Ernesto has me thinking...

[Nate]

Alright guys we have our hurricane survival kit already...but this hurricane really has me thinking of what I should do in case other hurricanes come alone that will be much stronger. A cat 1 hurricane has me worried, but no so much that i'm ready to get out of here.

What should be done in case power goes out? I am in an apartment, so it's not like i can just hook up a generator and everything is just dandy. It could go out for days, or weeks. Day time temps and humidity are in the 90's down here.

Does anyone in the gulf area, or on the coast... or in Florida have a hurricane plan for your reptiles? Or am I just worrying too much?

[Spaniard]

I don't think you can ever worry too much about planning for something so unexpected as a major hurricane. Wasn't too long ago that there was a post similiar to this. I think it would be wise to have some tubs or something with the supplies needed to house a snake at the ready in case of something major where evacuation is required. A tub, some substrate, water and a bunch of heating packs they use for shipping would buy you some time so that you can get to a safe area and then worry about arrangements to house them for whatever period of time away from home.

[frankykeno]

Nate, I don't think it's a bad thing to ever plan ahead for you and the creatures that depend on you for their wellbeing. We faced power outages unfortunately a lot in northern Michigan in the winter so we had to have instant heat packs always available and plan ahead for the snakes in the case our power went down in the middle of a winter storm (and it did do that a lot).

If I were you I'd figure an emergency plan both for staying in your apt and for having to leave the area suddenly. Things like emergency housing (basic small tubs with holes already melted in, instant heat packs, jugs of clean water, pads of newspaper, water dishes and spare hides, etc. both in the house and in the trunk of your car (sealed in a large clean trash bag).

I would also make sure to have a few of these around in various sizes...cheap as dirt and excellent, safe transports if you have to leave fast. We have a few around that we use all the time to house snakes while we clean or for vet visits, etc. If I ever had to leave in a rush they'd house the snakes safely while I got somewhere safe to set them up again. They come in a variety of sizes from dollar stores, WalMart, etc. and run $2 to $6. This one pictured is the smaller size.



P.S. These also make excellent transports for live rodents coming home from the pet store/live rodent supplier though only melt the holes in the lid for rodent usage.

[Alice]

Nate, I live in Orlando also. If you ever get in a situation where your power is off, just give me a call. My garage can hold a few more ball pythons.


I doubt that I would evacuate since we're in Central Florida (usually lots of rain and wind but no storm surge or flooding where we live) and I can't take my dogs and balls with me. Too many snakes - too many dogs - bunny, beardies, red tails, etc. and few shelters/hotels will accept them. I have been thinking seriously about a hurricane plan though; also what to do in case some fellow breeders along the coast got hit.

It would be nice if we all had a list of fellow breeders that were within driving distance that we were comfortable leaving our snakes with. . .

[stangs13]

I have mine set up to!!!


evac and Stay at home!! Heat and cold packs brother!!! Battery opperated fans

BATTERIES

Flashlights

LIVE MICE AND RATS...lol....


Aspen and rubbermaids!!!!

Your set! Thats for staying at home though.

[python kid]

I hope you guys make it through when the hurricane comes.Those things are so unpredictable.

[jglass38]

Alright guys we have our hurricane survival kit already...but this hurricane really has me thinking of what I should do in case other hurricanes come alone that will be much stronger. A cat 1 hurricane has me worried, but no so much that i'm ready to get out of here.

What should be done in case power goes out? I am in an apartment, so it's not like i can just hook up a generator and everything is just dandy. It could go out for days, or weeks. Day time temps and humidity are in the 90's down here.

Does anyone in the gulf area, or on the coast... or in Florida have a hurricane plan for your reptiles? Or am I just worrying too much?

Nathan,

I lived through multiple hurricanes in Palm Beach County. The last one I was there for knocked out our power for 7 days. The snakes were all fine. I did have a power inverter that hooked up to my truck. It ran a TV, fan, light and all the heat in the snake room. I basically set my alarm so I got up multiple times during the night to start my truck for a half hour and recharge my battery. As long as the snake room temps stay in the mid 80s all will be fine. I also didn't feed them during the outage. Good luck bro!

Jamie

[muddoc]

Nathan,
Last year for Hurricane Katrina, we lost power for 31 days. I tried to run my Helix's with my generator, but they would not work, and kept giving me error messages. My guess is that the power supplied by the generator was not tolerated by the thermostats. However, I kept a close eye on my snake room, and kept a box fan running. The temps in my snake room hung out around 90 degrees for the majority of the month that we had no power. I noticed very little impact to my snakes. Most of them ate fine. However, my rats were not happy with the excessive temperatures. The best I could do was to try to cool the rat room as cold as I could get it before I went sleep every night. My logic was that the rats were most active at night, so I wanted them to be as comfortable as possible during the peak of their activity. I would run the A/C for about 1.5 hours, and drop the room down to about 65 degrees. By the time I woke up, the temps would be in the upper 70's. During the day, the rats would sleep most of the time anyway, and we ran a fan to keep them as cool as possible. Rat production did drop during our power outage, but it did not hurt us to bad. I don't know if this really helped you prepare any for what could help in the same situation, but I just wanted to relay our story of what we did.
Sincerely,

[Nate]

Thanks for the responses. I will for sure pick up some 6qt tubs with lids and keep them at stand by. Luckily, this is my first hurricane to deal with, and I haven't got any snakes *yet*...and chances are it will be a tropical storm by the time it get to us. But still, 50-70 mile per hour winds make me nervous.

I will post up and let everyone know how bad it is...if it is at all.

thanks Tim for the Katrina story. That gives me a little reassurance that things may not be sooooo bad.