Why serious boaters do better in Hurricanes

[Planobilly]

My own take on the emergency generator issue. This is based on power needs at my house in a residential area in Homestead. It does not address power needs at the house in Marathon or the 70 acre nursery in the Redlands or the 1500 acre ranch in Arcadia. As you can see, I have a lot of stuff to deal with spread out over more than 300 miles in south Florida.

The plan for the house is to provide limited emergency power for two to three weeks. If it looks like the power will be out for more than three weeks I will secure the house and leave. Even in Andrew the roads were cleared out and usable within the first week. I base my decisions on what has actually happened on storms in my lifetime here in south Florida and the effect they had on me.

The biggest issue is how to provide fuel and how to store it safely. I own both small and larger portable gasoline generators. I had considered all the options up to a cost of perhaps $20,000. Spending a bunch of money just did not make any sense for me at my primary residence.

To solve the fuel issue I store 200 gals of gas in the boat on the trailer and in my truck. I just do not want a bunch of gasoline in cans setting in my garage.

The two gen sets, one 3500 watt and the other 5000 watt, provide all the power I need to run the fridge and the freezer plus the lights, TV, and a small portable AC unit. I have less than $1500 invested in the two gen sets.

The problems I see with installing a large stationary gen set at the house are the fuel issue, the fact that it may flood, all the permit issues, and the ongoing maintenance issues for a machine I may never use. Just did not make sense to me.

When Irma was on it's way in this direction I happen to be out of town and had to return to try to secure all this stuff scattered out over hell's half acre...lol I had forgotten some of the issues of past hurricanes. Give me another 8 or 10 years and I will most likely forget some stuff again.

The emergency generator issue is just one of many things I have to deal with in a hurricane. The cost of these storms are very high. Uninsured losses for me from Irma exceed $200,000. Most of this was at the nursery. Oh well...we just get to work another year for free. No one ever said farming was easy!!

 

[BandB]

The emergency generator issue is just one of many things I have to deal with in a hurricane. The cost of these storms are very high. Uninsured losses for me from Irma exceed $200,000. Most of this was at the nursery. Oh well...we just get to work another year for free. No one ever said farming was easy!!

Nurseries are easily damaged in huge numbers. My father had a client who owned a huge nursery in NC. I did a lot of work for them. One time the state was about to build a road and was going to come through their property. They said to the state that if they insisted that was fine but maybe they should know the value of the inventory on that land and perhaps even ride through it with them. Well, after they found out his land would cost them $10 million and they could put a curve in around it and only pay $100,000 to the neighbors, the road has a curve that people driving through it wonder why it's straight most of the way but not there.

Farmers have suffered tremendous loss due to the storms. In Puerto Rico it's all the Sugar Cane fields. Our businesses are all indoors and our losses small by comparison but just paying 3000 employees for five days to a week or more of not working. Still, that's our choice and out situation, like yours, is just immaterial compared to what so many have experienced. It could have been so much worse so we have no complaints.

Ultimately the real losses are the suffering of humans, the loss of lives, the damage to lives. It's like Vegas, there weren't just hundreds impacted but all their families and friends. Then you don't even think of the economic impact, but you have a large part of the strip closed and who knows how long for Mandalay and Luxor and their employees and the companies suffering. There are far reaching impacts of most disasters that most of us will never realize.

 

[dannc]

FYI, but if you are living in a house, and loose water pressure for whatever reason, do not forget the hot water heater. A small hot water heater has quite a bit of water.

Later,
Dan