The Three P’s: Planning, Preparing and … Panic!

Winter still seems far away…but it’s not so far away that you can’t start planning for one of the big storms we’ve had.   In the few years we’ve lived on Beach Drive, we’ve been pummeled 3 times with waves, salt and wind. 

We’ve had some very nice neighbors who have offered to help “bail us out” and we’ve had other neighbors who were not well prepared and wanted to borrow our pumps (ummm….we were kind of using them).

Here is a quick list, if you live on the “water side” of things you may want to consider picking up before we’re in “storm season” and they’re sold out.   (We have Honda’s for our generator and pumps).

• Generators 
• Pumps (we have two and it so far that’s paid off because it seems like every time one has decided to quit on us). UPDATE: Aurora Rents is open on Sundays and have pumps available to rent should you flood like we do!
• Gas for generators and pumps
• Big Thermos full of coffee (maybe Spanish Coffee)
• Tide Charts to read along with the upcoming Puget Sound marine forecast (links on the right column of BDB under “Swell Links”).
• Tall rubber boots
• Neoprene gloves

You can always try renting pumps and generators.   It use to be more convenient when the rental place was located on Fauntleroy instead of SODO and the storm needs to hit when the rental place is open for biz. (See note above regarding Aurora Rents).

We have a neighbor friend who keeps a “crash kit” of warm clothing ready for when it’s time to go battle the wind and waves. 

This is just a few ideas in the event of a storm with high tides.    What to do if we’re out of power for 5 plus days in the winter is enough for another post at a later date.

UPDATE: Since writing this post, you can connect with Beach Drive Blog with Twitter @BeachDriveBlog or Facebook fb.com/beachdriveblog using your cell phones should we lose power.