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If you have vinyl outdoor furniture, hyperchlorinate your pool and throw the plastic patio furniture in there before the hurricane comes.

That way, you dont get dirt in the house, the furniture doesn't end up in the next county and it gets clean.

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Aileen is on FET. she has no power but she and her brood are safe.

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ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam

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ORIGINAL: LaTigresse

If anyone hears from Aileen or Marie please let us know!

Aileen is on FET. she has no power but she and her brood are safe.

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ORIGINAL: deathtothepixies


just a simple google search, be happy that you live in the richest country in the world.

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ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1

I am really glad that there doesn't seem to be any major casualties out there.

Now, I'm going to sound like a thick dunderhead clutz here considering I live in a country where most dwellings are built from stone, double-walled brick or concrete - but I have to ask what seems to me to be the most obvious question.....

I see on the news year after year where you American people get blitzed by tornado's, hurricanes, freaky snow storms etc and when we see the devastation left behind it's.... erm, matchwood??
I lived in various places in the USA for 8 months and one thing I noticed was that most non-high-rise homes were no safer or built any better than a glorified posh garden shed or beach hut - pretty much all-wooden construction with a plywood roof and shingles and the really posh ones have brick cladding to look good.
As nice as they look, it doesn't take many brain cells or a rocket scientist to know that a glorified garden shed isn't going to put up much of a fight against the type of raging weather you have over there with regular monotony.
So why keep re-building matchwood homes with more matchwood??
Surely something a lot more substantial is going to be much more cost effective?? A brick-built house with a proper slate or tile roof is far less likely to be raised to the ground than a posh overgrown shed. You might need to replace a few tiles or a chimney stack or even a whole new roof after a storm; but wouldn't that be a whole lot cheaper than completely replacing all the lost possessions and rebuilding the dwelling from the ground up?
I would have thought the building trade and the population would have learned something by now. Or is it a sneaky way to keep people employed to continually rebuild wooden homes knowing they won't last much beyond the next nasty thing to swoop through the district? Maybe it's the insurance companies artificially keeping the prices high by pointing at the constant claims for loss of possessions and homes? I'm baffled!

So, sitting here comfortably in my brick-built home where I have only ever had a 2-hour power outage once in my lifetime, I do wonder why you continue to build matchwood homes in a storm area? I may be rather naive but that doesn't make any economic or practical sense to me - or have I missed something??

* puts on tin hat waiting for the flack *

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ORIGINAL: NoChoiceLeft

The death toll from the storm itself sucks, but what they won't be putting on the news is all the people who die in the next month also because of the storm.
LOL, ok, now for some humor to be injected...
I know there has to be someone out there who's paranoid and wealthy enough to be having the same thoughts I do about building underground or buying up an old bunker in a very stable region and turning it into the underground city of kink when the world ends... how come that guy never hits on me? We'd be perfect together! I'd put up with his insanity and he'd put up with my desire for actual preparedness for anything that's possible to be prepared for. And c'mon, tell me all of you wouldn't consider moving on down and renting space in a city that's built on kink and brains! Anyone with me on this? (OK... now anyone who could actually do this project, 'cause it's going to take me years to save up that capital, and it seems like a project to start sooner than that)
Sorry, thought a little half-serious humor might not hurt here.