In 2017, the US Virgin Islands had the terrible luck of suffering two Category 5 hurricanes within just two weeks. Hurricane Irma struck the islands as a Category 5 hurricane on September 6, 2017 and just two weeks later, Hurricane Maria roared through on September 20th. The islands were crippled for months with power outages and shortages of water and food.
In the subreddit /r/TropicalWeather, a user by the name of /u/Donexodus shared their experience in surviving these two back-to-back major hurricanes and some great tips to remember if you ever find yourself trying to survive in the aftermath of a major hurricane.
I’m from the US Virgin Islands. Irma hit us with gusts of 230mph and destroyed everything.
/u/Donexodus
13 days later, Maria came through as a Category 5.
I was without power or water for 121 days.
Here are some tips to make you more comfortable for these storms.
Make block ice now. Take Tupperware, fill it with water. Freeze it, remove when frozen, and repeat. This ice can last for over a week and will turn your fridge and freezer into a cooler so you don’t lose a ton of food.
Battery-powered fan.
This is arguably the most important item you’ll need because trying to sleep in the heat/humidity/still air is impossible. I could have sold an $8 fan from Amazon for $100 easy. The cheap AA battery ones work fine, but I got a high-capacity Ryobi battery and a Ryobi fan and it made a world of difference.
Cash is king. Withdraw beforehand.
Chips and salsa are the best food. No refrigeration, won’t spoil, and you can nibble on it anytime – even if you don’t have an appetite. Out of all the food we had this was always gone immediately.
Fix-a-Flat! Grab a few cans. Tons of nails and debris afterward, flat tires are almost a certainty. Even better are tire plugs and a tire inflator.
Headlamps are infinitely better than flashlights. You can cook and function and have both hands free.
Aluminum foil, rubbing alcohol (70%), tarps, and Home Depot buckets can be used for almost anything. For example, rubbing alcohol can be put on a paper towel and used to wash, sterilize cuts, clean countertops, start a fire, etc. Home Depot buckets can be used to transport water, store water, collect rainwater, transport things, store things to reduce clutter, and as a place to sit.
Buy plastic plates, forks, knives, cups, etc. Doing dishes without running water is a pain. Have lots of garbage bags.
Just because you have a generator doesn’t mean it works. Test it now.
Gas cans for the generator and avoiding long lines. Four 5-gallon cans worked well for me.
With generators you have two options – get a big one that will power more stuff, and guzzle gas, or get an inverter generator. The inverters are more expensive per kW capacity but use almost no gas. I could run a window AC unit and fan on my Wen 56200i for a solid 8 hours on 1.2 gallons of gas. You can’t do laundry etc, but they’re silent, lightweight, and great for electronics. You’ll also need a surge protector and a long extension cord.
NEVER, EVER run a generator indoors. This often kills more people than the storm itself.
Get bug spray.
Buy a Bug-a-Salt gun. They’re on Amazon, and shoot salt to kill flies. Flies will be everywhere, and they cost me a lot of sleep. Every morning I’d wake up because flies were landing on me non-stop. Kill them. It’s also fun when you’re drunk 😁.
A knife, twine, duct tape, gloves, and paracord will come in handy literally every day.
Get pepper spray or tear gas ASAP. A ranged, non-lethal weapon is of absolute importance. If you only have non-ranged, you put yourself at a significant disadvantage.
For example, a crackhead aggressively approaching you may or may not have a weapon (I dealt with several of them). If you only have lethal, you may end up killing someone when it could have been easily avoided. If you draw with people around, you’ll cause panic and make yourself a HUGE target.
Get a military-grade tear gas or pepper spray combo. It will instantly, involuntarily incapacitate anyone. Then run.
Propane camping stoves are cheap and will allow you to easily cook. If not, build a 3 wall stove out of rocks and cook using downed branches and a grill grate. Or dig a hole and start a fire. After a few days though, cold food is what you’ll crave.
Freeze water bottles. They can be cut in half and put in a Yeti (tumbler) to keep your drink cold all day. They can also be placed under armpits and on the side of your neck to cool off or help you sleep. You will be craving ANYTHING cold.
Spam is AMAZING! Black pepper spam, thinly sliced and fried. Serve with black beans and rice, OR take a potato, cut into fries. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and black pepper. You’re welcome. Potatoes are cheap, last forever at room temp, and you can do anything with them.
Fill your damn prescriptions beforehand! Snag antibiotics if you can, z-packs are great, as is Cipro. You will get sick.
Fill your bathtub with water beforehand. You can scoop with your Home Depot bucket to flush toilets, clean, etc. Also, adding bleach to your toilet will keep it somewhat sanitary if you can only flush once a day.
Take pics and videos of your property and possessions the day before. Will help with insurance, FEMA, etc.
Have a broom and dustpan. Lots of debris but surprisingly good at removing water.
If water is coming through the walls or windows consider killing the power. Our place caught on fire during Irma due to water in the walls. This happened to a lot of people during Maria as well.
Keep electronics off the ground. If it floods and your power is on, and you’re standing in the water, you’ll have a bad day.
If you have an electric stove, make sure you have some sort of grill and that it has fuel. Charcoal is good and you don’t necessarily need a grill for it.
Keep off the roads unless you absolutely must. In addition to wasting gas, awful traffic, and road hazards, you’re preventing emergency vehicles and recovery workers from doing their job.
Consider rigging a simple alarm. Pull string alarms are great. I moved into my cottage two months after the storms because my house was uninhabitable. I was alone, and rigging one on my gate helped me sleep a lot better.
Do laundry and dishes beforehand, clean your house.
Chili, goulash, lasagna, etc are great to make and freeze for later so you don’t have to cook.
Chainsaws are king! Don’t forget replacement blades. Without them, you may be trapped at your house for days.
NEVER lend out something you cannot replace. I lent out all of my battery-powered fans once I got my generator. When the genny went down, I was miserable and asked several of my coworkers/friends for just one of my fans back. It took a week before ONE of the people forked one of the fans over.
Do not isolate yourself. Aside from safety issues, you will desperately need to be around people, whether you realize it or not. Isolation after a traumatic experience will make it significantly worse.
Your brain won’t work for a few days, super brain fog. Everyone will have PTSD, even if you were not frightened at all during the storm itself. Performing the most simple task will overload you. Imagine trying to have a conversation while loud music, a loud TV, a siren, flashing lights are surrounding you – in the middle of an earthquake. With everything around you destroyed, there’s simply too much stimuli for you to process anything. Every day I’d be in the middle of a conversation with someone at the bar (meetup spot), and either I or the person I was talking to would walk away mid-sentence without saying anything. This wasn’t deliberate, your brain is just full of squirrels.
Don’t tell people what you have. If you mention having food and power people get resentful.
Don’t let too many people join you, if you do, they won’t want to leave and will tell others, it snowballs super fast.
Be home over an hour before dark.
Time will stop and no one will know what day it is. It was day 1, day 2, etc for the first 3 weeks.
Board games and books are great.
Ice will be worth its weight in gold.
The first night you’ll be ecstatic you made it through, with random bits of crying. It gets a little harder every day.
Be aware of your surroundings and of other people.
Tempers will be high days 2 through 6, same with rumors. Fog of war is very real in a close community with no cell service.
Keeping morale high is the most important thing.
Keep a journal. Years later or for the next storm it will be priceless.
You’ll be numb and in a daze for quite some time.