Our family's Hurricane Preparedness Plan (A First Draft)

Meaux Family Hurricane Preparedness Plan
Drafted on Saturday, September 24th, 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Rita

The following is a first draft of what will be a fluid preparedness plan for our family. I'm sharing it with family and friends to hopefully get them thinking about how to adequately prepare for an approaching hurricane. The sharing of information such as this will go a long way to helping all of us be ready in the face of life-threatening, possibly catastrophic damage.

I know the color-coded stuff is a little nerdy, but the point is to have memorable stages of our plan as a convenient means of reference. And as those who know will attest, I love saying and writing this kind of dramatic, summer-blockbuster the world's in jeopardy kind of stuff. Like I said: nerdy. I admit it.

Condition Blue

Condition Blue (Blue Alert) is set when a strong tropical storm or hurricane enters the Gulf of Mexico. Blue Alert simply means that we are watching this storm very carefully. If the forecast track is favorable for the Texas-Louisiana-Mississippi coasts, and intensification is assured, we will move to the next condition.

Condition Yellow

Condition Yellow (Yellow Alert) is set when a tropical storm or hurricane is guaranteed (as much as such things can ever be guaranteed) to make landfall somewhere along the Texas, Louisiana, or Mississippi coastline. Yellow means that we will begin to look at options for evacuation, i.e., checking hotel availability outside of the threatened area and/or calling friends or family who live outside of the threatened area. If we find an available room or home to move to, we will make arrangements as necessary. This would include making temporary reservations at a hotel or letting friends or relatives know when we'd like to arrive at their homes.

Note: I should mention that I learned while staying in BR during Rita that advance hotel reservations may not be honored in times of extreme crisis. This apparently happened often during Katrina and Rita. We will try and determine if the hotel we're considering as a refuge will allow us to pay in full when making the reservation, thus guaranteeing our room. I'm not sure if this is even possible, though I imagine this would not be a big factor unless we have another back-to-back situation as we saw with Katrina and Rita, or as I like to call the whole big mess, "KatRita."

When Condition Yellow is set, emergency supplies and actions will be purchased and taken. This involves fueling our vehicles, boarding up our home, letting our employers know that we are considering evacuating, and purchasing items needed for an extended stay somewhere outside the cone of uncertainty. This includes getting making certain needed medications are filled and securing important documents and valuables to be taken with us during evacuation.

Condition Red

Condition Red (Red Alert) is set when our area is in the forecast's "cone of uncertainty." This means that forecasters are assuring us that a better than 50% chance exists that the storm will make landfall in the Louisiana area, either directly south of us or to the north or west. For our family, we have agreed that we will move to Condition Blue with a hurricane of a Category 1 or higher. While this may not be known at the time of setting Condition Blue, we will watch carefully for the possibility of intensification before making landfall.

I should note here that a big factor involved in going to Condition Red will be where our area is in relation to the storm's forecasted track. If we're to the east, as we were with Rita, we will leave even in the event of a Cat 1 storm. If we're to the west of the storm, we will then take its intensity into consideration before deciding to leave.

When Condition Red is set, we will try to leave our homes somewhere between 36 to 48 hours prior to the storm's landfall. This will hopefully put us at least a day ahead of other evacuees, thus allowing us to avoid traffic pile-ups and other possibly dangerous situations, as were seen with Houston's evacuation during Hurricane Rita.

Condition Orange

Condition Orange (Orange Alert) is set when we receive the first indications that the storm is fully out of our area. As I write these plans, there are still some outer tropical bands resulting from Hurricane Rita. We had a harrowing drive from Baton Rouge in wind gusts of up to sixty miles an hour. The possibility of tornadic development was high, though we thankfully did not face any such conditions.

Condition Orange means that we will begin considering when to begin our journey homeward from our safe haven. This will include letting our hotel know when we are leaving (we expect to make reservations for at least two days during Yellow Alert) and consulting the Louisiana State Police and other official information sources for details of the conditions along the way home. The Louisiana State Police hotline was invaluable to us as when we decided to both evacuate early Friday morning and return home late Saturday afternoon during Hurricane Rita. The officers and staff we talked to were friendly and knowledgeable and ready to assist us with traffic conditions and weather updates. Via cellphone, they can be reached at *LSP (*577).

Condition Green

Condition Green is set when we have decided, based on weather information and traffic updates, to return home.

Post script: Ali and I did not enjoy the psychological strain of worrying about the sounds attendant to intense and severe weather. We decided early Friday morning to depart for Baton Rouge, and though we did lose power where we stayed and not at our home in Youngsville, we were able to mentally unwind Friday, allowing for sleep and rest before the strain of the landfalling storm. It is for these reasons that we have agreed to vacate our home, as we would rather err on the side of caution and spend a few hundred bucks than remain and "hope for the best." This will be especially important when our daughter Ava is here.