Those who've been through a hurricane...

I am a Florida native and have lived here all but 1 year of my life. As someone who has both prepared for storms and evacuated from them, the best advice I have is to follow the instructions given by local authorities. Typically we have stayed because the conditions were such that we and our home could sustain staying at our home. "Hunkering down and being prepared". However, we have never stayed in our house when it was a mandatory evacuation. There is no sense in that. So we do the standard preps every time we get a threat of a hurricane -- gas up the cars, charge electronic devices, get cash out of the bank, gather your important documents, stock up on water, food, batteries, medicine, personal goods, etc. Last year was probably the worst storm prep for Irma -- we ended up getting both our house and my elderly mom's house ready too but then had to evacuate. Even though it was not mandatory it was strongly urged and due to the flooding issues for my house and the threat of severe damage from trees falling at her house --we left and had to stay in 3 different towns over 4 consecutive nights as we had difficulty tracking the storm when it continually was changing path. Hurricane preparation and preparedness isn't always a fun task to handle but I am always so glad that we have had what we needed and stayed safe.

I've never lived where hurricanes are a huge threat to life or property, though I was in Philly during Sandy and that was one intense storm. I've lived through gale-force Iowa storms but I've never looked out the window and seen pieces of trees blowing down the street for hours at a stretch. We were never in real danger but there was lots of tree and wind damage.

I've seen enough pictures of people trapped on rooftops that I think I would just go ahead and evacuate if possible. Because I am a nurse, I would probably actually be at the hospital while my family evacuated. If I was in a position where I could not take my cats, there's no way I'd go anywhere, foolish as that sounds. I could never in a million years leave my kitties to try and fend for themselves. We die together!

Where we live, our house is rated for a CAT 5 hurricane. Also we are on a main power supply grid for EMS Fire Rescue so our electricity is quickly restored.

If your relative is in an evacuation zone then it's sensible to evacuate. However people should know the strength of their homes, flood planes, and every variable when considering evacuating. People are not forced out of their home. However when the storm winds reach a certain mile per hour, emergency services are not available.

We live 6 miles from the beach. But, we are not in a flood plane and live CAT5 hurricane proof house.

I understand your worry. You have received a mixed messages with photos that contradict each other. It seems like your relative may be prepared if his wife is laying out in the sun. All you can do is send positive thoughts.

I've been through a few hurricanes and quite a few tropical storms over the years. Ike is the one that made me say I'll probably leave next time for anything over a Cat. 1.  I rode that one out alone with a cat and a drugged up dog.  My house made noises I didn't know were even possible!  We lost power about 6 hours before the first winds even hit, and it was out for 2 weeks.  The reason I didn't leave for Ike was that we were not in a mandatory evacuation zone.  Also, Ike wasn't initially predicted to hit Galveston/Houston directly.  It was initially projected to hit over towards Corpus and go up through the Hill Country.  

The local authorities will announce at a certain point in the build up to landfall that any further calls will not be answered. So if they change their minds or need help they are indeed "shit outta luck" until the storm passes. They will even go so far as to recommend that those staying write their names on their body with permanent marker to aid in identification should they not make it. Now if that doesn't change someone's mind about staying, I'm pretty sure nothing will.

I grew up on the Gulf Coast. We always made judgement calls growing up, and evacuating for under a cat 3 was not considered. Evacuating sounds really easy, but it isn't. By the time you've boarded up the house, gotten the boats moved around to the back bay, etc., there isn't a lot of time. Until recent years, you had to find a hotel or family to take pets. Then, you may not be allowed back home immediately, while your house could have flooded or had damage that will get worse with time.

That said, we went into it knowing that they were on their own for at least 3 days. We were prepared for no help, no food, no drive-able streets. The mantra growing up was, "Well, the house stood through Camille." And no one could imagine anything worse than Camille. Katrina was worse. Way worse. And it was complicated because it didn't look like it was as bad of a storm as it was until just before it hit - when it was too late to get out.

I really get the temptation to stay, but having lived through Katrina from 150 miles north of the Gulf then not being able to contact my family members on the Gulf for days (in the end, all of our family members were fine, but one house was lost, one apartment uninhabitable, one house flooded 1-2', one house had 5' of water, and one house had minimal damage), I would tell anyone with Florence headed in their direction to GET OUT. That storm is HUGE, and it is hard to fight a storm surge.

I live in Orlando, FL so far enough inland and am not in a flood zone so we've ridden out all of the hurricane's that have come through with the exception of Irma, last year. The only reason I evacuated because my daughter was 9 months pregnant and feared going into labor either during the storm or shortly thereafter with the possibility of no power. She is a home birther and her midwives instructed her to pick up her medical documents in case she went into labor she would have to go the hospital because they would not be coming to her home, which she totally understood. She feared being without power in Orlando with 4 kids and a dog and who knew how long the power would be out.

Her solution was to evacuate to the nearest city she could find rooms for herself and her husband and 3 other children and dog and her dad and I which was Nashville, TN.

She begged me to go with for support and assistance caring for her other children and dog should she go into labor.

Fortunately she did not and we made it back to Orlando with time to spare....she successfully gave birth at home to baby # 4. And she never lost power....neither did we at our house per our neighbors.

Andrew was another that was at one point supposed to hit us.

As it was, my BIL was about to buy a house in Homestead. My MIL sent him a check to use in his down-payment... and that check was lost in the mail during Andrew. 

What a fustercluck of devastation that left behind!


<The eye is really something special. I totally get it.>

They just interviewed a first responder in Wilmington on the news. He said that if the winds are 50 mph, they do not respond. People are on their own. The storm surge is going to be higher than some houses. This is not something you want to ignore especially in the mandatory evacuation areas. I pray they will leave. Doesn't matter how awesome your house is if it's under water.

I lived in Ft Worth for a while, and the storms there sweeping down from the Midwest are far, far different indeed.

seriously, my heart skipped a beat when i read that.  write...your...social...security...number..on...your...arm.  it doesn't get any more clear than that.

I remember some of the emergency operations and local first responder personnel stating that when Ike was coming at us. Friends of friends decided they were just blowing smoke and had a hurricane party at their place on the bay. They made some frantic calls during the worst of the storm. The house was destroyed and I don't think they ever found any of the people.

People were being found for the next couple of years. ETA - I don't know about that particular group.

Those who didn't get out early on Galveston Island or the Bolivar Peninsula didn't get out. Some survived. Others, not so lucky.

I was born and raised on the Texas Gulf Coast, and still live here. I've literally been through every storm that's hit the upper Texas coast since Carla (57 years ago yesterday - my mom was pregnant with me at the time). The scariest one for me (until Harvey) was actually TS Allison in 2001 because I wasn't home. I was in DFW for work that week and heading home that Friday. I got stranded in Conroe when they shut down I-45 and spent a couple of days there before coming home to help rip out our house that had gotten 4-6" in it. DH and the kids were home during it. DH went to bed around midnight with water halfway up the yard (not unusual given the rain for the last 2 or 3 days prior) and woke up around 4 to go to the bathroom and stepped into squishy carpet. Ike runs a close second (I guess now third) because our house was right in the eyewall as it came in (my dad, uncle and grandma - about a mile away from me - were in the eye), and we lost the turbine vent off the roof and a tree between us and the neighbors came down with its limbs resting on both roofs.

I was living on The Woodlands, TX during hurricane Ike, which is just North of Houston. We were told to hunker down rather than evacuate, so that the roads would be clear for those under mandatory evacuation orders. It was my first hurricane, and I never want to experience another one.

Even though we were pretty far inland, our community experienced downed trees, loss of power and some flooding. The storm spawned several tornados which caused quite a bit of damage. I just remember the sound of the acorns hurling against our windows. It sounded like someone was right outside throwing rocks against our windows as hard as they could. I still can't believe none of our windows broke. We were going to board our windows, but our neighbors told us we were too far inland to worry about it.