How RVing Prepared Me for a Hurricane
The Things They Had In Common
There is much to learn when you start RVing full-time. For us, a big learning curve was Boondocking, meaning to be self sustained, without hookups. We wanted to learn how so we could to try our hands at camping in unusual locations. Our Airstream had solar power, not a lot, but enough to give us the power we needed.
Being a city girl, I grew up not knowing what life was like to live off-the-grid. The few times the power went out, I realized how much of our lives were dependent upon power. After all, if you live in a house full of girls and you can’t use a hair dryer… You also realize how many of our meals required cooking or how dependent we are on appliances.
While RVing, an RV park we stayed at in Texas lost power and it shut off the pump for water. A wake up call, but luckily our Boondocking skills prepared us.
Boondocking was a Life Challenge, a challenge I knew I needed to accept — and experience. I quickly learned to be respectful and grateful for the skills I acquired. It taught us about conservation. How to manage on our own, to be dependent on our own abilities and how to rely only on ourselves. Boondocking is not for everyone and it took me a few times before I felt comfortable enough with it. I developed a newfound appreciation for living off-the-grid, but to be honest, living-of-the-grid is not something I would like to do too often or for too long.
We moved off the road six months ago, bought a house and had to sell the Airstream. The house is located in Florida — the sunshine state, and the state known for hurricanes.
Hurricane Idalia was aiming right for Florida and we were about to live through our first Hurricane. I was impressed by how well organized the state and locals were in regard to hurricanes. How locals banned together to support their community. I was advised to watch my neighbors, talk to them, see what they did to prepare — I assumed similar to Boondocking, the more exposure you get, the more experience you obtain, and the more comfortable you are in your preparations for it.
I downloaded a list from the state on what to do to prepare for a state of emergency. That night, as I laid in bed listening to the howling wind and the pounding of the rain from Idalia, I realized how much RVing prepared me for something like this. How many common traits there were and how some of the skills I acquired from RVing, I modified and used to prepare for a hurricane.
Just to name a few:
1. Have a battery charged weather radio. When RVing around the country, a battery charged weather radio is your main lifeline to the surrounding area. I used other tools to help prevent us from being caught in bad weather, but Mother Nature has a mind of her own, so no matter how prepared one is or how much one tries to avoid Her — it happens. After being nearly caught in a severe thunderstorm with large hail and tornadoes in South Dakota, I made it a top priority to learn what I could about weather and how to prepare, while on our RV journey.
2. Make sure everything is charged. When Boondocking we made sure we had back-ups to our back-ups and that everything was fully charged. We had solar but it did have some limitations and we learned quickly how to live and work within those limitations. They recommend you do the same before the Hurricane hits.
3. Make sure vehicle is full of fuel. This is something we were OCD about while RVing, we made sure we didn’t get to close to the E (empty) on the truck. When you are 50’ in length, finding a gas station you fit in could be challenging, so we filled up whenever we could. While reading through the list of things to do for preparing for a hurricane, they recommend you have a full tank of gas. I assumed it was just in case you needed to make an escape, but I learned it was also because gas stations get low, due to everyone filling up, and the pumps may not work afterwards.
4. Have food and snacks that you can eat without having to cook. Here in Florida, they tell you to make sure you have your hurricane snacks ready to go. Good advice. They also have what they call, Hurricane parties, you would definitely need extra snacks for that. Publix (the local grocery store chain) makes Hurricakes (hurricane cakes), you know, for the Hurricane Parties. Boondocking, we always had snacks or food we could make quickly and didn’t require cooking. They also say to make sure you have a lot of paper goods since you won’t be able to wash dishes if you lose power and water, we did that when Boondocking as well.
5. Lots of water. When we Boondocked, we would fill up water jugs to last. We used them for drinking, cooking, and brushing our teeth. We did have a fresh water tank, and we would fill it but we used that water for the toilet and our quick Navy showers. Preparing for a hurricane, they recommend you fill a bathtub with water, trash cans (lined with a clean trash bag) with water, containers with water, etc, because it could be days before you have fresh water again and that water could be used for cleaning and for flushing toilets.
6. Mental Preparation — for those of us who experience anxiety, preparing for Boondocking/RVing or a Hurricane required a strong mental-talk-to in order to prepare for the stress they each bring.
7. Faith — this is must. No matter your religion or beliefs, it is required in any situation. Faith in yourself. Faith in your skills. Faith you will make it through.
Some of what I learned RVing helped prepare me for a Hurricane. Both required me to learn new skills or learn new ways to use old skills.
I will admit — I would much rather use my newfound (and old) skills to RV.
BTW — Idalia skirted past us so we only got the outer bands of the storm. We live about 1.8 miles from the water but there was enough of a barrier between us so we did not experience any flooding. Since she was further out, we had rain and wind but not as strong as it was close to the center. I am grateful for so much.
Our thoughts and prayers to those who experienced her worst.
