Lessons learned during Ike

A few things I learned over these days for future situations:

PREPARE!!!! I can't stress that enough. Some people didn't prepare for this storm after what happend with Rita (the massive evacuations when the storm went in a different direction.) Even if it isn't that bad, you can still drink the water bottles, or save the supplies for something else.

Prepare your yard - trim the trees, pick up branches, cut off old branches, etc. Remove any items from the yard that could potentially cause damage or be damaged.

Prepare your car - make sure you fill up the tank! That's so important because without electricity, our gas stations can't operate. So I'm having to drive further to maybe find gas and to fill up tanks to bring back for the generator.

Prepare ahead of time for your job - I had to think ahead of time of the things that were supposed to be going on this week and what I could about them if I didn't have power or supplies. So I had to look up several phone numbers to keep handy, and write down my calendar, and things like that.

Prepare your house - Know where the candles and matches are. I know it seems like an obvious thing, but get them out so you don't have to be looking for them in the dark. Have plenty of trash bags handy. Buy things that you might run out of. I'm running low on shampoo so I've been rationing it. I could have just picked up a bottle ahead of time and not worried about it. Do laundry before the storm hits so that it's not piling up and so that you have on less thing to worry about.

Candles really are a good gift. I ended up only finding one candle in my room because I havent' received any candles of lately. Please don't bombard me with candles or anything, but I'm just saying, candles are a good gift.

Yes, it's inconvenient, but it's not the worst that it could be. Some people actually do this for fun - it's called "Camping."