Tropical Depression #9 has Florida officials paying attention as the storm is forecast to become a major hurricane early next week (Monday/Tuesday) in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida’s west coast. [National Hurricane Center Advisory] In the background several Civilian Emergency Response Teams (CERT) have been activated. Due to the confluence of events, everyone is taking this storm very seriously.
After two years of relatively uneventful hurricane activity, and with two years of massive migration into the state since the COVID pandemic, there are millions of people potentially going to experience their first hurricane. Thus, Florida emergency officials are being proactive in their alerts.
(NHC) – At 500 PM EDT (2100 UTC), the center of Tropical Depression Nine was located near latitude 14.7 North, longitude 71.3 West. The depression is moving toward the west-northwest near 15 mph (24 km/h). A westward motion is expected to begin tonight and continue through Saturday night, followed by a turn toward the northwest and north-northwest on Sunday and Monday. On the forecast track, the center of the cyclone is forecast to move across the central Caribbean Sea through Saturday, pass south of Jamaica on Saturday night and Sunday, and approach the Cayman Islands on Sunday night and early Monday. (more)
With this much advanced notice residents along the west coast of Florida should begin reviewing their prior supplies and updating their hurricane preparations. Much could change over the next 72-hours, but a review of supplies and locating stored material is a prudent approach.
Check your hurricane supplies of shelf-stable food, water, medicine and don’t forget pets. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Everything is replaceable, except you and your family. We have a lot of Treepers in the path of this storm. If you need assistance, use the comments section of any ‘Update thread’ to reach out, or use the email address in the upper right of the site.
Right now, you are in control. Have a solid plan, work that plan – stay busy, and don’t get caught up in the hysteria. Try to avoid national media hype. Stay updated via your local news stations. Monday afternoon/evening looks like the key day impact zones will be identified. Reach out to your neighbors; touch-base and check to see if they are okay or need anything. Community restoration begins before the storm arrives. Look out for each-other.
Additionally, I hate to note this, but Joe Biden is in charge of FEMA response… So plan accordingly.
Regarding any evacuation plan, please pay attention to your local officials who will be coordinating with state Dept. of Transportation. As the path and impact zone of the storm becomes more predictable your local officials will alert to best route(s) for evacuation.
For those in the cone of uncertainty; remember, planning and proactive measures taken now can significantly reduce stress in the days ahead. Plan when to make the best decision on any evacuation (if needed) consider Monday the decision time-frame. As a general rule: take cover from wind – but evacuate away from water.
DAY ONE (Saturday)
- Determine Your Risk
- Make a Written Plan
- Develop and Evacuation Plan
- Inventory hurricane/storm supplies.
- Withdraw cash based on plan/need.
- Get gas and storm supplies
DAY TWO (Sunday)
- Get Storm Update
- Assemble and purchase any missing Hurricane Supplies
- Contact Insurance Company – Updates
- Secure Important Papers.
- Update/upload your phone data.
- Strengthen and Secure Your Home
- Discuss Evacuation Decision with your Family.
- Fill freezer with 3/4 full water jugs.
DAY THREE (Monday)
- Get Storm Update
- Re-Evaluate your Supplies based on storm update
- Finish last minute preparation
- Plan for a minimum of THREE DAYS without power
- Assist Your Neighbors
- If Needed – Evacuate Your Family
.
Communication is important. Update your friends and family contact list. Stay in touch with family and friends, let them know your plans. Select a single point of contact for communication from you that all others can then contact for updates if needed.
Today/tomorrow are good days to organize your important papers, insurance forms, personal papers and place them in one ‘ready-to-go’ location.
Evaluate your personal hurricane and storm supplies; update and replace anything you might have used. Assess, modify and/or update any possible evacuation plans based on your location, and/or any changes to your family status. Fill car with gasoline. Review prescriptions, refill if needed.
Check your shutters and window coverings; test your generator; re-organize and familiarize yourself with all of your supplies and hardware. Check batteries in portable tools; locate tools you might need; walk your property to consider what you may need to do based on the storms path. All decisions are yours. You are in control.
Consider travel plans based on roads and traffic density. Being proactive now helps to keep any future stress level low. You are in control. If you have pets, additional plans may be needed.
One possible proactive measure is to make a hotel reservation further inland that you would consider evacuating to. Follow updates of the storms’ progress; make reservations tomorrow if determined; you can always cancel if not needed. It is better to have a secondary evacuation place established in advance. Being proactive reduces stress. Even if you wait until much later to cancel, it is better to pay a cancellation fee (usually one night charge) than to not have a plan on where to go. Trust me, it’s worth it. Protect your family. Make the booking decision in the next 36 hrs.
♦ Look over the National Hurricane Center resources for planning assistance.
♦ Also a great resource – CREATE A PLAN
FREE not FEE!
Tropical Depression #9 has a name …
Tropical Storm Ian Public Advisory
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT4+shtml/231041.shtml?
Thank you Sundance for all the info/warnings of upcoming hurricane. I do not live in the path but pray for everyone safety in that area.
Would guess a lot of people in condos can’t have generators? For those without these, here is a good tip that will help you know if your food is no longer safe in your freezer if the power goes out: Freeze water is a very small container, then put a nickel on top. If the temperature dropped too much during the outage, the nickel will melt into the ice. Pack your freezer SOLID, freezing water in plastic containers if needed. Buy plastic containers at the dollar store. DON’T OPEN the freezer AT ALL if you lose power. I’ve had food stay good for 2 days this way.
Put your more expensive perishables in your fridge in the crisper bins along with containers of ice, and put LARGE plastic containers of ice in the top too, stacked on top of each other. You’d be surprised how long the ice keeps things cold in the fridge if you have large enough containers that are packed solid. Remember they used to deliver large ice blocks to be used in the “Ice Box” before refrigerators were invented? My ice lasted days this way.
Hopefully you also have a gas cooktop and can cook anything perishable even if the power is out. Keep long matches around so you don’t burn yourself starting the gas burner. (I boiled 2 dozen eggs during our last power outage here in CA) Sadly, CA is outlawing gas appliances now for new homes starting in 2030. So it will be harder to survive during the frequent power outages we have, and we probably won’t be able to get our hot water heaters serviced in our older houses either. I plan on being long gone from here by then…
Good luck Florida Treepers! May God be with you and keep you safe!
Lived in Fla. all my life. A trick my parents used that I never see mentioned: Clean the bathtub with bleach, then fill it with water. Good water for drinking and cooking is more important than bathing. Got us through Hurricane Donna (1960) before water was sold in bottles.
I was a kid living on Key Largo during hurricane Donna…islands were ordered to evacuate, but the head of my family opted out. Title waves went completely over the island and the eye of the storm went directly over us…us kids even went outside to see the damage during the calm of the eye.
The house we lived in at the time had water line within a foot of the filing….dead fish in the house with a couple feet of ocean bottom silt …there were even dead fish up in the trees that still stood.
Donna was a lot worse than it has been reported as being.
Now ilive in the Foothills of NC so hurricanes are only a memory.
PS…all of the residents cleaned up their homes, and rebuilt…no feds nor fema came to the rescue.
Keep safe Floridians
‘ Ceiling’. not ‘filing’
We lived in the Bahamas when I was a child and I remember islanders standing outside their homes on the opposite side of the storm. I was very young, but it was one of my earliest memories!
If you are a good Florida prepper, you’ve got a nice big generator. However, if you also have a second one or an older model, look around your neighborhood and see if there are people who don’t have one. There are people who can’t afford a generator or people who didn’t know to buy one. If the power goes out, you’ll know who will be in need.
One winter, an ice storm took out power for several days. I will never forget the nice neighbor who knew somebody with an extra generator to loan me. It saved the food in my refrigerator and freezer.
G-d bless all!
Tropical Tidbits on YouTube is an amazing forecasting resource.
Thank you, Paleocon.
Meh… Get ready for the BBQs and blue locust panic.
The government will supply all my needs if this happens and blame it on DeSantis (sarc).
Take care Floridians, prayers to my friends in Bradenton area. Stay alert, keep your wits. Make sure you keep up with time, i.e. when to prepare, and if necessary when to leave or shelter. S.D. has a great Hurricane readiness plan. I sent to a few of my friends that might be in path.
Thanks Sundance and crew for all of your advanced warnings before we even thought about Hurricanes. Home Generator installed, food store upstairs, any and all supplies stocked. Inventory locked in.
Prepped for the economic storm ahead.. comparatively speaking, let’s pray TD9- Ian is a nothing burger.
Stay safe everyone.
All the emergency items Sundance has listed are also great for our CA earthquake preparedness.
However, all focus is in Florida right now, as it should be. The time for CA earthquakes has not yet arrived.
Sending prayers and hugs to all Floridians.