Save them all.

Why not board up the other window? Find some sheet metal or wood and board it up. Put the computer stuff in a wooden or sealed steel box? And the important stuff in a safe?
Or just pack it all up in car and take it too a hotel on higher ground more inland?

P.S. Never buy a home in a flood plain, below sea level or under a damn.

You should probably be sealing them against water somehow. Shrink wrap maybe. It won't help if the roof comes down but will protect against short term water exposure.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Why not board up the other window?

Cannot, because I do not have the right tools. I might block it from inside though.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Find some sheet metal or wood and board it up. Put the computer stuff in a wooden or sealed steel box? And the important stuff in a safe?
Or just pack it all up in car and take it too a hotel on higher ground more inland?

Not possible. All hotels are booked in a radius of 500 miles around here. I tried Alabama, Mississippi, north Florida, Georgia... Plus I would need a large truck for them.

Jade Falcon wrote:

P.S. Never buy a home in a flood plain, below sea level or under a damn.

I am not in a flood plain, but when it comes to Irma, I am not sure that matters. Luckly we should only get about 15-20" of rain, which should be manageable. The 100mph+ winds is what worries me.

1. Get stuff to board up that window - now. If the window blows out and you have stuff in that room all bets are off.

I've been through a hurricane in Pensacola FL, Ivan in 2004, and it was no joke. We had palm trees through the 2nd story windows in some of the buildings.
Water came up through the floors. Took weeks for it to all dry out.
A/C units blew off the roofs and chunks of cement smashed some vehicles.
No power or water for over a week.

2. Looks to me like you should be able to rearrange stuff and move a lot of stuff up to higher shelves.
What about moving some of it to other high up places in other parts of the house? Maybe tables, counters, other shelving, on top of the refrigerator?

Edit: Ivan only hit land at category 3 status. Irma is expected to hit at category 5.

There will be tornados.

All you need is ether the wood or sheet metal and a drill or hammer. Maybe a ladder?
Asked around im sure you can get the tools, its the wood and sheet metal that your have a hard time finding.

Where do you live?

I'm right on the coast in NC so it looks like we wont be getting anything, but we're "seasoned hurricane veterans" around here. I suggest you just get heavy duty contractor clean-up bags and pull them right over your computers, keep them out of any basement or water prone areas. You can even cover the INSIDE of windows with them just in case one breaks, the glass wont go flying. We don't bother boarding windows for a category 2 here, it's a totally different story for folks living just a mile away on the banks of the river or right on the beach, they evacuate. Irma is a category 5 right now though I believe, so I'm guessing you're way up north.

You'll be fine, millions of us go through this every year believe it or not. Just don't be that guy that leaves crap like tents standing in your back yard that end up in your neighbors bathroom the next morning 😎

If all else start wrapping everything in plastic and hope for the best, storms like this don't scare me all that much but one thing that certainly does is wildfires. Over 6 million people evacuated so naturally every hotel and hole in the wall crap hole motel is booked. The wind damage is going to be epic, people were already crapping bricks last week when the early forecast models were showing insane wind speeds and briefly the storm did reach cat 6 (yes the scale does go over 5).

Yay! Everything survived, no flooding or other damage in the house. This is only my second hurricane after Matthew last year, and Matthew was nowhere near as strong as Irma over my house.

Thank you all for the good advice! Shows the community cares.

Glad to hear it 😁

Glad to hear the good news.

Glad to hear you're safe

vladstamate wrote:

Yay! Everything survived, no flooding or other damage in the house. This is only my second hurricane after Matthew last year, and Matthew was nowhere near as strong as Irma over my house.

Thank you all for the good advice! Shows the community cares.

Glad to hear that.