<p>What fantastic suggestions!</p>
<p>My husband listens to radio station KRLD and they are rather alarmist in my opinion, but it’s always nice to be prepared. When we were all being told to prepare for Y2K (remember that non-event?) I went ahead and stocked up on flashlights and the like because I didn’t have them and figured it couldn’t do any harm.</p>
<p>Check out all the routine little things you need elec power for and replace by regular or battery operated, or recharge: Can opener, elec toothbrushes, recharging of cell phone batteries, coffee maker, etc.</p>
<p>By one of those industrial type flashlights with the spotlight and heavy duty battery attached. They last a long time and supply a lot of light that is not as directed as a regular flashlight is.</p>
<p>For anything that requires refrigeration (eg meds), fill a cooler with bags of ice wrapped in foil. It’s temporary but will last a bit. You can also buy a packet of dry ice at particular supermarkets, but you need special gloves to handle it.</p>
<p>Do a load of laundry.</p>
<p>Bring in any stuff from outside that can blow away, garden furniture, hanging plants.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reminder to do laundry. Daughter is supposed to wear a different drill team practice outfit every day of the week. Better get those washed now-don’t want any demerits.</p>
<p>Propane for your grill</p>
<p>Buy dry ice if you have stuff to keep cold in an ice chest. If you are a coffee addict (as I am) you can brew it now and heat it up over the propane stove. Batteries for a portable radio (or weather band one). If the power is out you can run the car (open the garage) to check in on that radio.</p>
<p>For entertainment (cooped up with the kids and H) find the playing cards, board games etc.</p>
<p>Don’t forget food and water for your pets (if you have any).</p>
<p>–water, peanut butter, bread, full tank of gas in the car, some extra cash on hand, fill up the tub with water (so you can flush the toilet if the power goes out), battery powered radio, flashlights, battery powered flourescent light lantern, water and more water. Also, get the laundry done now before you lose power. Charge up the cell phones. </p>
<p>Good luck to you.</p>
<p>If you don’t have one, be sure that you get a “corded” phone. The cordless ones don’t work if the power is out. The older type phones usually do. </p>
<p>As long as you keep your freezer shut, your food – other than say, ice cream should be fine. We live in Florida. I keep my freezer near full all of the time with milk cartons full of frozen water. Fill up some tupperware containers, and put them in the freezer. I had food keep for 36 hours in the freezer just fine. However, it was packed with the frozen blocks of ice from the frozen containers full of water. (The bigger the better.)</p>
<p>If there is widespread power outages, then the schools will probably be closed. Most school districts won’t open until all of the schools have power. </p>
<p>Good luck. This probably won’t be as bad as they are talking about.</p>
<p>Get a corded - old fashioned phone. If the electricity go out, land line cordless phones will be out too.</p>
<p>Don’t forget the manual can opener. A good old hand held “swing-a-way” brand is a must have.</p>
<p>Hard cash.</p>
<p>No credit card or debit machines will work when the power is out. And the power could be out for days. </p>
<p>Food and shelter purveyors espicially like cash in an emergency.<br>
Hard cash is the ONLY recognized currency in any “high tempo” emergencies. </p>
<p>Sorry to be so harsh…</p>
<p>Any VOIP phones, cable TV phones, etc, will not work, cells usually will; get an inverter so you can charge or plug things in to your car.</p>
<p>When we lost power for four days during the blackout in NY a few years back we just started by finishing up what was in the fridge and then moved on to the freezer. Lots of things didn’t even completely thaw. A lot of the grocery stores got generators, so we were able to buy things like fresh milk though I might stock up on some of the ultrapasteurized stuff.</p>
<p>Heading downstairs to recharge the battery Coleman lantern, just in case. I think we’ll be fine, but good to know we have 15000 gallons of pool water just in case. That’s a lot of flushes!</p>
<p>
This might not be the best time to use candles. You’ll use more of them than you normally would and that means you are more likely to leave them unattended than usual. We bought some of those stick-up battery powered LED lights. They are very cheap and they last a long time.</p>
<p>The one thing I’m not seeing mentioned here is a solar/hand-cranked radio. These can be life-savers when it comes to getting the most recent information on conditions. I remember one time when a bad tropical storm blew thru (about as bad as it gets here unless a hurricane comes up the Chesapeake) and the weatherman was talking about power outages and said ‘for more information, go to our web-site.’ Well, that doesn’t work so well when the computers are down and your laptop just died.</p>
<p>Hunkering down here in Houston. (Our local Randall’s is apparently getting trucks in tonight, and will be open tomorrow!)</p>
<p>One thing I do when I know the power is going out is to put all our mostly-filled bottles of liquor into the fridge and get them good and cold. A full fridge stays colder a lot longer than an empty one. (Obviously don’t do this if the power has already gone out, or if you don’t have a lot of time left before it’s gonna go!)</p>
<p>Also, make friends with an amateur radio operator. My brother’s one, and he’s charging up all his equipment.</p>
<p>We also gathered up all the flashlights in the house and put them in one central location… Last time the power went out, we took half and hour trying to find the stupid things buried in the bottom of the closet.</p>
<p>We have cash and food. We bought nuts and chocolate (high energy food in case we have to last a while), and when the all the bread in the entire store ran out, we found Pillsbury bake-your-own-loafs in the fridge section… Nobody’d thought about those. We’ve got three loaves of freshly baked bread now for when the power goes off. We’ve filled all the pitchers with water, and the tub’s getting a scrub tomorrow morning so I can fill it with last-resort water.</p>
<p>I freeze oj and milk which keeps everything in freezer frozen and if electricity is out few days, you still have cold oj and milk. a couple of coolers to put perishables in if fridge no longer cold–(communities sometimes hand out bags of ice) flashlights that plug into an outlet and stays lit can be found if electric goes out in middle of nite. flashlights with fresh batteries next to bedside…we made the best quesadillas on our grill during Hurricane Wilma, (no electricity for 2 wks) and had wonderful community dinners with all our neighbors–actually a very bonding experience–though we seemed to gravitate towards the neighbors with the generators…oh and an inexpensive battery operated tv was a godsend for our three kids/teens</p>
<p>and yes bring a portable bag of sandwiches, drinks, board game, into a safe space, (master bedroom closet) so you can stay put if necessary–we had roof tiles go through windows and had a hurricane swirling thru the house, but we were safe in our little space. (since have put up hurricane shutters)</p>
<p>good luck and just prepare–don’t fear, with good preparations you should all be fine…</p>
<p>I do not know if someone mentioned this already:
TEXT MESSAGING WORKS! even if you can not make or receive phone calls from your cell phone.
Just make sure you can charge your phone (using those batteries operated chargers or a generator)</p>
<p>Here’s a link to the National Weather Service page on how to prepare for IKE </p>
<p>[National</a> Weather Service Watch Warning Advisory Summary](<a href=“http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/productview.php?pil=FWDPNSFWD&version=0&max=61]National”>http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/productview.php?pil=FWDPNSFWD&version=0&max=61)</p>
<p>I think CC is more complete.</p>