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Precautions for a home owner facing a natural disaster
The Miami Herald
Distributed by Tribune Media
Services, INC.
As you are probably aware,
especially if you are one of
those people whose major
appliances are still up in trees,
South Florida recently
experienced a bad hurricane.
So today, as a South Florida
homeowner, I want to review
some of the lessons that I
believe can be useful not only
in hurricanes, but in other
natural disasters such as floods,
earthquakes and children's
birthday parties.
The most important
precaution, for a homeowner
facing a natural disaster, is:
1. SELL YOUR HOUSE
BEFORE THE NATURAL
DISASTER OCCURS.
Trust me, this simple step
will save you a LOT of
trouble. My wife, Beth, and I
are still kicking ourselves for
not doing it. When we heard
that Hurricane Andrew was
headed directly at us, we rushed
around doing things like
putting patio furniture inside,
securing doors, etc. What a
pair of morons. We should
have used that time to sell the
house to somebody, and let
HIM worry about the patio
furniture.
Granted, at that point there
probably was not a large pool
Being a Freshman:
Alicia Hartman
The Collegian
Here we are—COLLEGE.
Away from small hick towns or
the fast lane of the city. Freedom
from high school and the 'rules'
of home. We're living on our
own now-INDEPENDENCE.
So is college everything you
thought it would be? Remember
the day you moved into the
DORM? How about that two
hour workout going up and down
twenty-nine flights of stairs to
get everything up to your room?
(If you had a very BIG room at
home, you probably feel like
you're living in a closet now.)
Then you meet 'the roommate.'
Not only do you have to live in a
closet now, but you have to get
to know that 'other' person. I
hope everything is working out
well and you're getting along.
Living in a dorm is definitely
an experience. I swear, some
people NEVER sleep!
Hopefully, everyone on your
floor has their allotted shower
time down. It's difficult to
maintain a daily cleansing routine
when there are more people
waiting than showers available.
The late night 'bonding' sessions
arc the best. Maybe we should
start them a little earlier though,
so we can get to bed.
Okay. Now that we have all of
of qualified buyers available, so
we might not have gotten
absolute top dollar:
Us: So, do we have a deal
here?
Prospective Buyer: Let me
get this straight. I get your
house, and you get...my BIKE?
Us (driving a hard bargain):
AND your skateboard.
Prospective Buyer: I have to
ask my mom.
If you're foolish enough to
keep your home, you should
definitely:
2. SEARCH THE HOME
FOR WORKING DRUM
SETS AND DESTROY
THEM WITH AN AX.
We weathered the hurricane
in the home of some friends
who are normally sane people,
but who had allowed their 11-
year-old son, Trey, to purchase
a used drum set THE DAY
BEFORE THE HURRICANE.
Here's the thing about drums:
They don’t need electricity.
They are designed to function
perfectly during a natural
disaster. This meant that at 2
a.m., when the power went out
and the night was black and the
wind was shrieking and the eye
was approaching and we were
sitting in the darkness, rigid
with tension, terrified about
what was about to happen,
fearful that the house might
BANG BANG BANG BANG
WHAMMMA WHAMMA
WHAMMA OH MIGOD
our belongings hanging out the
window because we can't find a
place to put them, it's time to
attend ORIEN-TATION
activities. (I hope you all
attended sessions that were
beneficial to you.) Play Fair was
the best. Where else could you
meet people bom on the same
day as you, form a big circle
sitting on each other's knees, and
'back-dance?' It only happens
once a year and can be found at
.•:£ .•fy.-ff' .•&'• Vwv:*' .•»' .*y .❖>* sss.
"Exactly what is the college experience? I think for
some people it's the ability to get up in time to make
their 8:00 a.m. class, without Mom and Dad having to
drag them out of bed."
.w.vXXv.v/.’W'
Erie Hall. A round of hard, hand
slapping applause to our
orientation leaders. (If you
uppcrclass-men wouldn't have
been so excited and clapped so
much, your hands wouldn't have
hurt Sunday morning.) I want a
standing ovation!!
CLASSES-what an ad
venture. I hope I wasn't the only
stupid one who had to carry a
map with her the first week of
The Collegian
WHAT'S HAPPEN -NING?!!?
Ha ha! It was only young
Trey, sensing somehow that
this was a superb time to
practice. So we all had a good
laugh, and there is a strong
chance that some of our hearts
will eventually resume beating.
3. DESTROY YOUR
GARDEN HOSE.
Few people realize how
dangerous a garden hose can be.
I found out while attempt-ing
Dave
Barry
to siphon gasoline into a chain
saw so I could locate our
house, which was somewhere
’The College Experience
classes, because she didn't know
where she was going. Come on,
admit it. I KNOW there're a few
of you out there. I even had to
give you directions! Isn't it hard
to remember if your teachers have
a 'prof or 'doctor' in front of their
name? You don't want to insult
anyone. Heck, I can't even
remember my teachers' last
names.
Has everyone been able to open
their MAILBOXES? The
,w.*y.«■• x-y.w'-wx-yx* l ..;.y .vs .w ..*•
combination is easy to
remember, but I didn't realize you
needed a college degree to open
the box itself. For those of you
who still can't get yours open,
keep practicing; you'll get the
feel of it.
There’s just one last thing I’d
like to comment on. Exactly
what is the 'college experience?'
I think for some people, it's the
ability to get up in time to make
their 8:00 a.m. class, without
Thursday, September 17, 1992
inside a mass of fallen trees
approximately the size of
Cambodia.
We had obtained the chain
saw from these men who
sprang up all over the place,
mushroom-like, immediately
after the storm. They were
selling truckloads of power-ful,
potentially lethal chain saws to
South Florida home-owners
whose experience with
dangerous tools was pretty
much limited to corkscrews. I
watched a TV reporter ask one
of the chain-saw sellers if he
had any Safety Tips for the
viewing audience. The man
thought for a second, then said,
quote: "Chain saw don’t know
the difference between a LAIG
andaLAWG.”
Bearing that Safety Tip in
mind, I unpacked my new
chain saw and determined,
using mechanical aptitude, that
you had to put gasoline in it. I
decided to siphon some out of
my wife's car. My wife's car is
her pride and joy, and it spent
the hurricane inside the garage;
a tree landed on the garage, but
the car was undamaged. So I
cut off a length of garden hose,
and I stuck it down the car's
gas pipe, and I bet this
NEVER happens to criminals -
-it got stuck in there. When I
tried to pull it back out, it
broke. Which meant there was
four feet of alien garden hose
somewhere deep inside my
wife's car. And you just
Mom and Dad having to drag
them out of bed. Is the 'college
experience’ the social life? Some
people associate college with
education and some people
associate college with parties.
Interesting. Is the experience
living on our own? Literally, we
are living on our own without
parental guid-ance. Technically,
however, we are living by
ourselves, supported by our
parents' money. Isn't being
'independent' easy? The day we
are 'independent' we won't need
Mom and Dad's money. I don't
know about you, but I on the
other hand, don't foresee
independence in my future for at
least a good four or five years. If
anyone finds the 'college
experience,' please let me know
where I can make an.
appointment.
That's die scoopancoUege life
from the peiSpective of a college
KNOW the mechanic is going
to tell me that the only way to
fix it is to replace the engine,
perhaps several times.
This is why you need Nation
Guard troops in disaster areas.
I needed a National Guard troop
to come into my garage right
then and shoot me in the head.
That would have spared me
from having to go into the
house to tell my wife that on
this day - a day when our trees
had been knocked down and our
roof damaged and our other car
bashed up by roof tiles and our
entire neighborhood strewn
with debris and our roads
blocked and our power knocked
out for what looked like several
weeks- that on this day, the
first thing I had done, the first
step on the long road to
recovery, was to screw up her
car.
When 1 explain this to the
mechanic, he'd better not laugh
at me. I'm going to have the
chain saw running by then.
XXX
I want to stress that my
family and I are fine. But a lot
of people in South Florida
aren't. If you want to do
something, please send a check
to the National Disaster Relief
Fund. You can mail it to your
local Red Cross Chapter, or
P.O. Box 37243, Washington,
D.C. 20013. Or call (800)
842-2200 and put it on your
credit card. People down her
really need you help. I'm not
making this up.
freshman. Reported on location
from Penn State-Behrend, "the
small college with the BIG
degree.” Sorry, I couldn't help it.
Alicia Hartman is a first
semester communications major.
Her column appears every other
week in The Collegian.
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