Be Prepared for Hurricane Season 2017

It is that time of year again! Hurricane Season starts June 1^st and ends November 30^th. Get ready and be prepared. As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” 

Q: What can you do to prepare yourself and your family?  
A: Here are 3 important steps to get ready for a hurricane:

1. Be informed.    
2. Make a plan.  
3. Build a Family Emergency/Evacuation Kit.

The first step is “Be informed.”  Learn about municipal and county plans regarding Hurricane Season.  Here in Beaufort County we do not have a lot of roads that connect our islands with mainland transportation routes.  What evacuation route do you have to use?  What should you take with you? 

• Please visit the Beaufort County Emergency Management website at http://www.bcgov.net/departments/Public-Safety/emergency-management/hurricane-outlook.php to acquaint yourself with prescribed evacuation routes, what to do, and suggestions about what to take with you.  Any questions about County Emergency plans should be asked of the County Emergency Management Department.  Call 843-255-4000 to get in touch with Director Todd Ferguson or Deputy Director David Zeoli.
• The Town of Hilton Head Island, S.C. “Evacuation Kits & Tips” guide is found at  http://www.hiltonheadislandsc.gov/publicsafety/hurricane/evackits.cfm?menuheader=4. Any questions or concerns regarding hurricane evacuations or reentry procedures for Hilton Head Island should go to please  Emergency Management Coordinator Thomas Dunn at  843-682-5156.
• City of Beaufort “Emergency Preparedness” page http://cityofbeaufort.preview.vc3.com/emergency-preparedness.aspx contains PDFs that you can download about flooding, often a key factor of destruction and property loss during and after a hurricane event including a recently revised “Citizens Guide to Flood Awareness” pamphlet.

Be sure to review your insurance coverage and limitations before your need them! Property insurance provides protection against risks to property, such as fire and weather damage. There are different types of property insurance available to homeowners for disasters such as flood insurance, fire insurance, earthquake insurance, and natural disasters. Each type of insurance may require additional coverage and is separate from the normal homeowner’s insurance policy. Be pro-active and ask your insurance provider questions about what’s covered, what’s not, deductibles and caps on your policies before you have to make a claim.  

Step two is “Make a Plan.”  Authorities agree that families need to have an emergency plan and that they should have supplies and food to take care of themselves for several days. For guidance about disaster mitigation and recovery for individuals and family groups, we recommend:

• “Prepare Your Home and Family”  http://www.redcross.org/prepare/location/home-family
• “Ready: Prepare, Plan, Stay Informed” http://www.ready.gov/ is designed to educate individuals how to prepare for and respond to natural disasters and emergencies.  If you have questions about how to get ready, call 1-800-BE-Ready.  
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers a host of resources on their website at http://www.fema.gov including suggestions about insurance.
• Visit the National Hurricane Center http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/  for live and latest weather updates in real time.

Step three is Build a Family Emergency/Evacuation Kit.  

• “Be Red Cross Ready” is a series of videos narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis shows families how to assemble an emergency kit at http://arcbrcr.org/. 
  

A corollary: Think ahead about how you will protect your own family’s cultural heritage.  It’s on you to protect your family treasures from loss.  Follow the LOCKSS principle: “Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe” whenever possible. Spreading copies of key photographs and documents among family members, particularly those who live outside the geographical area in which you reside, minimizes the risk of losing the treasure forever. And, you are likely going to have to choose what to take as there won’t be room for everything you treasure to go in your exit vehicle. Is it really practical to take “52 photo albums” in your car as you evacuate Beaufort County along with 150,000+ people?  (A real statement made by a participant during our “Taking Care of Family Treasures Workshop” in April 2013).  

• See “Personal Archiving” at http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/ for more information about how to create a personal LOCKSS program.   

Once you have assembled your emergency kit and selected your family treasures, act on your plan.  A plan is only as good as its execution.  In the midst of planning make sure everyone knows about the evacuation plan, where to meet and what to do when we are required to evacuate the area. Thoughtful decisions before an emergency event tend to result in better outcomes during and after an emergency event.   In other words, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Remember last October and Hurricane Matthew? We may sit in the pocket of South Carolina (look at a map) and other parts of our coast tend to get more hurricane strikes than we have, it only takes one storm to wreak havoc - and Hurricane Matthew was a little storm in comparison with the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893 and Hurricane Gracie (1959). Hurricanes and evacuation for hurricanes such as Hurricane Floyd (1999) and others have a socio-economic impact on our county. It may well be that Hurricane Matthew was but a prelude to another “Big One” or it may be years and years or even several decades before Beaufort County gets struck head-on by a powerful hurricane. Thinking through your plans and assembling your emergency kit and LOCKSSing your personal photographs are great ways to mitigate your risks.

The BDC has loads of materials to share about local hurricanes – online and in our special collections and archives Research Room:

• View our Hurricane of 1893 photographs and the rare and precious booklet of what happened that fateful night in  Storm Swept Coast by Rachel Mather that for your convenience we posted in the Lowcountry Digital Library.
• There are another 10 posts in this blog on the topic of hurricanes.  Go to http://beaufortdistrictcollectionconnections.blogspot.com/search/label/hurricanes to read them.
• We posted a partial list of the known Beaufort County casualties of the Great Sea Island Hurricane http://bit.ly/1TmgcrH drawn from Beaufort County Coroner’s Inquisition Records in 1893. 
• To learn more about hurricanes and their impact in the past please feel free to stop by the Beaufort District Collection Research Room and dig a little deeper in our hurricanes and tropical storm related vertical files, books, and other materials about hurricanes and tropical storms.

Don’t let the 2017 hurricane season catch you unprepared.