High wind preparedness, leave windows open or close them up?

[stubbornhill]

I just had a thought that maybe others can use. We have chickens and cows. With the possability that we may loose power, thus no water. We will put out all of our garbage cans empty tonight under the roof overhang. We are suppossed to get rain this evening and this will fill up the cans from the runoff. This way, we will at least have several garbage cans full of water for the animals if need be.

 

[redhen]

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Good idea!

 

[NanaLantana]

Here in S. Florida where we get hurricanes more often than you do, this is my advice - do NOT leave any windows open! In fact, you need to board them up - plywood should work well. If you leave air gaps or windows open, the roof might just leave!

Also, I'd crate my chickens and bring them indoors until the hurricane is past. They won't know how to keep safe in high winds.

Our last hurricane was a doozy - many hours of terrible winds, rain, some tornadoes. Snapped many trees in half - when we went out afterwards, and looked around - oh my gosh - the trees were all naked of leaves, and the leaves were as if they'd been through a blender. You could not find a whole leaf in my entire 1 acre property! The stack of brush we set out to the curb in the next few days would have filled a tractor-trailer. Thank God my house was strong, and no trees fell on the cars or damaged anything else except broke a section of wood fence. Learn about what to do in hurricanes, and then follow that advice! And protect your animals inside! (May God send angels to keep the winds from harming you)

 

[Midwest Lizabeth]

I think there's usually a prevailing wind pattern associated with hurricanes once they reach land. With windows on three sides, I might close all the windows that would "take the blast" and leave one open on the side that would stay dry so they'd have better ventilation in their coop.

We usually only close windows in our home (when temperatures are nice) or coops based on the direction a storm is heading when we know a storm is heading our way. Last week, we had 80+miles per hour winds and were pleased that our coops (trailer-type one built with 25 chicks inside and one only partially assembled) withstood high winds. DH couldn't even get our door open to go check on the chicks. . .he's a big guy. We were fretting as the babies were still in their temporary housing, but they were all okay. We didn't know this blast was coming and woke up when the cold, horizontal rain woke us up. Our storm was only associated with down drafts/straight line winds with a good old thunderstorm, certainly not the longer sustained winds of a hurricane.

You're ahead of the game and have plans. Just have food, water, etc. in place for you/family to go it for awhile in case you loose power. I always think "camping". Good luck. The east doesn't need anything else right now, hopefully the hurricane will fizzle before landfall. The tracking may change. They usually warn on "worst case", so remain positive.

 

[Hawkeye95]

living in 'tornado and high wind land' here.... leave NO windows open. Bad idea. Shut everything, and secure it to the ground. Even at that, still might not help. We had a bad storm last week (straight line winds across the prairie) and lost two of our out buildings and trees. The roofs and sides were ripped off- only the base that was bolted into cement remained. Even being bolted into the cement- didn't matter, still tore it apart. All doors and windows were shut. Just do the best you can, and if you only have a handful of chickens, I'd probably put them in a garage or someplace safer if you think your coop might not hold up. I would have thought our sheds would hold up from our storms last week ( it was only 70 mph wind with gusts to 90 mph wind) and they didn't.

 

[nwfl]

Honestly, I have been through some nor'easters that were worse than most hurricanes I've experienced. This is a big one though. Its going to be talked about for years, I'm sure.

 

[Noymira]

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We've got 20 birds, no garage- they're going to have to weather over in the coop and we'll hope for the best. I'll close all the windows and board up the windows only covered by hardware cloth. I really hope it's not bad up here.

I know its going to be much worse for others south of us and closer to the coast. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Noymira]

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That's a great idea! I've got my stock tank set up now, we are getting some rain as well. I'm going to top it off Saturday afternoon so we'll be set on water for the birds and toilet.

 

[DanyyChicken]

We now have a generator, thankfully! After having my son during the ice storm of 2008 and having to spend three days before the birth and two days after the birth in a hotel room we swore we would never be in that situation again. We could have paid for a generator three times over for the cost of a week at hotel plus not go mention all the spoiled food in the fridge and freezer upon our return. We now have peace of mind and have actually had occasion to use it three separate power outages since! It is a relief to know we have it in an emergency since we have two small children to care for in our home.

Good luck to everyone dealing with Irene!

 

[Noymira]

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That's great, we'd love to get a generator at some point as well. We are lucky in that we use a wood stove to heat our house and it does a good job, so in the winter we can stick out pretty much any weather since we can cook and heat water on it if needed. But I would definitely like a generator so we can supply our own electricity if we need to.

I've still got a list of things to do today and tomorrow, but otherwise am in pretty good shape preparation wise. I stocked up on canned/dry goods and bottled water last night, today I want to get a full tank of propane for the grill and a piece of plywood to cover the hardware cloth windows in the coop. Then I just need to put all my daughter's outdoor toys away and fill up the stock tank, catch up on laundry and bake some bread and other goodies.

Good luck everyone!