Gustav is on his way. Am I worried? Not really. We are better prepared this time than when Katrina came blasting through 3 years ago. We have a gas water heater and I remembered to purchase some instant coffee so I will still be able to have some morning coffee.
Katrina was really a surprise for me, I figured we lived too far inland to be affected by a hurricane. Unfortunately I found out the hard way that high winds from what was still a category 1 at the time it reached us, will knock out power for several days. Not having power at home is one thing, but what was really rough was being low on gasoline for my car. The whole of central Mississippi (and of course the coast) was "down" so that meant no gas for anyone til the power was restored and when it finally did come back on in "patches" there were two and three hour waits in gas lines.
My area is now under a watch, with expected sustained winds to range from 45-50 MPG and gusts of 60-70, not to mention possible flooding, and being on the East side of the eye, we are expected to possibly be under tornado warning's off and on throughout this entire ordeal.
So far, in preparation for the arrival of Gustav I've bought TONS of batteries. D's for the flashlights, AAs for my color, handheld tv, and Cs for the radio - also loads of candles. Since my experience with Katrina I've learned that it's almost near impossible to find a bag of ice anywhere, so I am letting my icemaker work it's butt off. Everytime the ice-bin is full, I pour all the ice into a big bowl in the freezer and let the bin start filling up again. In order to avoid a bunch of good food going to waste, we've been eating from the fridge and freezer for the past 4 or 5 days. You know, all that stuff that you buy in the frozen food section to use as a "back-up-plan" for those times when you have nothing else to eat.
As for our food "if" the power goes out, we should be good-to-go there. I have two fresh loaves of whole grain bread, several cans of chunk-white-chicken, pb&j, several cases of water (I LOVE water), other assorted canned meat (that I will not eat, but my husband likes that sort of thing). We won't starve, that's for sure. I guess what I'm dreading is no a/c.
After Katrina, it was ok the rest of that day and night but the next few days without air were torture! The humidity was intense and everyone's tempers were even more hot. The only way to cool off was to hop in your car and drive around for about 20 minutes - which is where the problem of "no-gas" came into effect. Well, both vehicles are gassed up this time so we should be able to get cool from time to time that way.
Buckle up - it's gonna be a bumpy ride!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Everything went well this time around. Our power stayed on, although hundreds of homes in my county were in the dark for most of this storm's duration.
Ike is now looking like a possible threat to the Gulf Coast area about 10 days or so from now. At least I'm still prepared.
Post a Comment