Hurricane Survival Techniques

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Hurricane Michael

Well, we’re back !

As most of you know by now, Hurricane Michael severely affected the area where we live & work. And if any of you have tried to contact Sew Tec , you’d know that we have been without power, water, phone, or internet for the last 11 days. Our house & shop were minimally affected , but the areas all around us were in some cases almost totally destroyed.

I’m posting a couple of photos on our blog to show a little of our experience dealing with the aftermath of this storm – I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and hope to never have to experience this again.

It will likely be a couple of more days before we’re completely up and running , as we have to re-organize the shop, contact individual customers, etc, etc.

We appreciate everyone’s patience during our down time.

Cooking Breakfast on our "storm kitchen" - we rigged an awning over the deck , and cooked and ate outside, as the house was just too dark & HOT. Luckily, we're life long campers and have lots of "stuff" to deal with off grid living.
Our al fresco dining area, and Tom's morning study. Note the old battery radio that was our only window on the world .
What he was studying, and you'll see the reason for it, a couple of photos along.
Evening entertainment - Scrabble, by lantern light.
The real object of Tom's study - our old Coleman generator. Sadly, it was only big enough to run our refrigerator and freezer, along with a couple of aquarium pumps. The generator is old, and we had to do a running repair on it when the recoil starter broke. But, it got us through and we became greatly attached to it.
Water - this was really the biggest problem. Since our generator was too small to power our well pump, water became a real issue. We were able to drive 1 1/2 hours north of us, into Alabama, to get gas and bottled water to drink. But we still needed water to flush the toilet, and for washing. SO, once our rain water was gone, we loaded up our two pickle barrels on our trailer, and drove to a day use state park, in Ponce de Leon, Fl, where the ranger kindly let us fill up our barrels from the bath house tap. Tom rigged up an aquarium pump with a garden hose & sprinkler head, so after a hot day cleaning up the yard from the hurricane debris, we were able to take minimal showers by pumping water from our pickle barrels - as long as the generator was running. One has to be resourceful to survive these things 🙂