The hurricane season is always a difficult time of the year. Being aptly prepared goes a long way in ensuring that you and your family get through a hurricane safely. Hurricane preparedness involves a checklist of many items such as having enough food, medical kits and a solid evacuation plan. This article focuses on how you can keep your electrical appliances safe and maximize their utility while also observing your personal safety.
Get a surge protector. Hurricanes are likely to damage electrical power lines and affect the quality of electricity distribution. Therefore, you should ensure that your valuable electrical appliances are safe by shielding them with a surge protector.
Turn off major appliances. Damaged power lines might cause your house to experience irregular power supply. This fluctuating power could harm your electrical appliances, especially the motorized ones, such as ceiling fans. Therefore, it’s best to unplug and switch off all the main electrical appliances that you might want to preserve.
Pre-cool your house. It’s likely that you are going to have to shut down your air conditioning to protect it from damage. Worse, you might experience a prolonged power outage. To prepare for such an occurrence, you should adjust the thermostat down a few degrees before you are forced to stop using the air conditioner. This ensures that your house is cooler than usual. If it’s well-insulated, your cooler house will take longer to heat up.
Check your circuit breaker in case of a power outage. In the case that you lose power, before calling the power company, you should ensure that the fault is not in your house. Check and see if your neighbors still have power. Also, check if you have tripped a circuit breaker. Be sure to turn off any electrical appliances before you reset the circuit breaker so that you protect the appliances in case there is a serious problem with the wiring — such as a short circuit.
Call an electrician in the event of flooding. If your house experienced flooding as a result of the hurricane, you should contact a qualified electrician to inspect your electrical system before turning the power back on. This is because you might have a short circuit in your system due to the water. You should also have any appliances that might have had contact with water checked for any damage before plugging them back in.
Keep a flashlight and battery-powered radio in your house. In the case of a power outage, it might take days for the power company to fix the many faults caused by the storm. Having a flashlight ensures that you have light, and the battery-powered radio keeps you informed. A radio is better than your phone since its charge is more durable. Also, ensure that you have extra batteries in the house.
