I've always wanted to shelter in place thru a hurricane. Is that really stupid?

[captain queeg]

My dad grew up in Florida and used to talk about it. Back then structures were more fragile. Nowadays lots of buildings are designed to withstand a big storm. The only time in my life that the weather really made me fear for my life I was living in Lawton OK and 5 tornadoes hit Ft Sill right outside of town. Power lines, trees coming down. We were in an old wooden house. Of course things got back to normal pretty fast which doesn’t always happen after a hurricane.

[mercuryblues]

1. Yes it is a dumb idea

Hurricane's are fierce. If where you're sheltering in place gets flooded or the roof blown off, someone has to come and recue you. All because you thought it would be a cool thing to do. Then there is the fact that most hurricanes also create tornadoes.

[Lochloosa]

2. It sounds fun till the 4th or 5th hour, then it gets a little tedious.

[BeyondGeography]

27. That sounds right

The only one I lived through in NY was Sandy and I just wanted the wind to stop howling after a couple of hours. Make.it.go.away.

[CommonSenseMom]

3. depends on

How your house is built. Does it have storm windows or shutters for every window & door? How old is your roof? Do you know if it has those extra straps tying it to the rafters? Where are you in relation to landfall? Expected winds in your area.

I stayed in place in West Boca when Wilma's (2005) eye literally went over our neighborhood. That storm was terrifying. The garage door was literally heaving in and out with the wind. Don't know what the official recorded winds were, but there were gusts of over 135 mph. We were out of power for 10 days. Roads were mostly impassable everywhere for several days. No gas to be had anywhere.

Luckily, I had plenty of water, dried foods (boxes of cereal, crackers, bread, PB & J) to last us. Wasn't fancy, but we made it.

If a storm is a 3 or over, I'm never staying in place again. We left for Irma.

[eShirl]

4. yes

It's fun sheltering in place through a nor'easter though.
(providing you have non-electricity-dependent heat and cooking)

[tavernier]

5. So many variables to your question.

I’ve stayed for many hurricanes but much depended on cat size, location of the storm... (clean or dirty side?), the location of your house, the structure of your house, etc....

As of now we are staying.

[voteearlyvoteoften]

6. Depends where you live

Not sure of landfall yet. So you could leave and be in path of storm. Factor in road conditions. Interstates and turnpikes can be hell.
Can you stand a week with no power/ AC?
Cause hot, messy, and boring is the aftermath.
Good luck!

[ret5hd]

7. Be sure to bring plenty of strawberrys...and a faithful crew.

[Hotler]

8. Hmmmmmm

Please be safe. You don't get points for bravery.

[customerserviceguy]

52. Thanks!

Ron White is one of my favorites!

[MissB]

9. An important thing is to

use a sharpie to write your identification on your arm.

[Hekate]

16. And torso

[Mariana]

19. Has any corpse ever been identified

because someone wrote their information on their body with a Sharpie?

[jpak]

10. It depends on where your "place" is

Mandatory Evacuation Zone?

GET OUT.

Flood Zone?

GET OUT

CAT 2 or higher direct hit?

GET OUT

[Phoenix61]

11. Yes, it is really, really stupid

No power means lift stations don’t work, no traffic signals, no way to get gas or cash. No water. It’s been 10 months since Michael tried to wipe us off the planet and I have friends who still don’t have their roof fixed. Cat 1 or 2 is a pain but anything over that gets very serious very fast.

[mitch96]

49. "No power means"

NO A/C....... It's still hot and humid in Florida.. I can put up with the other stuff but No power/no AC is almost unbearable.. Been there, done that. no thankyou.
If I have no power after the storm, I'm outta here. I'll come back after power is restored...
m

[jpljr77]

12. Yes, but not because of the immediate danger.

As many here say, it's stupid because you could die. And you could. But the chances of that are fairly small, going strictly on statistics. No, the reason you shouldn't do it, and the reason it's monumentally stupid, is that you would have to live through what DEFINITELY will happen.

You will lose power and maybe water....for days, at least. Long enough for food to spoil in the fridge and freezer. And it's hot out, remember? There will probably be flooding. If it's bad, you won't be able to go out for food/water. And even if you could go out, there's no power, remember? Grocery stores require power as well. And back to the flooding. Have you ever smelled the air in a place that's been flooded for five days in the summer? Spoiler: it stinks. Badly.

No food, maybe no water (to drink, you mariner, you), no A/C, no computer, Internet, smart phone will die after a day or so....it's horrible.

But hey, at least it's a "cool" few hours while it passes over, right?

[QC]

13. I rode out a Category 5. I don't recommend it.

The wind was so loud that I didn't even know that two very large trees had landed on the house until the storm ended and I went outside. All I could hear was that screaming wind and my windows shattering.

It was a memorable experience but definitely not fun.

[Peace06]

56. Cat 5

Yes, me too! And it is terrifying! And then there is the aftermath. Inspecting all the damage to you and community; two weeks with no electricity, finding safe routes to travel with trees and electrical wires down; coping with blue tarps over all the roofs, contractors, insurance inspections, no gas to be found. And on and on! Sound familiar to anyone?

[QC]

58. Yes, all of that.

I have a real roof, but most of my neighbors still have tarps. Some are still living in campers. Others have had their houses torn down.

It was pretty awful. I'm glad I had the experience, because of the good I saw from a lot of people, but I don't really recommend it for others.

[Peace06]

60. Qc

Yes! It does seem to bring out the best in people and that is always good to see!

[Hekate]

14. There's a street in my town named Salsipuedes. It means Get Out While You Can....

Nobody knows how it got that name, but every so often it really makes sense.

Salsipuedes, dude. Don't watch the tidal wave come in. Don't try to use a garden hose to save your house from the biggest wildfire in a century. Don't wait it out in New Orleans and drown when the whole ocean comes in with the hurricane.

[no_hypocrisy]

15. Even if your shelter is not damaged or destroyed, you risk losing utilities and travel access

for an undetermined period of time.

I've lived through a hurricane on Long Island in 1976. We couldn't flush the toilets. No tap water. No electricity. Could drive sparingly as there was no way to pump gas.

Our house was fine. Doing survival training was not fun.

[brooklynite]

17. Hurricane Michael -- 2018

[Mariana]

18. If your building is study, and you're on high ground

you're probably better off staying put - as long as you've made adequate preparations. Evacuation is stressful, expensive, and it has dangers of its own.

We always hear about the people who didn't bother to put up water and food, or who got flooded because their place was at a low elevation, etc. You never hear about the thousands of people who stayed home and are doing just fine after a hurricane.

[gldstwmn]

20. It's not like camping.

[Act_of_Reparation]

21. Tornados are more my thing.

The crazy, Thanos-driven part of my id brain really wants to see one.

[Baclava]

22. Its all fun, then the power goes out, suffocating heat in the pitch dark, 12 hrs of howling wind

Oh what fun it is, wondering what all the crashes and bangs hitting your house could be, hoping that cracking sound isnt your roof coming off

Ayep

[lindysalsagal]

45. Right. Odds are you'll survive it, so that the heat and bugs and polluted water can come for you.

Once the water gets high enough, you've got dangerous chemicals and raw sewage in that water, and even breathing near it is dangerous, forgetabout trying to stay dry.

It always seems to me the aftermath is just horrendous, and the total information/communication blackout has to be the worst part of it. You know nothing, and no one knows where you are. Even if you managed to get into a boat to escape it all, you wouldn't even know where to go, if you could get it started.

If I lived down there I'd always be the first scaredy-cat out, every time!

[Ilsa]

23. Tornados can spawn, too.

It all depends on these many factors and if you are able to leave. The aftermath is heat, humidity, inconveniences, potential for disease, etc. At least find a designated shelter (usually build with cinderblocks).

[Tommy_Carcetti]

24. It's quite risky but I've done it. Wouldn't openly suggest doing it for fun, though.

Wilma, 2005.

We had just bought our house and were supposed to have window shutters installed. The scheduled day of installation ended up being the day the hurricane hit, so needless to say that never happened.

We got a direct hit--the eye passed right over us. Because we didn't have shutters, we got a whole view of the storm. Lots of gusty rain and wind--white out type of conditions during the worst of squalls. At one point I went to the front of the house, looked out the window, and suddenly heard a crack--the lower part of the window had broken. Needless to say, I immediately exited that room and closed the door.

I was able to look out the front peephole and get a good view of events without feeling too unsafe. At one point I saw the neighbor's pool screenhouse tossed up into the air like a plastic bag. Amazingly our pool screen survived unscathed.

I also saw the dramatic deterioration as relative calm of the eye ended. Basically the wind picked up rapidly over about a 30 second period as darker clouds moved back in. I remember the second half being a little more intense than the first.


Throughout the storm ere was a constant low grade rumble and a few pops here and there when shingles got knocked off the roof. We ended up re-shingling afterwards (almost all the houses on the street did). We were also out of power for 5 days which sucked. But I didn't feel unusually unsafe--our house was solid concrete block construction and not near any water subject to storm surge.

I also sat through Irma two years ago, but we only got tropical storm force winds as the eye was to the west of us. Still, it was an entire day of 40-60 mph winds constantly blowing--a lot longer than Wilma was. This was at our current house and we had shutters this time--the only view I had was through the front peephole. I do remember sitting in the living room and listening to the waves of rain and wind pass over the house--it was an unusual sensation, like being on a boat. Thankfully we didn't lose power at all for Irma.

Who knows what this weekend will have in store for us, but we'll be home. Florida is hard to evacuate from, because it's a long thin peninsula and we don't even know the place of landfall, so unless you're going out of state, you might end up worse off where you try to evacuate to. Our house is pretty solid concrete block, fully shuttered, and we're not in a flood zone or subject to storm surge so hopefully we'll be okay.

[lindysalsagal]

46. Keep us posted.

[malaise]

25. Truthfully I am glad I experienced a major hurricane

back in 1988.
It taught me to appreciate the beauty of trees and flowers, it taught me that we take lots of things for granted including water and electricity and the best part was the way in which our community came together and helped one another. The teenagers and young adults were amazing as they just jumped in and helped to clean the yards of the older folks in the community.

It also taught me that you can cook some amazing food with a coal pot

That said six weeks without running water and nearly three months without electricity is a pain in the ass, but eventually you bring out the old board games and chill.

[Baclava]

26. If the Euro model holds, a lot of people will get to experience it

?w=800&h=469

[malaise]

29. If that happens it will be catastrophic

I wonder how Disney prepares for this one - good grief.

[Lochloosa]

33. Everything is underground at Disney. You can even take a tour.

[malaise]

34. I did not know that

Wow!

[GulfCoast66]

36. Better than almost any company

And the hotels will be filled with evacuees from the coast given discount room nights. They even will provide entertainment in the hotels for the guest trapped there. And they changed their rules and waive their no pet policy so people don’t stay in a dangerous position due to their pets.

And Disney is not alone. The Rosen chain and Universals hotels also serve as shelters and offer low prices to evacuees.

And you can bet you last dollar at least 2 Disney parks will open the day after the storm passed. All their buildings are rated for over 140mph winds.

It might be the safest place to be in a hurricane.

[malaise]

38. That's really good to hear

Thanks

[Hekate]

48. I'm impressed. Now that's being a good neighbor.

[Trenzalore]

28. I had to do that while on vacation in NC for a small storm

It wasn't an experience I really want to live through again.

[redstatebluegirl]

30. Yes, do you have a death wish?

[Thekaspervote]

31. When the roof of the building you are in is ripped off ... shelter will be gone

[exboyfil]

32. My mom lives in Ormond by the Sea (just north of Daytona) and right

on the beach between the River and the ocean. She has a motel in Deland which is further inland. No way she can drive in evacuation, and she really can't go to a shelter because of her health. She also has a small dog.

[randr]

35. Hunkered down through several hurricanes

Late 50s early 60s East Coast. Maybe Donna and Hazel?. Stayed up all night, opened windows on Lee side, both eyes passed by with incredible tropical atmosheres and birds. Don't recall that we had a choice.

[pbmus]

37. Worked with Project Hope in Florida ....

Hurricane Charlie went inland 45 miles with 90-120 mph winds and tornadoes...several people died in punta gorda...30 miles inland..

Unless you are in a bomb shelter with a weeks worth of food and water...I would definitely reconsider ...

[GulfCoast66]

39. I live just west of Orlando. I am discouraged from evacuating

Because I will be safe in my house this far from the coast and if everyone in my position evacuated the roads would be packed when the storm hits.

If told to evacuate, do not hesitate. Evacuate!

But if not in an evacuation zone if you panic and leave you mess it up for those that truly need to.

This will be the 5th hurricane to go over my house. Charlie was the worst. No power for 13 days which is maximum suckage with no AC. Lost my roof to Irma 2 years ago but my new one is rated for 140mph winds. My new home has Underground power and shares a line with a hospital so do not look to be without power long. Never lost it in Irma.

The sense of community after a storm is encouraging and even fun. We had great community meals cooked on propane cookers with the food from everyone’s freezers.

[ancianita]

40. Depends. People miles from coastline usually do okay. Just make sure nothing outside could blow

into your dwelling. Remove all external stuff from yours and neighbors properties.

Look up how to handle your windows, etc.

I've been through at least four of them, one in which the eye passed over, and the house and family came out of them fine.

[Corgigal]

41. I always left,

when I lived 25 miles from the coast in S.C. The idea of no power, and running out of food , so I can stand in line for half a day is not something I want to experience. If I can help it.
It's not over when the hurricane hits, it can be just the beginning.

[smirkymonkey]

42. Not me. I had just moved to Boston from NYC during Hurricane Sandy and that is

about as much as I want to experience of a hurricane. Next time a real threat comes through, I'm going inland.

[Sedona]

43. Nope nope nope. If you can get out, do it.

Andrew's eye passed 50 miles south of me in August 1992. Took 100-110 MPH sustained winds all night in a cement block house with shutters, hurricane straps and a newish roof. Longest night of my life. It all stayed together but the aftermath was brutal. No water or power for over a week. The refugees from down south inundated our communities in Broward County stressing our infrastructure and services. It was miserable for months. I moved to Arizona before the hurricane season 1993 started. Nope, nope nope, never again.

[Nay]

44. As a native Floridian, I can tell you that's a really dumb idea. Yeah, you may

ride out a hurricane OK, but if things go bad you are trapped and possibly dead or severely injured.

And ffs, don't ride one out near a beach.

[Mersky]

47. Nah, abide the evacuation plans

Howling wind and storm experience? Meh, whatever, storm excitement is overrated. Can be boring or can get scary in a hurry. You wouldn't enjoy that turn. Know your risk levels and the evacuation zones.

[raccoon]

50. Yes. Nt

[democratisphere]

51. As long as your will is up to date and all of your affairs are in order,

go for it.

[lapfog_1]

53. "It's not that the wind is a-blowin... it's WHATS in the wind that is a-blowin"

-Ron White.

[ananda]

54. Yes

Always evacuate.

Be safe

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

55. It's like doing an experiment where you don't know the outcome in advance.

"Gee, I wonder if I'll die if I shelter in place? Let's find out! If I survive, I can tell the story for the rest of my life (or the next hurricane, whichever comes first) and feel superior to those who evacuated."

Go for it!

[The Blue Flower]

57. I don't recommend it

It's very dramatic until a tree falls through your roof. Then it's just a total scary bummer for weeks.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

59. One of the problems with the entire hurricane zone of this country is

the large number of people who have never experienced a major hurricane, because they've moved there recently or had the edge of a cat 2 or 3 brush by them.

Go ahead and stay, but you will have no right to complain about what it's like during or after.