.

Source: http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/Column-For-hurricane-season-keep-a-hand-crank-or-battery-powered-radio-at-the-ready_169489997