🚪 Welcome to Florida, Ian; now get out.

It’s going to be a long day. Let’s talk.

By: Kit Mohr

This Thursday feels threatening. And it’s not just the look from my cat, MarMar, when I tricked her with treats and zipped her into the safety of her crate. It’s getting dark out there, y’all.

Here’s what we got on Ian so far:

Also, you can check here for emergency information from OCFL or check here for keeping tabs with the City of Orlando.

Now let’s play a game called check the cliché. Today’s cliché: It’s always darkest before the storm. We as

We asked y’all for your hurricane experiences, let’s see how they measure up to this moniker.

“We’re supervising Dad’s hurricane prep!” | Tag either #pulptown or @pulptown to be featured. (📸:Paul O.) 

Let’s talk storms

Paul O. 

“I’m a bit of a prepper — generator, 5 days of gas, 1 month of food, water… So I’m prepared year round. All Floridians should be. But that’s not to say I don’t get drained — this afternoon, I had to pull remaining items in from outside and started boarding. And I’m exhausted but I’d have to say my “fav memory” of Irma was during the eye taking the dogs out for a walk (they weren’t happy peeing in the yard) where it was dry and then seeing at the end of my street sideways wind and rain and turning right back round.”

Tyler P. 

“ Only thing I can think of is the time I prepped the apartment but wasn’t too scared because it was the second story. I left town for LA, came back and found out we never lost power so I was excited the food didn’t go bad, but came home to my roommate leaving the freezer open while she was on ride out for Disney. It’s just the facts of life, I guess.”

Kay M. 

“There aren’t many places where hunkering down is as well understood as it is in Florida during hurricane watches and warnings. Just prior to hunkering, there’s usually lots of frantic  supplies-purchasing, gas-filling, sandbag-stacking, generator-testing, battery-charging, heavy object-moving and speculating going on  everywhere. A good hurricane has no boundaries & no regard for status, wealth, intellect, breeding, age, pedigree, sex, race, creed, belief or lack thereof(s). It’s an equal opportunity threat. And so we all must decide, to hunker, or not to hunker? And if hunkering is in order, exactly how are we going to accomplish that this time around?

What’s a few hours of hunkering down anyway, right?

Hurricane Charley in 2004 includes one good “what not to do” in the hunkering business. My husband is out of town, I have two elementary age kids, two cats, a dog and probably a couple of hamsters as they always seemed to be about. We did the frantic stuff the best we knew how. As is the case quite often, Charley was scheduled to plow through our area in the middle of the night. It got really noisy outside and the time seemed right to get to the “safest place in our house” — in a bathroom closet. I herded everyone in, we sat around, we sang a few songs, we lost power. I decided to save on batteries and I lit a candle.

My advice now: don’t save on batteries.  At least, not in a small closet crammed with nervous people and animals. Especially with nervous animals that have claws. Use batteries, save the candles for all the opportunities we get with no power after the storms!

Glad to say; we’ve gotten progressively better since then. We hunker quite well now. “

Tony L.

“I recall a really bad one, Floyd, I think it was.  After it passed the neighborhood was full of downed trees and shrubbery.  The HOA managed to wrangle a few dumpsters to be dropped off at various points in the neighborhood and what followed was a regular sojourn of hunker-downers with their offerings of freshly chainsawed tree limbs, branches and yard trash, being ever so thankful they didn’t have to wrap it all in dozens of bundles not exceeding 6ft in length and 40lbs.”

For me (Kit)

It would have to be Irma. I was newly dating my future wife who came from CA and who was more than a little apprehensive about the business of predictable natural disasters.

The very reason why I live on this coast, I like to see it coming, none of this earth-shaking-surprises for this writer.

So I’m explaining all the prep I had already done to ease her anxiety and getting my house ready for her to come hunker down at Casa Kit, but despite my best laid plans, the ratio of breakable windows and doomsday newscasters to a reassuring boyfriend did not fall in my favor.

We ended up at my parents’ house, boarded up in the one room we could seal. Four adults, one dog, one cat and let me tell you, when the power cut out, it was certainly an impressionable way to introduce a date to your parents for some real family bonding.

Both our houses were left without much damage— I’ve got not one, but two portable fans in my permanent prep-kit — and we’re a year happily married now, so all-in-all I’d say we got the luck of that storm draw.

Things to do

Let’s put a pin here until Ian bids us adieu.

(Giphy)

☝️ One more thing…

You’re reading this, so you probably have power, but if and when that kicks out today and the full force of Florida heat has you kicking on that new generator you just bought in the prep-frenzy — do not bring it inside.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission even sent out a press release to make sure even the people in the back — or in this case, bottom of the newsletter — get the message loud and clear stating: “Portable generators create a risk of CO poisoning that can kill in minutes. CO is called the invisible killer because it is colorless and odorless. Exposed persons may become unconscious before experiencing the milder CO-poisoning symptoms of nausea, dizziness or weakness.”

Also speaking of power/internet outages…

We rely on the internet to research and produce these daily sundrops into your inbox, so we will catch ya in the new week when there is a tad more sun in the Sunshine State to go around as we come out of the other side of this storm.

Once Ian makes his exit and the coast is clear, if you have any experiences and or pictures you’d like to share, remember you can always tag @pulptown on our instagram.

Really, really: Stay safe out there!

 – ✌️ Kit