How do you know if your house is safe during a Cat 4 hurricane?
December 21st, 2009 | by shutter |
LuCkY asked:
I live in South Florida. West Palm Beach to be exact. And from the looks of it Ike is coming this way. I am a mom with a 2 1/2 year old and my daughter will be 1 the 20th of this month. My husband is like retarded when it comes to this. We have metal awnings for shutters and we have hard wood floors that have gaps. This house was built in the 60’s too. How do I know if this place is safe? I am afraid for my kids. I mean what do I do? How do I make my hubby understand?
I live in South Florida. West Palm Beach to be exact. And from the looks of it Ike is coming this way. I am a mom with a 2 1/2 year old and my daughter will be 1 the 20th of this month. My husband is like retarded when it comes to this. We have metal awnings for shutters and we have hard wood floors that have gaps. This house was built in the 60’s too. How do I know if this place is safe? I am afraid for my kids. I mean what do I do? How do I make my hubby understand?
5 Responses to “How do you know if your house is safe during a Cat 4 hurricane?”
By Bria G on Dec 22, 2009 | Reply
Yikes, sounds kind of bad. You should really talk to him to get him to understand your situation. Take him for a “tour” around your house to remind him of the damage and what should be fixed. Have you planned on staying or evacuating for the hurricane? I would suggest just driving to northern Florida until the hurricane passes. Good luck!
By Robert I on Dec 24, 2009 | Reply
It comes down to this..
A cat 4 hurricane is definitly not something to joke about and with the possibitly it can increase to a cat 5…
Things you should do to prepare is the following:
go to a local home depot or lowes AFTER measureing ur large windows and weak doors. Then get the proper amount of woods
Dont need to overdose of the woods but its good to block weak doors to stop insdie damage and to block windows to stop room damage.. So after cutting the wood to proper size get blue painting tape and tape each window with a * like 5 lines through the window from corner to corner top to bottome left to right then nail in the woods ( i would only do this when u find out tomorrow night the exact projected location of this hurricane it would be kinda funny and stupid looking if u did it tomorrow and it goes somewhere else ) so once you find out the projection a day - a day and a half b4 get all windows boarded and taped up and do the door lastly leaving your back/side doors unblocked blocking only one ur main front door.
This will protect your house.. Any cat4/5 i would suggest you to do this and leave your house. Not leave the state but go to the local school/fire dept.. Tomorrow in the afternoon call up the local bigger schools and fire districts and find out information on how there shelter protection works. find out which would be convient and easy for you to get to but pick the largest of the group if u can. This is the absolute best way to prepare for a hurricane. protect your house and ur family.. The school/fire district will tell you when would be the right time to come down and how to get there and what to bring. they will supply you with everything from there. Its only going to be for a day minimum and u should be free to go after that unless there is alot of flooding and power outage. Now if there is a mandatory evac then thats when u would travel up north going to georgia area and stuff. but if you are under a small warning but in the track this is the best thing you can do. so if its a mandatory take all valuables and block up all of ur house and leave with hope. Good luck but im having a feeling from the forces of this hurricane its gonna go up north last minute. but we shall seee.
By jazzie on Dec 26, 2009 | Reply
sometimes you won’t know for sure so the best thing to do if it reaches to cat. one get reafy to leave try to get everything you cherish packed up if it becomes a cat 2 put them in storage cat 3 leave take your kids if your husband don’t want to go with you this time he will the next time other things can be replaced your family can not
if you have pets take them with you
By charlessmith702210@sbcglobal.net on Dec 28, 2009 | Reply
Regrettably, your house may not be safe.
The house may not have enough steel anchoring and not enough “triangle-shaped” skeletons to survive a category 4. I am also afraid that the shingles in the 1960s house may not be up to par and survive a Category 4. Best to anchor them with strong steel posts, or evacuate the house if you cannot do that.
If you absolutely must live in the house and ride out the storm, best to build a storm shelter that is like the tornado shelter depicted in the beginning of “Twister”. It can be built away from your house so that if the house collapses, you won’t be trapped. Best to hire diggers to build the shelter, and put enough food and batteries and a radio to ride out the storm.
A Category 4 storm has winds of 145 mph or more, so this tornado shelter should survive the storm if it is built to withstand those very high winds. 145 mph winds is what you get in an EF3 tornado.
But again, if you cannot build this shelter because of time contraints, better evacuate from the house.
By weather on Dec 30, 2009 | Reply
get everything ready now. all freash water, baby food and all things like that. you may not get hit by the storm and shouldnt worry till saturady, but get ready now. get radios, flashlights, cut branches hanging by the house. ike may make a sudden turn north just before hitting florida so florida might only get rain from ike, but better safe then sorry. keep listening to things like the weather channel 50 past the hour has hurricane updates. also listen to local weather stations.
good luck and evacuate as soon as possible