Hurricane Preparedness: Get Informed
Hurricanes can strike the Florida Suncoast with devastating force, causing long-term power outages, damage to buildings and structures and sometimes injuries and death. Here are some hurricane preparedness tips that will help you keep you and your family safe and your home undamaged when heavy storms batter the coast.
- Work out an emergency plan that everyone in your family will follow during severe weather. The plan should include safety precautions, detailed evacuation routes, emergency procedures for when storms are happening and post-storm meeting places and contact plans. Practice the plan and make sure even your youngest children understand what the plan is for and what they should do in a storm.
- Keep emergency phone numbers by each phone in your home and make sure important documents such as leases, deeds and insurance policies have been secured.
- Find out in advance about local emergency resources, including community evacuation plans, shelters, warning types and emergency responder contact numbers.
- Put together an emergency kit that you can locate easily and quickly. Every three months or so, check the supplies and batteries in the kit to make sure everything is still working. The kit should contain items including first aid supplies, medications, flashlights with batteries, an AM/FM radio with batteries or a hand-cranked radio, charged cell phone and basic tools such as hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, utility knife and wrenches.
- Keep an emergency supply of necessities on hand, including drinking water (one gallon per day per person), non-perishable food, weather-appropriate clothing, severe weather gear and extra blankets.
- Know your emergency procedures, including where to find and how to use shut-offs for water, electricity, gas and other utilities or fuel supplies; how to secure your home and prepare outdoor structures, trees, furnishings, electronic equipment and other items for storms; and what to do to keep your pets safe.
For more than three decades, Symbiont Service Corp. has been a leading provider of geothermal heating and cooling systems for customers throughout Florida’s Suncoast. Contact us today for more information on hurricane preparedness and for additional severe weather safety tips.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Englewood, Florida and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about hurricane preparedness and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
Stay In The Loop
Don't miss out! Like us on Facebook or subscribe to our RSS Feed on Feed Burner and get our latest posts.