Preparing for Hurricane Dorian

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When you live in Florida, preparing for hurricanes becomes second nature. It’s funny because you’d think someone like me, who suffers from anxiety disorder, would be a complete wreck with Hurricane Dorian on its way. But, honestly? I’m the calmest I’ve been in weeks.

So many of my friends and family in Florida have made the decision to travel out of state. I just can’t bring myself to do it. We have everything that we need and we are going to ride it out, right here.

We were lucky enough to have a friend sell us a generator, just in case the power goes out. While we won’t be able to use it to run the air conditioning, we can use it to make sure that the food in the refrigerator doesn’t spoil. And if it gets unbearable with no a.c. like it was for us in 2017 with Hurricane Irma, we can always stay at a local hotel for a couple of nights.

After hours of waiting in line and going to multiple gas stations that were already out of gas, Super Dad was able to stock up on gas at one station, so we’ll have enough for the generator, if necessary.

As of this morning, they don’t expect the hurricane to make landfall in Florida until late Monday or early Tuesday. We spent all day yesterday preparing anyway. Our rental home is well equipped with hurricane shutters so Super Dad put up the shutters on the house (except for one that I requested he leave open until Monday so we can have some light). We were pleasantly surprised to find that two of the windows have clear shutters so we’ll be able to see what’s going on outside, during the storm. That also means we can share a little video as long as things don’t get too dangerous!

Yesterday morning, my oldest and I went to Publix and were shocked at the number of empty shelves. While certain empty shelves were a given (water, drinks, canned food, soup), we were surprised at the less obvious choices being completely sold out like:

• Oreos
• Cheez-Its
• Red delicious apples
• Tropicana “some pulp” orange juice (plenty of “lots of pulp” or “no pulp” though)

The chip aisle was packed, which is interesting because that’s usually what my kids go for first. We were able to stock up on Gatorade, bread (the shelves were packed with Martins Potato Bread), pickles, soup, granola bars, juice, packed fruit, cereal and peanut butter (we actually got the last one).

Luckily, we get water delivered every month from Zephyrhills, so our Monday delivery left us with ten 5-gallon bottles. I purchased every size battery we might need and 2 new flashlights from Amazon. Those were delivered yesterday (yay Prime!).

The girls have their books, puzzles and activities ready. If we lose power, I have a notebook and pen ready to jot down all of my thoughts and a pillow and a blanket handy in case I take advantage of the down time and just nap. All of the laundry is done and put away. We are spending today working on a fun campaign where I get to create an animated food video.

We are ready and I’m confident that we are prepared. In case you aren’t, I found these hurricane preparedness checklists on the Publix website. They list everything you need:

Emergency Supplies Checklist

Nonperishable Foods Checklist

For our neighbors throughout Florida who are in hurricane Dorian’s path, stay safe! We are a strong state and we can weather any storm (literally!). Make sure to follow our Instagram Stories, where I’ll be posting updates as often as possible. I’ll talk to you all soon!

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