AD PROOF
AD PROOF JUNE 2011
SENIOR VOICE
VOL. 31 • NO. 6
Hurricane Season is Here: Prepare Now By Matthew Wiseman, Editor Senior Voice America In the fall of 1985, I was a senior at Northeast High School in St. Petersburg. I had just started working for the student newspaper in the new school year, and one of my very first projects was covering Hurricane Elena and how it affected the school. My family lived just a few blocks from NEHI on some of the highest ground in the county. Our school was a shelter, and it was packed wall-to-wall with people (mostly seniors) who lived in mobile home parks in St. Pete. Our house was soon packed, too. Flash floods made it impossible for some friends to get home in Northeast St Pete. We lost power several times. Drinking water and gasoline were in short supply. No one was prepared. Thousands of homes flooded. Seawalls crumbled and backyards got ripped away. I remember seeing cement and fiberglass swimming pools lying in the Intracoastal Waterway in Belleair. That experience made me appreciate high ground and my mom’s well-stocked pantry. In the 2005 hurricane season, we got lucky. Three storms threatened the Tampa Bay area. One devastated Charlotte County to our south. All three slammed into the Panhandle. This season looks like it may be as active as 2005. In this issue of Senior Voice America, we are pleased to offer this Hurricane Preparation Guide for Seniors. The time to prepare is now. Seniors with Special Needs If you have family members or neighbors who have special needs, preparing now is even more important. Having a safe place to go and the resources to get there are the first thing to think about. If your plan includes evacuation, you’ll want to know the exact location of the shelter. If someone in your house has special
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Over Labor Day Weekend in 1985, Hurricane Elena sat to the West of Tampa Bay for more than 24 hours before resuming its original path toward Biloxi. Elena triggered the largest evacuation in history up to that time. The storm had been expected to stay several hundred miles to the West. Tampa Bay residents were not prepared for the flooding and destruction the storm brought. We’re lucky Elena never came ashore. needs, such as medical or mobility issues, you need to pre-register with local emergency management. You can find a list of where to call to register for special needs shelters on Page 11 of this issue of Senior Voice America. If your plan is to go farther inland and stay with friends or family, or in a hotel, be sure they have the resources to help with any special needs. Also, you will want to have your hurricane supplies packed and ready to load in your vehicle. If you are going to travel, you should get on the road as soon as you can — before the bad weather arrives. Once you know where you will stay during a storm (your home, a shelter or out of the area), you’ll need to know what supplies to have on hand and create a plan for communicating. One of the best resources for creating a
plan is the website www.floridadisaster.org, which is published by the State of Florida. Senior Voice America has recommended using this site in years past. If you created a plan there before, you can call it up and update it for 2011. Be sure to confirm all your emergency contacts. If you will have family staying with you at any point during hurricane season, June 1 to Nov. 30, go ahead and add them to the plan — especially infants. It’s easy for your kids to come visit with the grandkids thinking they can get formula and diapers when they arrive. When a storm comes, these supplies may be sold out. Go ahead and get the supplies for them. You can send the leftovers home when they leave. The other great thing about this online
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This special Hurricane issue sponsored by The Princess Martha. See Page 3 for more on this Non-Evacuation Active Adult Living Community downtown.