HAving lived thru several Hurricanes down here, I can only offer this one good piece of advise.......get Hurricane shutters.

Stop going out to eat, spend lees,sacrifice if need be but get em'.

That advise is going out for all, but once all these storms get outta here and the price stabilizes, I will be ordering my accordion shutters asap.

In other words, no more procrastinating for this guy. No way.

I am about to go to Home depot and spend at least 3 friggin hours to purchase plywood in case it is needed.

If I had shutters, I could wait at home with a cocktail in hand.

__________________
Enough about me, how are you doing?

Do they work on mobile homes?

__________________
2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

According to the latest news, the current track, barring any deviation has the eye of the storm landing somewhere around Port St. Lucie.

There is a high pressure system that they hope will make it go further North, but that is possible, not probable.

The one htat just hit the West Coast was supposed to hit Tampa/St Pete and deviated in the last few hours.

Let's hope it does a 180 and goes back out to sea.

__________________
Enough about me, how are you doing?

Although they only come by here infrequently, I can offer some other hurricane tips for homeowners. Roof tie downs do seem to work. They are the concrete imbedded eye hooks and matching eave hooks, metal straps and plates to increase wind resistance. Not a guarantee, but low cost way to beef up resistance to the wind shearing off the roof.

Forget masking tape on the windows, just a waste of time. However, film tinted windows offer better protection from flying glass. For pure safety, there are high impact laminated glass panes available that can stop flying debris from taking out a picture window or sliding glass door.

Not as useful as wings or a sail.

From what I recall a bicycle with a little basket and a dog named Toto seemed effective.

Mobile homes attract tornadoes so there is no hope...

__________________
TJ

1998 ML 320
2002 Jag X-type

Hopefully all of you in Florida have seen the latest advice:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5876681/

This one is looking like the storm of the century, and all the models are beginning to say the same thing - a direct hit on Central Florida. The "ride it out" philosophy may not be wise in this one. The power of this hurricane is equivalent to the one in 1900 that hit Galveston Island, probably the storm of the 20th century, that killed 12,000 people, the largest natural disaster in US history. I would take this one very,very seriously.

lol...weather is threatening to replace terror in the American media's ever-so-unbiased lens...

Just a matter of time before George W. declares war on weather and breaks the federal bank on funding a Chinese-made anti bad weather device.

"Make no mistake, bad weather is here to stay, it's among us and we will not rest - I repeat - we will not rest until we see sunny skies every day!"

__________________
Chris
2007 E550 4Matic - 61,000 Km - Iridium Silver, black leather, Sport package, Premium 2 package
2007 GL450 4Matic - 62,000 Km - Obsidian Black Metallic, black leather, all options
1998 E430 - sold
1989 300E - 333,000 Km - sold
1977 280E - sold
1971 250 - retired

"And a frign hat. They gave me a hat at the annual benefits meeting. I said. how does this benefit me. I dont have anything from the company.. So they gave me a hat." - TheDon

I have to deal more with Noreasters than hurricanes but I went ahead and bought a complete suite of Hurricane shutters - they are absurdly expensive but IMHO worth the money.

Window sealing is a big problem with coastal homes - garden variety windows and doors (even premium grades like Anderson, Jeld-Wen and Pella) just are not designed to resist 24 hour periods of 60-70MPH wind driven rain, hurricane shutters will neatly solve this problem as well.

Do some research before you buy - there are lots of different grades of shutters - the best grades will actully protect your home from 2X4 direct hits at 70-80 MPH. Almost balistic quality protection!

That's very funny. I needed that this morning. Thanks!

I had always wondered why folks in Hurricane prone areas didn't build thier homes with truly sturdy stuff, maybe concrete or the like. I see these piles of rubble consisting of stick-frame 2x4 construction with drywall. Maybe something different would work?

In the far north, we lived in a place that could get 200km/h (125mph) winds in the winter, and all the houses had huge steel cables as tie downs with anchors driven into the permafrost and lexan windows.

__________________
John Shellenberg
1998 C230 "Black Betty" 240K

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/4050/tophat6.gif

I am not a contractor, but I have often wondered why discrepencies exist in building codes. Payoff's is the obvious answer, at least having lived thru the mess that was hurricane andrew. Imagine house being sided with PARTICAL BOARD?

It is laugable that the older, more well built homes take it year after year, while newer ones are the ones that seem to fall apart.

All the homes constructed after hurricane Andrew are pretty sturdy. I have been to Belize, and I have never seen a POURED CONCRETE home give in to a hurricane.

THE problem lies in the fact that well built homes take longer and cost more to build.

Gottta go hang some wood......

__________________
Enough about me, how are you doing?

In the 60s Florida required all homes to be built out of concrete. I don't know when this changed. We would just sit in Granddad's house and watch the hurricanes and tropical storms pass by - it was like watching the first few minutes of the Wizard of Oz, as lawn furniture, awnings, and the occasional household pet went flying by. Now those old concrete neighborhoods are run down old relics, but they still stand, and now the residents watch the late model wood construction go flying by.

Galveston's great storm of 1900 killed slightly more than 6000 persons, not 12000.

__________________
Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Galveston's great storm of 1900 killed around 8000, not 12000.
1900 Storm
1900 Storm

__________________
Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.