Dont have to worry bout me in traffic, just got hired by local government.  I dont get to leave...lol. so I'm 1 less vehicle on the road.

Thank you. I'm really liking it here. Except the humidity.. holy crap its like Illinois when I was a kid. How far is Naples from Pensacola, might have to have a beer sometime?

I’m not a fan of backfeeding the house thru a dryer plug. First, it doesn’t isolate your house from the grid if linemen are restoring power. They could get hurt. Get a proper switch on your breaker panel for generator back feed. And if there is any damage to your house, a back feed could lead to house fires, as happened after hurricane Andrew.

MREs are OK, but better to get non-refrigerated type items that you would eat anyway from your preferred supermarket.

Two generators. One for daylight use, usually higher wattage output and louder. A second for nighttime use (like Honda or equivalent) for quieter night use on fans or window A/C units. And extension cords. Practice load sharing: plug in the freezer for a few hours, then fridge. Then the well to fill tanks or drums. Then hot water heater

A propane burner or Coleman stove for cooking with at least two standard 20 lb or so bottles of propane. Outside use.

If you have a well to supply water, then a electrical pigtail that can be wired into the pressure switch to run the well off the generator. A supply of spare parts for the generators like oil, spark plugs, fuel lines.

For aftermath cleanup, chainsaw and items to support cleanup. High top rubber boots if you may have to work in flood conditions.

If you have young kids, battery powered devices to keep them entertained and videos for them to watch. Old school for my kids was a 12volt TV with DVD player that would operate from a car battery. More energy efficient devices today.

A few gallons of bleach and a pressurized sprayer. Have been flooded before, and tearing out the wet drywall with the ability to treat the studs with bleach will help with mold mitigation. The bleach is also good for water purification if needed.

Well, survived my first tropical storm.  Even got stuck working outside in it. Although this was a minor storm I was told. I  need to stash some supplies in my vehicle and at work in case they close the bridge's during next one.

Chain up your generator. They do steal them. Last big storm we had, S.O. arrested 2 guys with bolt cutters and a hand truck. They were stealing generators and gas cans. Parking in the woods, and using the hand truck to transport the stolen loot to the truck. They said they were taking them to South Florida to sell them.

Let’s just hope mother nature takes it easy on us first timers this year.

What he said!  

Im all for that..

Looks like we have another storm brewing.. everyone get your gas cans filled and French toast supplies.

Trial by fire bro.....

Best away to approach it all.

Think like your camping.
If you backpack...it'll be easier....cheaper..
Than if you glamp in a 30ft RV with ac,sat tv and hit showers....

And milk....gotta have milk...

Good point. My wife is still in Colorado so I suppose if it’s gonna get ugly it may as well be this year.
I live in the Keys not a whole lot of places to go haha.  

Bought my 1st generator.  Dual fuel Inverter.  Champion 100574.

Next I will price a whole house generator.

Food and water, CHECK.
Firearms and ammo CHECK
Gas cans full  CHECK
Propane Full   CHECK

Something to think about we did an inlaw suite addition and planned it out pretty well. Got a mid side standy by Gen Set to run the addition and critical home circuits and moved to a propane on demand hot water heater then buried a thousand gallon tank.
Never ending whole house hot water and 33 % of the house with AC... well at least for 66 days or so with some load management.

How much did the genny and the tank run you?

A larger dual fuel portable generator is worth considering. I bought a 11,050 (gas) / 9,000 (lpg) watt genny back in April. With some careful load management, it should power my entire house, including the A/C and well. I also bought a few 20# propane tanks for it. You can do tank exchanges just about anywhere, even CVS and Walgreens, for less than $20. Generlink makes a transfer switch that mounts between your electric meter and the panel (http://www.generlink.com/). If an outage occurs, you simply plug your genny in with the provided cable and you're gtg. They were on a 12-14 week back-order when I ordered mine.

Best of all, if I ever move again, all of this stuff moves with me.

it was a while ago $2300 for a 11kw Generac with 100 amp load center and auto transfer switch. We were wiring an addition up at the time so we used the transfer switch panel as the main load center for the addition little bit of cost saving and no rewiring to a panel since it was wired in on new construction.

I wired the gen set to the panel $120 worth of conduit and wire.

$100 permit

1000 gallon tank $2600

$300 labor buring and hooking up tank.

$300ish hose line regulators stuff

$2400 to fill the tank at the time

Pricy project but 2 months of 1/3 house power, well 1 AC unit, whole house hot water is pretty good peace of mind. Hot water is super cool done plenty of days showering outside with pots and rain barrels. The on demand propane hot water heater seems to have cut electric  bill by about 30%.  

My job may keep me away from the house for extended periods during natural disasters or severe  weather events so I may not be able to be home dragging generators and gas cans around. Although we have 2 of those and plenty of full cans of no E if things get super sideways.

Gen Set is on a 2.5 foot platform of crossed timbers filled with gravel, buried tank has a 2.5 foot snorkel on the regulator. The tech said it will work if flooded but I asked they put a snorkel on the regulator anyway. Puts it about a foot or so above the slab height so I can make a call if I want to fight a flood with sandbags and pumps.

Propane is the way to go natural gas can be shut down during local flooding events or extended weather events.

"If you have a well to supply water, then a electrical pigtail that can be wired into the pressure switch to run the well off the generator"

I did this for my 1.5HP 120V well and single element 120V water heater. Make sure you open the breakers for these circuits as well as the main so you don't backfeed into the remainder of the houses circuit or back to the pole.

I added a manual hand pump and spigot below it. Since it holds pressure year round..
But im.old school....

lets grab a beer Protus.  Been way too long

It'd be nice.
I just broke 3 weeks  out from covid zombie death..was in the hospital from may17 thru June 11
By months end all my docs should have me cleared for normal life..

Thanks, this thread went a good way toward making my other half feel better about moving to hurricane country.

Things I learned from last season:

SOLAR GENERATOR + PANEL = always have fridge and freezer indefinitely

- Spend under $400 and get a 600Wh solar generator (current deal is for $369 for 614Wh on Rockpals website)
- Spend another $200 for a 200W solar panel
   Optional: spend another $100 or $200 to add a 2nd 120W or 200W panel if you want to be able to recharge your generator 2x quicker.
- if you opt for a second solar panel you’ll need a $20 parallel cable from Amazon to be able to charge using both at the same time

Next, if you don’t already have these (most of us do) …
- Spend $350 and buy a 7-cu ft “Garage Ready”deep freeze
- Spend another $200 and get a 4 or 5-cu ft beer fridge

Now store both fridge & freezer side by side in your garage. If power goes out, simply unplug from the wall and plug both into your solar generator.
You can even recharge with with your solar panel(s) while both devices are still plugged in. You can even recharge on an overcast day

Now you have everything you need to keep your drinks cold, and quite a bit of shit frozen indefinitely.
And the best part is, even if a storm doesn’t happen, you will still use everything pretty regularly (besides the solar panels).


500 GAL PROPANE TANK  + DUAL-FUEL generator = no more fucking with gas cans, gummed up carbs, and refilling propane tanks

If you have your propane grill outside already connected to a propane stub w/ quick connect off your existing 500 gal propane tank, and you have a propane capable generator (I’ve got a sportsman dual-fuel) —- then all you need to do is create a quick-connect cord that goes from the stub to the genset. I ordered mine off Amazon for $15

Then you no longer have to dick around with going to fill up small ass propane tanks or gas cans when a storm is approaching. Spend that time neckbearding bottled water and bourbon instead

We got our generator at a pawn shop 30 years ago.

It ran great for Ian.

Not many places in Florida have natural gas.
Solid point on window units.

Mow your lawn before the storm. You don't want to be doing cleanup in long grass and it's going to be wet for days.

https://a.co/d/4b77ym8

$414 for a 2500 watt fuel fuel generator. Used one of these to get through the last few storms, runs like a champ.

Ryobi makes some great lights and small inverters. Load up on batteries during Ryobi Days at Home Depot.
We use them to provide light at night, fans, a small inverter that runs the router, and USB adapters to keep the devices charged. Recharge the Ryobi batteries when the generator is running to keep the fridge and freezer cold.https://a.co/d/4b77ym8