Hurricane prep, need advice

[topochico225]

Hey y'all!

We've got a Cat 2 or 3 hurricane making landfall Sunday and aiming straight for Baton Rouge. Welcome, Ida I've got an Omlet Eglu with 13ft run and Autodoor for my 3 standard hens and a separate coop/run combo for my 2 POL d'Uccle pullets. Link to their coop page. I'm going to bring all of the chickens inside. I bought big dog crates for just this purpose What should I do to make sure the coops are shored up as well as they can be during the storm? Hurricane conditions are possible here.

TIA!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

@3KillerBs has the right of it. Take down anything you can that can act as a sail - tarps, loose pieces of plastic or metal roofing, etc. Stake down everything you can. Earth augurs work great - wire stakes do not.

If you can't get these, you can wrap rope or steel cable around a cinder block, throw the block in a hole, and fill it back up with dirt - basically you are using the weight of the ground as a tie down.

If you are fortunate enough to have a pool (and given your water table, I know that's unlikely), give it a shock treatment, then throw all your loose outdoor furniture in it. Being submerged protects it from wind, and the shock treatment ensures (assuming you don't have major flooding and surface sewage) you at least have clean water for bathing or to use to flush toilets if you lose city water. Your birds can drink it too.

Bottled water for yourself, canned goods that don't require hydration (that is Chunky soup, NOT Campbell's Condensed), try to avoid rice, pasta, other things that require preparation in a pot of boiling water, and fill your freezer with water frozen in ziplocs - not only will the additional thermal mass keep things from defrosting a bit longer, but as they do, you have more drinkable water.

make sure you have a 2 week supply of any medication you take routinely, all your important papers should be gathered up and packed in the back of the car, and a "go bag". If you live on the computer, you should have your master packed in the car as well, work from a laptop or secondary for the next couple days. That way you won't lose important log ins, links, passwords, etc. Chances are, you won't need any of those things - but better to have them and not need them than to try and assemble it in the dark, while its raining, and a storm is bearing down.

I'm in the Panhandle of FL, have been thru a LOT of hurricanes when I lived in Daytona, later Tampa, and Fred missed us by a few dozen miles. We are watching Ida closely. I'm not so generous as to hope the storm track steers our way - we are living in an RV right now, and out eventual house is a bunch styrofoam forms at the bottom of the hill, awaiting concrete. We can't take a Cat 2 or 3 directly, and I've no way to move the RV.

 

[topochico225]

All good here! No major damage, just small limbs down and leaves everywhere so everything is a huge mess.

 

[sdm111]

 

[topochico225]

OP should be doing good this morning. New Orleans area is not.

No power still, cell service/data just came back

 

[alwaystj9]

Windy, Stormy, Gale... Ida No

 

[MROO]

Whoever's messing with the Mother Nature voodoo doll, stop it before I come for you.
https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/article_2b175c20-0d78-11ec-b7dd-77051530bbcc.html

I am convinced that this mess is 2021 turning around to 2020 and saying, Here, hold my beer..."

 

[3KillerBs]

Best I can say is to stake them down firmly with storm ties and take in any tarps, shade cloths, canvas covers, etc.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

^^^ Correct.

If you are lucky, tarps tear. If you are unlucky, they provide enough lift that things get thrown around. If you've ever used a kite on a windy day, you have some idea of what a mild to moderate wind can do with 1 sq ft of nylon or so.

A weak hurricane involves winds 2-3x stronger, and a small 6x8 tarp has 48x more surface area...

At 75 mph, winds exert a force of about 22.5 pounds per square foot - meaning that tarp could (theoretically) lift about 1/2 ton. A 10x12 tarp - more than a ton. Obviously, it will rip sooner and the pressure will be applied to multiple points (every stake, tie down, etc), but you get the point, there are very large forces involved.

/edit Also, its not a linear scale - at 100 mph, the wind force is something more like 40 pound per square foot, while at 25 mph, its a mere 2.5# per square foot. As with most things in physics, speed matters.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

7 historically, a direct cat 3 was my evacuation trigger. Strongly suggest you finish packing your go bag and get the car loaded and ready. Then take your cell phone camera or a camcorder if you still got one and go videotape everything important to you that you are leaving behind. It will help with Future Insurance claims if they become necessary. Time to make some tough decisions. Fortune favor you and yours