Preparing for a Hurricane to Limit Home Damage and Keep Your Family Safe

5/22/2023 (Permalink)

SERVPRO of Jacksonville Beach/Ponte Vedra offers tips for hurricane preparedness to limit hurricane damage to your home.

Hurricane season is upon us. Are you ready? It’s important to prepare you home and family to limit the hurricane damage your property sustains and keep your family safe. Here, we’ll discuss hurricane preparedness and offer some tips for getting ready for a big storm.

• Make some plans. You’ll need an evacuation plan, listing different evacuation destinations and an emergency pack list, as well as phone numbers for emergency contacts. Make sure your family is familiar with the plan, and perform evacuation drills if you feel it’s necessary. You’ll also need a hurricane preparedness list of the supplies you’ll need to have on hand during a storm. This list should include seven days’ worth of non-perishable food and bottled water, tools, flashlights, a radio, and extra batteries, clothes, bedding, plasticware, a waterproof container with important documents, games and comfort items, and first aid supplies, including prescription medication and personal hygiene items.
• Take stock of your possessions. Do a complete inventory of your home before a hurricane hits, so you’ll be ready if you need to file an insurance claim or apply for disaster aid. It’s important to review your insurance policy, also, so that you can make any necessary adjustments to ensure that you’re covered if a hurricane hits.
• Secure your home’s exterior before a storm. Hurricanes come with high winds that can send just about anything flying through your windows and doors. Secure your windows, sliding glass doors, and entry doors with plywood or hurricane shutters to prevent breakage and interior damage. Keep wind and water out of the house by sealing exterior vents with marine-grade plywood, installing covers on outdoor electrical outlets, putting bibs on garden spigots, and caulking around cables and pipes that penetrate the exterior wall of the house. Consider installing roof straps and reinforcing your garage door as well. Make a thorough inspection to determine if there’s anything that could become airborne, including furniture, planters, bikes, toys, and other outdoor items. Move these to a secure location and trim trees and branches so they won’t break off during a storm. If you have a pool, cover it and secure the cover, and if you have a shed, make sure the door is closed and secure. Check your foundation and repair cracks, cover your outside HVAC components, and if you have a sump pump, test it to make sure it’s working properly.
• Get the interior ready as well. Carefully check wall hangings to confirm that they’re secure and take any outdoor art inside. Turn your refrigerator to the coldest setting to prevent spoilage in case of a power outage and remove fuses from your air conditioner to protect it from damage. If you need to evacuate, unplug all of your major appliances, and move small electronics like televisions, vacuums, and stereos to a higher floor. Turn off the main water valve to the home, cut off the electricity at the circuit breaker, and turn off the gas at each appliance.
• Care for your cars. Fill the gas tanks and move your cars to higher ground or into your garage and away from trees and power lines.

If your Northeast Florida home is damaged in a hurricane or tropical storm, call SERVPRO of The Beaches/Ponte Vedra. Our highly trained restoration technicians have the experience and equipment to restore your Jacksonville, Jacksonville Beach, or Ponte Vedra home to its pre-storm condition. A trusted leader in the water restoration industry, we’ve served our community for more than 40 years. Call (904) 246-6118 or contact us through our website.