sepulchritude:

Hey Houston, Beaumont, and Lousiana folks, make sure you’re prepared for the hurricane

• Stock up on water. You can use tupperware or empty milk jugs if you need to, and fill up your bathtub if you have one. If the water goes out, you don’t just need enough drinking water for every person and animal in your house, you need water to wash yourselves and flush your toilets
• Figure out which room will be the safest if you need to shelter in place. You want somewhere with no windows, no outside walls, and a clear route of escape if you need to leave quickly. If nowhere is a perfect fit, prioritize things in that order: absolutely no windows, preferably no outside walls, and an easy escape route if you can
• Put some of your water stash in your shelter room too in case the rest of your house becomes unsafe
• Move anything that could conceivably bash a window off of your porch and out of your yard. Put it in the garage or bring it inside if you have to. Keep yourself and your neighbors safe, storm winds are no joke
• Move anything that has to stay outside (like cars if they can’t go in a garage) as close to the house as possible so they’re at least somewhat shielded
• Make sure your flashlights have batteries. If the power goes out, you don’t want to be using precious phone battery life just to see. Candles are also fantastic, especially for long-term outages, but have a working flashlight or two as well
• Fill up your ice trays. You want plenty of ice in your freezer if the power goes out. You can freeze some of your water jugs too so you can drink them as they melt
• Fill up your car if you can. Gas stations are probably pretty crazy right now but try your best, it’s only gonna get worse from here. Pick up a car charger while you’re there if you don’t have one
• Charge your devices and unplug them if it looks like the power might go out soon. Electrical surge is a bitch
• Unplug EVERYTHING or preferably just shut off your power if it might flood soon or if you evacuate. You know what sucks? Electrified flood water
• Check your local news stations for updates. They’re on twitter too if you don’t have cable

Hurricane Laura is a category 4. For reference, Harvey was also a 4. Ike was a 2. Houston shouldn’t be getting hit as badly as Beaumont and Lousiana, but Harvey wasn’t supposed to hit us that bad either. Be prepared.

Stay safe y’all

Edit: Laura made landfall last night (8/26/2020) as a category 4 hurricane, just shy of a 5, and has decreased to a category 1 since then. Houston was almost completely unharmed, but east Texas and a lot of Lousiana were hit hard.We have no way of knowing how many are injured or dead this morning.

It’s been hard times for everyone this year, but if you have the ability to donate to the Red Cross or give blood, they really need it right now.