I learned after the first hurricane I went through to prepare in advance whether I thought it would be a small storm or a large storm. Hurricanes have a habit of changing course, strengthening, and weakening at anytime. During the last bad storm I had a new neighbor who hadn't lived through a hurricane before. The rest of us recommended he stock up on bottled water, batteries, blankets, non-perishable easy to eat foods, fill his bathtub up with water in advance, create an emergency backpack that he can grab and carry easily if it floods, and most importantly, to tie everything down in the yard. I keep bungy cords that I tie down my lawn furniture with. He didn't listen and his iron patio table flew into my other neighbors window. It is never your own stuff that damages your house, but the flying debris from those that could care less. With all our preparations we typically spend more time cleaning up than preparing. These days, everything is ready all the time during May - Nov around here.



>>Hurricane Rita is developing a large, well defined eye: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/HURRLOOPS/gulfir.html
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>>Katrina's ended up being larger than Lake Okeechobee.
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>Yep. It's totally screwing up my weekend plans and will probably pass directly over my parent's home. Thank goodness they are on a trip to Turkey and Greece. Unfortunately, that leaves me to go down to "tend to things" once the storm passes.