re: Your Hurricane Preparation - what worked, what could be improved and any tips

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- Boarding: worked well but I think I'm going to go with all functioning shutters. (For some reason my house has about 1/2 real shutters and about 1/2 faux which requires me to haul boards out. I'm getting kinda old for that but luckily my son is now old enough to help with the heavy stuff.

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One thing I learned after looking at countless properties after Hurricane Katrina is that this seems all but a pointless exercise, in perhaps everything but the most severe of possible storms -- where, in a lot of situations it might even be more pointless, but in a few not so.

Basically, if a hurricane is so strong that it's going to blow out your windows, you will pretty much be completely fricked regardless of whether you board them up or not.

I have old, yest still operable, shutters on my front porch that I close as a matter of course if a storm is coming, for no other reason than it takes all of about 15 seconds to do so. Any other effort, I would think you are just spinning your wheels.

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One thing I learned after looking at countless properties after Hurricane Katrina is that this seems all but a pointless exercise, in perhaps everything but the most severe of possible storms -- where, in a lot of situations it might even be more pointless, but in a few not so. Basically, if a hurricane is so strong that it's going to blow out your windows, you will pretty much be completely fricked regardless of whether you board them up or not.

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I always wondered about the usefulness of boarding up. I kind of figured that they would at least protect the windows from any flying debris that might hit the glass. And someone upthread said something about their door being pushed in just a little at the top that allowed rain to blow in. I'm thinking boards might have stopped that. Bottom line is I guess I'd rather err on the safe side.

Some other things that worked for me - had two full tanks of propane for the BBQ pit and between that and the little electric hot plate run off the generator we were able to have good hot meals while the power was out.

Another thing I did was make a make shift clothes line on an A-frame swing set. It worked good to dry towels and such once the weather was gone. But of course the clothes have a different texture when their line dried. I kind of wished I had a gas dryer a couple of times.

How about some tips for those with a pool? This is my first storm since we put in the pool so I'm pretty much a rookie.

- Run the pump 24/7 until the power goes out, then throw in one of those floating chlorinators.
- Keep the skimmer basket cleaned out while the pumps running.I even made a trip outside at 4:00 AM during the storm. This will prevent the pump from possibly buring up.
- Drain the water down as much as possible prior to the storm, then drain it down as needed. Again, I made several trips outside during the storm. This will prevent the liner from floating.
- Get in the pool and clean it out by hand. There was way too much stuff to use a net from pool side.

After the power was out and I turned on the generator, I tried to run the pump but the breakers must be labeled wrong or I'm and idiot. Either way, it didn't work.

Lost power for only a day, but I brought in a water sample and it was perfect. I did spend several hours in the pool trying to get the wrinkles back out after draining water from behind the liner, but it worked.

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My FIL never boarded his house and has never had damage.

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It'll be too late if he ever does get damage. It's like having insurance, you might not ever need it, but it'll suck if you need it and don't have insurance.