Every time a storm swirls up in the Atlantic, the Food Lion near us loses its bottled water within about six hours. I have stood in that aisle in late August looking at bare metal shelves, a single dented case of sparkling water left behind, and felt my pulse speed up for no good reason. We are more than a hundred miles from the coast. What a hurricane usually brings to Orangeburg is a day of heavy rain, a night of wind in the pecan trees, and a power outage that lasts anywhere from two hours to three days. That is worth preparing for. It is not worth fighting a stranger over a flat of water.
So a few years ago Ben and I decided to stop doing hurricane prep in a hurry. We do it slowly, mostly in June and July, a little at a time, and by late August, when the season usually picks up, there is nothing left to grab.
The kit, built a few dollars at a time
Our storm supplies live in two plastic bins on a shelf in the shed. Instead of buying everything at once, I add one or two items to the grocery cart each week from early summer on. It barely registers on the budget that way.
| Item | What we keep | Rough cost |
|---|---|---|
| Water | Three cases, rotated into daily use each winter | $15 |
| Light | Two LED lanterns, a headlamp each, spare batteries | $40 (bought over two summers) |
| Power | Two charged power banks, a car charger | $35 |
| Food | Peanut butter, crackers, canned beans, tuna, fruit cups, shelf milk | $30 |
| Cooking | The camp stove we already owned, one spare fuel canister | $6 |
| Pepper | A week of dog food in a sealed bin, her meds | $20 |
| Comfort | A deck of cards, two new coloring books for Lila, a battery radio | $15 |
None of it is fancy. The radio is the one my grandmother kept on her kitchen windowsill. The coloring books stay sealed until the lights go out, which makes an outage feel almost like a treat to a seven-year-old.
Chores that matter more than supplies
The kit is the easy part. What actually protects the house is less exciting.
- The pecan trees. Two big old trees and a 1958 roof is a combination that keeps me humble. Every spring Ben walks the yard looking for dead limbs hanging over the house or the carport. This year we paid a tree crew to take down one cracked limb over Lila's bedroom. It cost less than a roof repair would.
- Gutters and the downspout by the porch. Cleared in July, checked again before any named storm.
- Loose things. Porch chairs, the grill, the trash cans, Lila's bike. We have a list taped inside the shed door so nobody has to think about it at ten at night.
- The freezer. I keep a few frozen jugs of water in there all season. They hold the cold longer during an outage and become drinking water as they thaw.
- Photos of every room. Once a year I walk through the house filming slowly with my phone, opening closets and the shed. It takes ten minutes.
Reading the paperwork while the sky is blue
Last fall our homeowners premium jumped at renewal, and while shopping around I read our policy properly for the first time. Two things stuck with me. First, our wind and hail deductible is not a flat number; it is 2% of the dwelling coverage, which is a much bigger check to write than the regular deductible. I wrote the actual dollar figure on an index card and taped it inside the kitchen cabinet with our emergency cash so it would stop being an abstraction.
Second, standard homeowners coverage does not cover flooding. We are not in a high-risk flood zone, but heavy rain from a slow storm can still pool in low spots, and our lot is not perfectly level. In June we added a separate flood policy for about $480 a year. I am not saying that is the right call for anyone else; it was the right call for how I sleep. What I would say is that June is a much better month than September to figure out what your own policy says, since new flood policies often have a waiting period before they kick in.
When a storm is actually coming
Because the bins are already full, the day before a storm is calm at our house. I run the dishwasher and laundry, fill the bathtub for flushing water, charge every device, and freeze a few more water jugs. Ben brings in the porch furniture. We make a big pot of something that tastes fine cold. Then we wait, and mostly we are lucky.
Last time the power went out at dinner and came back at breakfast. Lila colored by lantern light, Pepper slept through the wind, and Ben and I played cards at the kitchen table until the batteries in the radio started to fade. That is the outcome I prepare for: a strange, quiet evening that feels more like camping than a crisis.
