In Preparing for Hurricane Earl

With news of Hurricane Earl possibly heading for North Carolina, my family perked up and started to pay attention. They have already begun evacuations on some of the islands in the Outer Banks area in preparation of Hurricane Earl expected to hit late Thursday night. Hurricanes are new phenomena for my family as today marks our one year anniversary moving down to North Carolina from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan which is vastly different weather conditions to deal with.

While we live pretty far inland, hurricanes can bring my area directly with high winds, flash flooding and tornado chains. Our first step to prepare for this possible hurricane was to check the computer for the path of Hurricane Earl. Then we had a discussion with the kids all about hurricanes, preparing for them, what we may expect from it and other small variables in-between. Today being Wednesday, a day before it is expected to hit, I will spend getting empty containers ready and filled with water as flash flooding and high winds could cause a power outage. I will make sure the cooler is washed and ready to use with the ice packs to keep our cold food items cold and make sure I have enough candles ready.

Our largest problem has to do with actual real concrete safety for tornado chains and flash flooding. We live in a small trailer on very low land next to woods and 30 feet from a creek bed. However this creek bed becomes a raging torrent of flooded river beds in flash floods, last fall coming dangerously close to our trailer. Our whole yard had flooded out last fall when receiving 4 days straight of heavy rains while I kept a nervous eye on the creek as the raging waters came about 15 feet from our home.

While there may not be much I can do now for safety from tornados nor flooding water, if we continue to stay in this home, is it desperately needed to start on plans for the future. This would require a shelter being built in a way that would also provide us with dry ground for protection from tornados. For the creek I would need to build up the banks so overflowing was not so easily done in heavy rains. Either by sand bags or using branches mortared with mud or something, undoubtedly the banks need to be built up.

I am not one for severe weather, they truly freak me out and the lack of safety our home provides is extremely un-nerving to me. Being so far inland when we moved here, I never dreamt of the low land presenting such a problem until our first flood. For now we can only prepare the best way we can in ensuring we have water, food and candles and hope for the best. It may not be much, but it is about all we can do for now and only work towards a future plan that would provide the safety really needed. Hmmmmm I may want a boat!