Living in South Florida has its Pros and Cons.
 
The Pros are obvious as during the seasons when riders in many parts of the country are shoveling snow, we're experiencing some of the best riding conditions of the year. On the other side of the coin, when riders in other areas of the country are in the midst of their peak riding season, many Floridians keep their bikes in the garage and limit our riding times to early mornings and late evenings as the Summer weather here can be brutally hot and humid. For those of us who "gear up" to ride, unless we're cruising at highway speeds, riding in stop and go traffic is usually not a pleasurable experience.
 
Then, there's Hurricane season which lasts most of the Summer. While just about every part of the country or the world for that matter, has its own type of regional weather events and each type has its own set of characteristics. Tornadoes for example, come with little if any warning and can create catastrophes wherever they decide to touch down. Earthquakes arrive with no notice and can shut down cities and interrupt the basic services in a matter of moments. Hurricanes on the other hand, arrive with quite a bit of notice and allow residents in their path time to prepare or even evacuate. While in no way am I saying that Florida and other coastal cities have it better than other areas, having notice of a potential catrasphrohy is, in my mind, better than having no warning at all.
 
In South Florida there are some tasks that we have to prepare for when a hurricane forms and starts heading our way. The first is making sure we have plenty of food and water. That's because, in rare occasions, water can become temporarily contaminated and supplies can be cut off. We find ourselves flocking to the grocery stores to load up on plenty of food as if a storm disrupts electrical service, these stores are closed.
 
There's also a pre-hurricane ritual of removing all smaller items from our yards and securing them inside the house or in the garage. This keeps them from becoming projectiles during the high wind gusts that occur during a hurricane.
 
While many Florida homes have hurricane shutters, not all of them are created equally. Many newer houses include hurricane windows which are considered "impact resistant" that won't shatter if a tree branch or coconut collides. Some homeowners have installed accordion shutters that protect windows and doorways during a storm. These take just a few minutes to secure, but as soon as they are closed, your house becomes like a cave or a tomb as not only do they repel flying objects, they keep out the light. Some of the newer accordion shutters incorporate acrylic panels that allow for light to come through in selected areas. Some homeowners use aluminum shutters that have to be "hung" over each window and opening. These are a real pain to install and take down and typically, cannot be installed/removed by a single person as they are heavy and require them to be bolted to the house. Finally there's plywood. This is a "last resort" type of protection method as you're basically hammering them around each opening and if you're not careful, you could block exit ways that could be needed in the case of a fire or other peril.
 
During active hurricane seasons, many times residents become sterilized to the warnings and after a false alarm or two, ignore the warnings and simply think the current warnings are false and don't install the shutters or make the proper preparations. This is poor thinking and more akin to the Boy Who Cried Wolf than taking the time it takes to take the steps to protect your family and property.
 
For those who live in mobile homes or trailer parks well, it's best to evacuate as even moderate winds can wreak havoc.

Currently, there's a hurricane in the making headed towards the Sunshine State: Hurricane Fay.
 
When a powerful hurricane hits, if your house is lucky enough not to incur any damages, there's a fair chance you'll go without power for a while. Depending on where you live and where you're located on a "power grid," you may not lose power, or go without it for a day, a week or even longer. While this is can be considered an inconvenience, when you combine a power outage with 90+ degree temps and 95% humidity readings, this can be not only uncomfortable, it can be a health hazard to many folks...especially the Senior Citizens. Combine this factor with the mold that can accumulate during humid times and roof leaks behind walls with no air conditioning and you can see why our insurance rates are some of the highest in the country.

Houses are like motorcycles...some folks perform regular maintenance some don't. Those that don't typically end up with problems.

When I was flying back from Nashville yesterday, I was seated next to a guy who worked for a roofing company. He was on vacation and received a text message that there's a mandatory meeting at his office on Monday at 8am. This cut his vacation short, but for the roofing business, hurricanes are a huge source of revenue.
 
Many homeowners who have suffered long power outages in the past have purchased generators and those that have made this purchase many times have no idea how to properly use them. This can cause numerous problems ranging overloading or under-powering the appliances and blowing out everything connected to carbon monoxide poisoning.

In a nutshell, there are two basic types of generators: Portable and Standby. The portable generators are the ones that usually cause the most problems. That's because when people go to Home Depot or Costco to buy them, they typically keep them in the box until they are needed. As riders we know that motors need to be started regularly to keep them operating properly. Also, no matter how many warnings are posted on the box or how many news reports warn you of proper usage, there's always the story about the guy who set it up by the front door or even inside a house and suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. Would you put your bike in your living room and let it run for ten hours? Go figure?
 
The other problem with portable generators is that they are rated in Kilowatts and most people have no idea how many appliances can be operated by a specific generator. Overloading a generator can lead to the overloading of the circuits and cause problems that will take months and thousands of dollars to repair. Most portable generators need to be refueled very six hours or so and that in itself creates its own set of problems as you have to store a large amount of gasoline in the garage as well as wait for the generator to cool before refueling. As you can imagine, many rookies make mistakes during refueling and again, the results can be fatal.
 
Personally, I chose to go with a Standby Generator for my house. These devices are large...about the size of two outdoor HVAC unit and require permits for installation and should be installed by a professional. The unit I installed is powered by a six cylinder car engine that idles at 1,800 RPM and is fueled by Natural Gas. As long as the gas line remains intact, I should have power. But some folks try to cut corners when it comes to the installation of standby generators in order to save a few bucks...that's not a good thing when dealing with these types of devices.
 
A properly installed Standby Generator connects to the house's incoming power source via a Transfer Switch. This switch constantly monitors the incoming power and when it detects no power for twenty seconds, triggers the generator to start, allow it to idle for ten seconds then automatically throws a switch to cut off the standard power and route the generator's power to your house. When power is restored, it waits a few seconds to make sure there's no spikes in the power surge and then transfers the power back to the electrical company's source. Depending on the size of the Standby Generator and the source of its fuel, these devices can operate an entire house for weeks at a time.
 
Some people try to take shortcuts that can be potentially fatal. I've heard numerous cases where people will take a portable generator and connect it to a washing machine's outlet to feed the power through the house. While this method may work temporarily, it's a recipe for disaster as the moment power is restored by the electric company, it is back-fed to the generator and BOOM. If you're lucky, you just blew out the fuse box. If you're not so lucky, well, that's another story.
 
While the most powerful of hurricanes typically form off the coast of Africa and strengthen over the warm ocean, sometimes they form just off shore. Offshore storms give us less of a warning period, but at least it is a warning and grants us some time to get things organized.
 
So that's what I'm doing today...I've already done the shopping, the smaller items have been removed from outdoors, and the Standby Generator has been serviced and tested and is ready to take over in the event the power is cut off to my neighborhood. And yes, there's plenty of Dog Food for the pups!
 
So in the next 48 hours I'll know the outcome of "Fay." So if you don't see me online for a day or two, it just means I've lost my Internet connection, but at least I'll have Air Conditioning and Satellite TV. I did pickup an air card so that depending on the load and the condition of the cell phone towers, I "may" be able to get online.

That's another situation I'd like to address...Cell Phone Towers. As I learned from Hurricanes Francis and Wilma, there is no regulation for cell phone towers to have generators. Most towers have a battery backup that can power a tower for a day or two during a power outage. If power is not restored, they can become useless. Combine this with the extra load on the cell towers due to many residents losing their land lines and you lose your cell phone signal as well. You would think that someone, somewhere would come up with the concept of forcing the cell phone companies to add generators to cell phone towers. Again, all I can say is Go Figure?

Finally, legislation was passed in my state a few years ago that require gas stations to have generators to deliver power to the pumps in the case of a widespread power outage. You would think this would be a no-brainer as portable generators can be used to power the gas pumps and that gas stations have gas right there, but the legislation had so many loopholes that it didn't require ALL gas stations to install the generators. I'm sure there's some lobby out there that fought this for the owners of gas stations. This leads to long lines and waits at the pumps of stations that have installed generators or happen to be located on a grid that did not lose power. While they are not supposed to raise prices after a storm, there is some gouging that will surely occur.

So, let's see what Fay does to Florida and its residents over the next few days. I can tell you this, I won't be riding over the next couple of days, but if I'm lucky, I'll still be writing.

Keywords: Hurricane Fay Generators Phone Lines Electricity

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