Jack's Comments On Surviving A Hurricane

Dear:

   Your Saturday newspaper..Hurricane Dorian has my attention. I was born on the island of Galveston. In 1900, 6000 people died one night during a hurricane. I rode out Hurricane Carla in 1961. In 1968, I rode a hurricane one night in a US Navy destroyer in the Caribbean. (In this case the captain was a wonderful man and no one was hurt or killed.) I sent Beatriz a message telling her about my experiences with hurricanes and advising her what to do. I will repeat this for the benefit of Liliana and her family in Florida. Most important, if you get an evacuation order, pack what you can in the cars and "get the hell out of there!" Most deaths happen because people fail to heed evacuation orders. If no evacuation order comes, you will still have a rough ride. I recommend that all vehicles get their fuel tanks full. Have a two-week supply of bottled water and basic food supplies. Have batteries, some flashlights, and a portable radio that operates on batteries. A portable generator would help also. In these storms, animals like alligators and snakes (some very poisonous) are driven out of their normal habitats. You need to be careful about this danger. You also must be alert to looters who come to rob houses in these bad situations. My final piece of advice concerns what is called "the eye of the storm." If it comes right over where you are staying, it's surreal. Everything goes dead quiet and still. You will feel like you are on another planet. Do not relax and get over-confident. Once the eye of the storm passes, all hell breaks loose!