Hurricanes in my garden

For those of us in Hurricanes path, do our unsecured boxes become flying objects in the high winds. If I had to prepare for hurricane, I would bring in my chairs and other things not sercured. But i'm NOT pulling my up garden. Anyone worry about this or I am just paranoid?

Going to start my planing today. It took me about 2 hours to figure out my boxes on paper last night and this morning, it all comes together. I am Soooo excited. I'll need to start posting pictures.

Thanks for all of you sharing your comments, you have really motivated me!

Meh, that would probably be the least of my worries. We live in a manufactured/mobile/trailer home so if there is was a hurricane on the way we would be out of there in a hurry. Luckily for us we live in a pretty good area, hurricanes tend to run up the coast and then head more out to sea when they start getting close to us, must be something in the curve of the coast.

Never really get too much in the way of hurricanes here but then again i also never thought about them until you posted this lol
easy solution though get some rebar bend it into the form of a J and then on all 4 corners of your box pound them in like stakes on a tent to secure it to the ground just a thought

Rebar, that sounds like a good idea. As we were out working today in the beautiful sunshine of Panama City Florida, we were saying, if a hurricanes comes, it's the beautiful and expensive dirt that we would worry about most. Everything is planted, hope it all grows.

Heh. Choksaw, you weren't there in 2004, were you?

been here 13 yrs in pretty much the same area ive only been through 1 hurricane since moveing to florida so to me it was a field day lol i was surprised all the stores were closed but every bar in town was open i guess floridians figure if they are going to go out they might as well party. So i went along with it and we had a BBQ during the hurricane because of all my buddies meat that was going to spoil from loss of power

How'd you manage to not experience Charlie, Floyd, Ivan, and Jeanne that year? Four in 10 weeks was a little much for my taste.

we had alot of wind and rain but only 1 of the hurricanes came near to where im living knocked out power for 2 days but really just windy. Ive been through blizzards in NJ where a state of emergency was in effect for 2 weeks

LaFee wrote:Heh. Choksaw, you weren't there in 2004, were you?

I was... got a tree through my roof.. and that was just the first one (Charlie.)

We couldn't get anyone to fix anything, so we had to suffer through Frances and Jeane with all the damage still. I fared better than my folks, somewhat. They lost all the shingles on the roof.. and had to retarp it three times.

The first storm did most of the physical damage, and all in about the span of 45 minutes. The other two were much slower (48 hour events) dumping inches of rain with strong gusty winds.

I'm not really sure what I'll do if we get a storm this year. I suppose it all depends on where I am at the time. I like the idea of using rebar to secure the boxes.. or you could get hurricane tie-downs (the screw-in kind) and strap across the boxes to secure 'em.

Any other thoughts?

choksaw wrote:we had alot of wind and rain but only 1 of the hurricanes came near to where im living knocked out power for 2 days but really just windy. Ive been through blizzards in NJ where a state of emergency was in effect for 2 weeks

I lived near the center of the criss cross of all three.

We had a pine tree come through the roof from Charlie. Then (forget which storm it was now) one of of the others took all the siding off the S side of the house. Had to replace all the insulation, replace the carpeting on that side - the water seeped down the walls, etc. Not to mention we didn't have power for over a week and it was very hot. But I have lived here my whole life, and that was the worst season I've ever seen. Remember the occasional hurricane growing up, but 2004 was just a crazy year I think. I don't overly worry about things in the yard. Just move anything that could be picked up by the wind easily. If I have potted plants, I move them onto the porch and sort of push everything up against the house. Move chairs, tables, hanging plants, anything like that.

I just remember everybody watching the calendar to get to November 1, and sort of twitching a little every time it got cloudy. We evacuated for Charley (we were in zone B, but across the street from zone A!) because it looked like he was coming straight up the mouth of Tampa Bay...when we locked the door behind us, we just looked at each other and said "sure hope there's something to come home to".

We sat through Frances -- and came over here to France for vaacation and watched the news coverage of Ivan smacking the Panhandle around, then spent an extra day waiting for Jeanne to clear out so we could get home.

We were incredibly fortunate -- just a lot of branches and fronds to clean up in the yard, and replace the ridge vent on the roof (it became a projectile..) -- but boy, I was happy to see that season end.

Yeah ive come to a few conculsions since moveing down here and getting used to hurricanes

1. no matter how hard the wind blows or how stinging the rain gets and even if your in a state of emergency and the town is basicaly closed up every bar in town is open lol
2. Its not "that the wind is blowing its what the wind is blowing" (quote from a famouse comedian forget which though)
3. a fridge full of beer and pantry's full of party stuff does not constitute hurricane supplies
4. dureing a hurricane in an apt you become very good friends with your neighbors real fast

I have been here all my life and have been threw some pretty bad ones like Andrew and Katrina.
If the box is full it will likely not fly away, unless it is elevated then it could get picked up. But if you are getting winds that strong that might be the least of your worries

If you have anything vertical you would need it secured and more than likely all those veggies would get wiped out due to the winds

When I string up all my vertical plants I use individual plant hooks on the top horizontal piece of pipe. A couple of hours before the winds arrive I unhook and lay the plants down. AS soon as the winds pass I hook them back up.

Happy Gardening
Al

I live in Houston area. I was thinking about Hurricanes as well. Do you think putting wheels on the bottom of a 4x4 (12 inches height). Then move into a garage if it happens? what do you think? Good thing we left during IKE and put up all our lawn furniture and etc. I didn't get any damage,but our neighbors did.

Claire (mckr3441) has several boxes on wheels. This is the only one I could find at the moment. She has them in the driveway, and moves them when it's time to get the motor home out.

We had just traveled last year during my son's July vacation week to Nashville, TN to see the town and the Grand Ole Opry. It was closed the day we were there, but stood outside of it and got a picture taken. We went across the street to a very large aquarium in their mall. To think of all of that being flooded now, just boggles our mind.

We originally were going to be in that area to see Loretta Lynn's ranch and the plantation home. There is a sizeable creek on her property, but her home where she lives now, which is right behind the plantation home, is up on a hill so she is probably safe.

I was just thinking of all of you folks who live in these areas and my heart goes out to you. Hope you are safe.