WHY I DO NOT EVACUATE OR GO TO A SHELTER DURING HURRICANES:

I am NOT in an evacuation level or zone. Those are determined by the land. My home is 52 feet above sea level. I do not live in a manufactured or mobile home. No matter what evacuation zone all mobile home owners are required to evacuate. My home is CBS - Concrete Block Structure - it was built in 1962 and utilizes steel reinforced concrete blocks with cement poured inside the blocks around the reinforcing rods. My next door neighbor installed galvanized metal hurricane shutters and ruined 10 diamond drill bits making the anchors in the walls. A wooden structure cannot withstand a telephone pole impacting at 100MPH. Mine can. The structure is built on a concrete slab. Nothing can get under it and the slab stays cool. In my neighborhood the houses are very close together. This is further protection from the full force of hurricane winds. Houses on a corner lot do not have this full protection. I am not on a corner. My most vulnerable side is the front facing the street.

Currently my only drawbacks are the lack of hurricane shutters and a wooden roof. The original construction included concrete tiles on the roof. As a consequence the roof is supported by double the number of rafters for the extra weight of the tiles. I had my roof replaced with asphalt shingles in 2003 but the rafters provide the extra protection of a fallen tree. Hurricane anchors for the roof may still be required to keep it from becoming unattached during 150MHP winds. Always a possibility.

Most hurricane shelters DO NOT TAKE PETS. We have two cats. Once you enter a shelter they do not let you leave until the storm is over. I would go crazy with nothing to do and not knowing how my house survived the storm. My friend took his children to a shelter and brilliantly took a tent and set up inside the shelter for privacy.

My telephone is a landline. A real 1960s copper hardwire. When the power goes out and cellphones lose their connection my phone still works. It always has. My neighbors have similar houese and do not evacuate either. We all work together after the storm to help clean up and combine resources to provide each other with necessities. The rest of the time we pretty much leave each other alone. I like that. We are only two miles from the Gulf of Mexico but I am confident we could withstand a cat5 from the west at full force. Should the roof blow off we have a small hallway 3ft x 8ft. in the center of the house where we would literally "hunker down".

If there is a hurricane we will be home. Call us. When the power goes out there is nothing to do.