Hurricane Winds

With Tropical Storm Karen behind us and the close of the hurricane season not officially over until November 30^th, we should all take a moment to make sure we are prepared for such a disaster.  

            On the Gulf Coast we are no stranger to hurricanes but we also are probably not prepared for them either.  While checking our hurricane preparedness over the weekend, we noticed that all of our flashlights had burned out batteries.  Arrrggg….off to get more batteries.  We are really bad about that, aren't we?  I guess we could use our phones for a while but once that charge goes out, we wouldn't be able to recharge them easily. We've considered buying a generator for years but haven’t actually done it yet.  That would be a good way to ensure you could at least power your refrigerator to keep the food from spoiling.  Here’s a quick list of must-haves from the National Hurricane Center website, in case a hurricane comes through town.

           

          Also, just a quick reminder on zip code evacuations.  The Harris County Homeland Security and Emergency Management website, contains a map of the evacuation zones by zip code.  The closer you are to the Gulf, the sooner you would need to evacuate in most cases.

          Let’s hope the remainder of Hurricane Season is very quiet and boring, but if another “Ike” decides to come our way, at least we’ll be ready!

Detecting the Smoke

Make sure your smoke alarms are working properly!

Sticking with the Fire Prevention week theme, I thought we could all take a moment this evening to check our smoke alarms and make sure they are in working order.  

       The NFPA website states that two-thirds of fire fatalities were in homes with no working smoke alarms or no smoke alarms at all.  That’s reason enough to make sure our smoke alarms are working properly!  An interesting fact is that hardwired smoke alarms worked more often than battery-powered smoke alarms in fires that where big enough to trigger them, 92% compared to 77%. 

Check out this link pointing out some interesting facts about fire.

       Remember to keep extra batteries around the house for those smoke alarms when they decide to have low battery alarms at midnight!  This happened recently in our household.  We had just settled in bed after an exhausting day; the smoke alarm started that loud, annoying shriek.  Oh what a sound, especially when you just closed your eyes!  I rummaged through our battery drawer and, of course, no 9-V batteries were to be found.  This led my wife to grab the ladder from the garage and force me to “stop that noise!” immediately.  Just as I was detaching the smoke alarm from the ceiling, my 3 year old daughter came wandering out of her room, stumbling and rubbing her eyes.  Great, now the entire family was awake and grumpy!  Since we didn't have any batteries, all I could do was pull the dying battery from the connection and leave the smoke alarm there hanging in non-working order.  Boy that would have been a bad night to have a fire.  I think it took us several days to remember to grab some 9-V batteries from the store.  Reminder to self – always have 9-V batteries in the house!     

       The City of Houston has a great program to assist with the installation of smoke detectors in homes where they are desperately needed.  You may visit their site by clicking: Get Alarmed Houston! HFD Smoke Alarm Program.

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Burning Down the House

Fire Prevention  



The theme this year is “Prevent Kitchen Fires”.  It’s so important to have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen.  Fires can start easily and spread quickly in the kitchen especially with our busy lives and distractions in the home. 

This reminds me of a time I left a boiling pan of eggs on the stove.  I was trying to make a quick snack and started the water and eggs boiling on the stove.  I then ran out to the garage where I had been building a shelf, thinking I would come back inside in 10 minutes and turn off the eggs.  The problem was that I didn't even think about the eggs again.  I became distracted with building the shelf (which was looking quite good to my surprise!) and I ran back inside only to use the restroom.  When I walked into the house, there was billowing smoke everywhere and the horrible stench of charred eggs.  Panic set it and I ran to the kitchen.  Luckily, no fire had started, but the eggs had exploded onto the ceiling and the walls.  What a mess.  I quickly turned off the burner, the pan was not salvageable.  This was one of my wife’s favorite pans and I knew when she walked in, not only would I get “the look” for the stench in the house (how in the world were we going to get that out!) but I had also ruined her favorite pan!  Turns out, it took us about a week to get the smell out of the house and I have yet to replace that pan.  Hmmm….I should get on that.  I’m thankful for how this turned out.  It could have been a far worse event that ended with the loss of our house and possessions. 

After looking through the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) site on Fire Prevention, I learned that unattended items cooking on the stove were the leading cause of kitchen fires.  No more leaving things on the stove without setting a reminder or a timer in this household!

Take a look through the NFPA site: http://www.nfpa.org/safety-information/fire-prevention-week.  You may be surprised what you learn. And go out and grab a Fire Extinguisher, you never know when you’re going to need it!