I lived in Guam for a total of 7 years, and spent plenty of time inside waiting out tropical storms and typhoons (western Pacific version of a hurricane). While they build a bit more sturdily there (reinforced concrete structures, including the roofs......imho, what the rest of the USA's hurricane and tornado alley regions should've switched to years ago!), we still prepped for storms by preparing for the worst.
Here's what we did, that I haven't seen mentioned here:
1. Don't just remember to get drinking water prepared, remember that you'll want to bathe and possibly flush toilets too! We always kept 2-3 of the inexpensive Rubbermaid 33 gallon trash cans on hand, and filled them with a hose before the storm. If you have a sturdy post outside, you can lash them to it (clothes line works great for this), but remember to lash down the lids as well. In a pinch, you can even use this water for drinking, though you might want to add a few drops of bleach per gallon if the insides of the cans weren't pristine before filling.
2. Along with gasoline cans, you might consider getting a bottle of STP gas treatment. When my sister (who was also in Guam) got hold of a generator after one typhoon, we went down to the local gas station to fill the gas cans they had.....and immediately noticed that the generator speed governor wouldn't hold steady, and was constantly "hunting" for the proper speed to run the engine. We tried draining the gas, and filling it again, same problem. I ran down to the auto supply store, and picked up a little bottle of STP, and put one cap full in the tank (and vigorously shook the generator to mix......after that, I just added it to the tank before filling). Like I figured, the gasoline had water mixed in with it, from the storm forcing water into the filling station tanks during the storm (and it hadn't had a chance to settle yet). Not much, just enough to keep the gasoline from being good enough for the generator.....but the STP works well enough as a gas dry that it worked!
3. Battery driven devices. One thing I learned after my first typhoon was that batteries ran out VERY quickly, but only in the common, popular sizes. Within a day or so after the storm, we couldn't find a D cell or AA battery to save your life! After that, I made certain that my battery driven radio and flashlights were powered by C cells, which were found in abundance. In a pinch, you can find battery adapters that will allow you to put a C cell inside, that will substitute for a D cell, but not sure if they make them to substitute AAA for AA batteries.......easier just to have an oddball battery need.
4. If you're going to feed your generator into your house's electrical system, the safest way to do so is to make (or have made) a pigtail that goes from the twist-lock "contractor" 220vAC socket on the generator, and has a plug for a clothes dryer on the other end. This is assuming that your dryer is on an outside wall, with a short (through the wall) duct for the exhaust. You feed the pigtail from the generator, through the dryer duct, to the dryer plug, and then
MAKE CERTAIN YOU TURN OFF THE MAIN BREAKER TO THE HOUSE, AS WELL AS EVERY OTHER 220 VOLT BREAKER!!! As was pointed out earlier in the thread, you can backfeed your generator voltage to the neighborhood electrical wires (which is why you turn off your main breaker.....also keeps the electric company from blowing up your generator when they kick power back on to your house!!). Also, you're not going to be able to run anything nice like the A/C with your generator, and you don't even want to think about running your electrical water heater with it either. Lights, fans, even your refrigerator can be run off a 4K generator, but that's about it. If you have a laptop, stick with that (you can live without your gaming desktop for a while, can't you??
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5. If you can't (or don't) board your windows up, at least reinforce them with some duct tape before the destructive winds hit. Once you've opened up your house by having a window smashed, it's much more likely you're going to see major structural damage to the house. I survived a class 5 typhoon (Super Typhoon Paka, in December 1997) with my windows taped with duct tape in an asterisk pattern (up & down, across from side to side, and from corner to opposite corner both ways). Where I lived, we had winds that were gusting well over 150mph. People who taped their windows with cheap packaging tape (cellophane 2" tape) pretty much had broken windows after the storm.
Another thing to remember, and this is most important of all. If you're lucky enough to experience the eye of the hurricane, please don't make the mistake of getting too far from your shelter!! I experienced this during my first typhoon, and was amazed that all of a sudden we went from 130+mph winds, with white-out conditions (horizontal rain) to relative calm in just a matter of minutes. My brother in law and I went outside to assess any damage (and tied down a couple things that had been overlooked, as well as secured the tv cable to the neighbor's house, so it wouldn't whip around and hit anything). We pretty much had the eye centered right over us, and it was pretty large......we had 45 minutes or more of calm, before the other side of the eye wall hit us. But when it did, we literally went from calm conditions to murderous winds again within a matter of minutes. If you're caught outside when that happens, you will NOT enjoy it!! Also, don't be surprised if trees that survived the first half of the storm topple during the second half, since all of a sudden they're being slammed in the opposite direction, with a weakened root hold in some very soggy soil.
Best of luck to everyone within the hurricane zone. Personally, I now live ~350 straight line miles from the Galveston area (about the closest to the coast to me). If we see a hurricane up here, I'm likely going to go outside and watch it go by, in utter amazement!! :laugh: