Spring is pretty fickle-minded. One minute it’s hot as hell and the next, you’re in the middle of a rainstorm. It’s during the months of March to June that we experience storms, tornadoes, floods, and other severe changes in the weather. This makes it even more important to be prepared for whatever spring weather emergencies we might have.
Plan Ahead
We all know that spring weather emergencies are possible. You can even argue that their inevitable with how things have been going in recent years. We’ve seen it year in and year out. If you haven’t been planning ahead and thinking of disaster preparedness, you should consider doing the necessary precautions now while the spring weather isn’t acting up just yet.
Stock Up on Food and Water
Everyone should consider stocking up on food and water even if the threat of severe spring weather changes is inexistent. There are other reasons why you should have your own prepper pantry. If you’re suddenly fired from your job or lose your main source of income, for example, you’d be grateful if you have a sufficient enough stock of food and water to keep you going until you get a new job and get back on your feet.
In the case of severe spring weather emergencies such as thunderstorms and floods, there’s a possibility that you won’t have access to stores to buy your basic needs. Banks may also be affected so withdrawing money to buy the goods will also be a problem. Simply put, you can hang in there while everyone recovers from a disaster if you have your own stock of food and water.
Build Your Emergency Kit
You’ll never know when you’ll need something for something. This goes against the teachings of the great Marie Kondo but when it comes to building your bug out bags or emergency kits, you should keep everything you think will be useful when the time comes.
Sources of Light and Warmth
Your survival kit should include emergency light such as LED flashlights, headlamps, and rechargeable lanterns. You also need extra batteries. Stock up on candles if you wish though you should be extra careful when using them.
Since you have candles, you should have a way to light them up. Keep matches, lighters and tinder in waterproof containers. Most fire starters, the tools magnesium rods and ferrocerium, are waterproof on their own. You may not have the luxury of using your microwave or induction oven after severe spring weather emergencies. Having the ability to start fire will help you cook food, boil water, stay warm, send SOS, and scare animals away. In other words, fire goes a long way in keeping you alive.
Communication Tools
Communication is vital to one’s survival after spring weather emergencies such as tornadoes and severe storms. Your smartphones may run out of juice if the power goes out. To keep the communication line open, invest on two-way radios.
Hand-crank or battery-operated radios will also come pretty handy. Speaking of communication, you should always have the contact numbers of emergency services, law enforcement, utility companies, neighbors, family, friends, and other emergency contacts.
Health and Hygiene
During natural disasters, you or someone in your family can get hurt. You must have a first aid kit at home and in your bug out bags. Include other specific health needs such as formula for the baby, medicines for the elderly and sick, and food for your pets.
Cleaning and freshening up will be hard to do if you’re staying at an evacuation center. Still, you have to pack a hygiene kit so you can at least try to be clean.
Protect Your Home
People living in tornado-prone areas have a lot of stuff to do to make sure the family stays safe during these spring weather emergencies.
From A Tornado
First off, you need to keep your house as tornado-proof as possible. Replace your doors with ones that are FEMA-approved. That means they can withstand strong winds of up to 250 mph. The garage door also needs to be secured since they’re pretty weak compared to other entrances to the house. Use 9-feet wide windowless garage doors. These kinds can take about 50 pounds of pressure. Install additional braces to keep it from flying away. Once the garage door goes, so does your whole house.
Check your home for any weak points, particularly along the roof portion. Make sure the roof is properly secured. Once it’s lifted off through the weak connections, the walls will likely collapse. Install hurricane clips.
The windows are another weak point when it comes to tornadoes. Fortify them by installing plywood right before the tornado hits your area. Make sure the plywood pieces are pre-cut (with 1/8-inch clearance on each side for the clips) so you can quickly board the windows up.
The whole house can still be blown away despite all the precautionary steps above. Make sure this doesn’t happen by securing the structure down with specialized cables. This, however, is mainly done by professionals.
If you have a basement, convert it into a safe room. Reinforce the doors or replace with a tornado-proof one. Make sure to make the basement as comfortable as possible. Stock some supplies in there, as well.
From Storms and Flood
Keep your home safe from strong storms by keeping it in tip-top shape. Fix loose roof shingles or replace missing ones. The same goes for the siding. Check the gutter for blockage. Cleaning the gutters allows water to flow away from your house thus lessening the potential damage.
Storms usually come with strong winds. Seal all possible holes and gaps where the wind may seep in. Just like with a tornado, board up your windows. The wind can also uproot trees. Trim them regularly so there’s less danger of it falling on to your house and causing horrific damage.
Flooding is an offshoot of torrential rains brought about by a storm. Invest on a sump pump, especially if your place is prone to flooding. You can also have foundation vents installed. If possible, raise your home by adding tilts or piers. You should also raise all electrical outlets and switches that can be reached by flood.
Bug Out Location
Aside from preparing emergency kits, you need to make an evacuation plan. Designate a “safe shelter” and device a plan to get there safely. The safe shelter is the place you go to should the government order an evacuation. Normally, the local school is designated as the safe shelter or evacuation center. Once you’re told to evacuate, you have to grab your bug out bags and head to the shelter.
If you’re not a fan of overcrowded buildings, go to a family or friend from far away. Ask permission first if you and your family can stay with them in the event of a disaster. You should also store some supplies in their home so you won’t be too much of a burden to the homeowner.
As most if not all preppers and survivalists will tell you, it all begins with knowing there’s always the possibility of danger. They’ll also readily tell you that the only way to deal with such spring weather emergencies is to be prepared.
If you know of other ways or tips on how to be ready for such natural disasters, please share in the comment section below. You can also go to The Gentleman Pirate to know more about the subject.
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