Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hello everyone. Welcome to the Hunker Down Guide show and I'm your host, Jamie Robe and I'll be your guide today.
[00:00:10] I'm excited because as I've already gone over a couple of the lessons from our new course on the website. The course is Hurricane Plan 101 and in that one, in this course we're answering the big question to stay or get away.
[00:00:27] And in today's episode we are going to go down to this second lesson on the section about hurricane evacuation zone. So we'd already gone over what is a hurricane evacuation zone in some detail and now we're going to look at is your home specifically in a hurricane evac zone.
[00:00:51] So this is also in the step one chapter page six to nine in my book Day Before Disaster. So if you like to look at a book or have that as a reference, it's really useful and of course it's on this website, hunkerdownguide.com so I invite you to follow along with the video that follows here.
[00:01:14] It's it is the video version of this lesson and you will also be able to see this on the website.
[00:01:22] So with that we'll start the lesson.
[00:01:28] This lesson helps answer the question is your home in a hurricane evacuation zone?
[00:01:35] Now that we understand what an evacuation zone is and why it's so important, we're going to run through some of the ways that you can easily find out your zone if you if you are in a zone. So remember they are usually go from like a letter like zone A, B, C and so on.
[00:01:56] And zone A is usually the most likely to be evacuated first and then they may not evacuate all the zones in a storm. It all depends on the size and intensity of the storm and other factors.
[00:02:11] So we are going to jump over to the lesson website and remember, if you're following along in the book, it's page six through nine.
[00:02:22] So the first thing I would do is to go make sure you've downloaded the worksheet. If you just click on the worksheet you can see there's download at the bottom and you can Another thing you can do on these lessons is to click on complete the lesson and it'll jump you to the next one. So we already did this one yesterday. So we're going to jump to the new lesson. Is your home in a hurricane evacuation zone?
[00:02:47] And in this one I have laid out the step by steps. So some of you may have just moved to a new area.
[00:02:55] You may not even know what county you are in. Let's say you Were you moved into an area to do a job or change jobs?
[00:03:05] Maybe you've retired in an area that you're not familiar with. And so we're going to go through from the beginning every step. But, but some of you may have actually lived in your home for years or decades. But you know what, it's a good idea to revisit this periodically because they update the zones. In fact, this, the, all the zones I think in Florida got reevaluated or at least in the Tampa Bay area for sure.
[00:03:33] So you need to look at this.
[00:03:35] You know, I would say yearly, just double check.
[00:03:38] So the first thing we're going to do is let's figure out what county that we're in.
[00:03:44] So I'm going to click on this link and there's a tool called ultimaps and it actually will tell you what county you're in. Now one of the tricks to this is to type in us and then put in your zip code so 33602 as an example. And we just do a search and it is telling us that we are in Hillsborough county. And it even gives you a little map so you can see we're double check that it's correct.
[00:04:22] And remember, zip codes are postal delivery zones.
[00:04:27] So sometimes they might span, I don't know if they, if they do span county lines. But you know, if you're near the boundary or you can double check that more accurate address up here. But with your zip code, generally you can figure out where you are exactly in what county you're in.
[00:04:47] So that's number one step. So on the worksheet that we have, you know, you can put in here that what county you're in and, and we'll keep going.
[00:05:01] So the next thing to do is we want to have some sort of map or tool that will tell us. Now sometimes you get an insert in the newspaper when there's a hurricane coming or maybe at the beginning of the season, they do it. Sometimes the tv weather or news will sponsor those.
[00:05:22] Usually they're around in a community.
[00:05:26] Now that requires that you're good at looking at a map and that you can find, you know, there's enough detail to find where your home is because some of these are larger scale in Hillsborough County. Remember we looked at, you know, that as an example and that is actually a very, we're a thousand square mile county. So not to dwell just on Hillsborough, but this is an example of what one of those looks like. So trying to find exactly where your house is on something like this be a little trickier.
[00:06:00] So since we want to, you know, really nail this one down, the thing to do is to find your local zone lookup tool. Now these areas are pretty much, they go state by state and then it's down to the county level.
[00:06:22] That's where the emergency management offices are.
[00:06:25] So on this lesson if you scroll down you'll see I've got Gulf coast states, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, South Atlantic states, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and then your Mid Atlantic and northeast states like Connecticut and so on. Virginia and then even down here in Hawaii.
[00:06:48] So you can click on these.
[00:06:50] We'll, we'll start with the example. I've got links here to both the emergency management state level things and you could, there's lots of good information on these sites.
[00:07:05] Can also there's a, on this particular one, Florida has a know your zone link itself.
[00:07:12] So if we go to this and we can click. It has some instructions but you basically click on know your zone map and this will load up a interactive map maybe there's a lot of people looking at it right now.
[00:07:30] There we go. All right. So these are like online GIS mapping things. And you can see it starts out, maybe it comes from fema, I'm not sure. But this goes down. Yes, it's actually got all the different counties in Florida specifically and we can zoom in and see, you know, this whole area and those areas in red that you see on, on your screen are zone A's. So you can see it's quite a lot and then the colors fade out as, as they go further out. But luckily there is a tool here where we can do a search. So at the top on this one I'm just going to put in a random address.
[00:08:12] So, So I'm just pretending this is my, my house and if I click that address the map zooms in, puts a star and it's over here on this left side. Let's see if I can zoom a little bit closer. Yeah, there's the thing and it's actually telling us we are right above my head there it says your evacuation zone is A and it even says current evacuation status. I guess during a storm they may update this with the latest evacuation orders. That's really cool too. But on this map if we zoom in we can just scroll with the mouse and we can actually zoom in and see that, you know, why is this area zone A? Because there's actually a river right here and so the houses that are adjacent or close in low lying areas close to that river itself are in zone A.
[00:09:13] So you can see that even a difference between a block or a few hundred feet or something can make a big difference in where you're at because the people there's zone A, B, C and these people I think are in D. So it is very, you know, precise on what they're doing because they're looking at the elevations and, and all sorts of other factors. But this is an example where a home site many, many miles from the bay itself are actually in zone A. And you can see these zones the further out you go.
[00:09:56] You know, if you got, if you were in one of these areas that wasn't a zone, then you don't have to worry about storm surge at all. But remember, zone A isn't, is the most likely to be evacuated first if there's a threat that warrants it.
[00:10:11] So that's kind of cool there.
[00:10:13] So let's go back and let's just pick another state at random here. So South Carolina, also a coastal state with a lot of low lying areas and they have a really nice website here. I'm going to jump back. So it's larger and the, over here on the left, zone finder. So that's what they call their, their system and it's all on this page. And look, there's a, a map down here and I'll scroll it up and we can actually put an address in there. So let's just put a, a random address and it.
[00:11:00] Is bringing up a thing and it zooms over and it says this address is in zone A. So again it even tells you the county and it, you know, it, it is a very good thing to be able to look these things up on a map. Again these maps are interactive so you could click around, you know, and, and explore. So in this one again the red ones are zone A and then we have yellow is zone B.
[00:11:29] And in this, I guess South Carolina, they have three, looks like they have three levels at least in this area.
[00:11:38] So that's a very easy and useful tool. And, and they essentially all have these types of things. So again, if you have to, you could use a map that you get from your local newspaper or, or maybe the weather station and you could contact, you can always contact your authorities in your local county. You know, call them up and tell them where you live and ask them about what zone that you're in.
[00:12:08] You can look these things up under emergency management agency or emergency management office at the state level and at the county level. And so that's just, you know, some of the things that we can use to find our zone.
[00:12:29] And again, I have all the links here, so you can use those.
[00:12:35] The other thing is record this on your, you know, you're on your worksheet. And because the way that this worksheet works in this logic is we're looking at all these different factors. So this is the first one. If you're in a zone that you know, then you know that you might have to deal with evacuation. So if you find yourself, if you are watching this lesson or reading the book and it's, you're doing long range planning for hurricanes, great, excellent, you're doing great. You have time to make your plan A, which would have to be that you potentially need to evacuate if the order is given.
[00:13:18] And then your plan B would be to shelter in place because let's say a tropical storm or hurricane was coming near your area, but it, but the officials determine that there wasn't the storm surge threat, then you may not have to evacuate. But the other thing is you have to be ready. So if you're not in a hurricane evacuation zone, you write that down on your worksheet and then we'll go on to the next lesson and the next step in this process.
[00:13:49] But the other thing to keep track of too is you need to monitor the status of the evacuations in your area. So if you're watching this lesson and there's a storm potentially breathing down your neck, then you want to keep in the loop.
[00:14:08] You can look at the National Hurricane center and, but you can the main thing is to listen to your local radio stations and news stations and find out from the authorities if they have created, you know, that they're announced that they're going to do evacuations and with that, we're going to go on to the next step.
