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Jun 07, 2012 | Luke Blount

Hurricane Season: Will You Go Splat?

As I thought about how to encourage people to prepare for hurricane season, a familiar song popped into my head: "The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock":

 

 

As someone who spent two years rebuilding houses after a hurricane, there's something incredibly disturbing about the joyful tone of that song and watching a home go "splat," but the message still rings true. The rains will come down and the floods will come up. It may not be tomorrow or this summer or next, but it will happen. Ask everyone along the gulf coast of Texas that survived Hurricane Ike, or Tropical Storm Allison or Hurricane Alice. These disasters happen, and they are unpredictable. 

 

I'm not suggesting not to build your house on the sand. I'm a sucker for a beach house just like anyone else. But if you do live on the beach or near it, take some precautions for an inevitable danger.

 

The best way to save yourself some time, money and grief is to take few steps to be prepared. If you live anywhere along a coastline, take some time to sit down with your family and with your church to plan what you will do in the event of a hurricane. With hurricanes, you are usually given at least several hours notice before impact, but you still need to make a long-term plan.

 

Do you have a folder with all your important documents? Do you have an emergency kit to survive for a couple days? Do you have water available? Where will you go in an evacuation? Will you need to board up your windows or move your valuable possesions to high places in your home?

 

Just take some time to think about it. Visit our emergency preparedness page to learn how to build an emergency kit and to download a guide to get prepared. 

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association predicts 9-15 names storms this year. But it only take one to flip your life upside down.

 

The song above suggests that "blessings come down as the prayers go up," but I'm here to tell you it takes more than prayer to save you and your livelihood from a hurricane. It takes preparedness, willpower, fortitude and strength. If authorities ever tell you to evacuate, do it. If they offer you help, take it. And if someone who has experienced the lack of preparedness tell you to get prepared, listen. You definitely don't want to go splat.

 

Visit our preparedness page or find preparedness resources from Episcopal Relief and Development at the bottom of this resource library

 

- Luke Blount was the volunteer coordinator for Texas Episcopal Disaster Relief and Development in Galveston, TX after Hurricane Ike