Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton have done quite the damage this year. As a student in Tallahassee with family in Sarasota and Tampa, this hurricane season has felt never-ending.
Hurricane season can feel somewhat lonely without your family, especially when you’re away for college. Suddenly, we’re fresh adults who have to prepare for a natural disaster miles away from our families, and it feels like a reality check of “Welcome to the real world!” With all these challenges, here are some ways I survived hurricane season this year:
- Staying up to date on the news
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Social media is a great way to start if you want to be informed, but it shouldn’t be your only source of information during a hurricane. Let’s just say college students and X users might not always be the most reliable.
I keep up with FSU’s alerts, the Weather Channel, and local news. I don’t have cable, so finding a local weather channel was difficult, but luckily, YouTube has many news channels that stream live for free. You just have to know where to look! If you don’t have time to watch a report, there are live updates written out, as well.
- Evacuating
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I love my family, but leaving Tallahassee during Helene and going back home was my last option, especially since I don’t have a car. This is why I didn’t pack and truly was expecting to ride out Helene in my second-floor apartment.
Then, FSU canceled classes and opened the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center as a shelter for students. With each alert, I realized I didn’t want to be alone if the power eventually went out in my apartment. So, on Tuesday, right before my class, I bought a Greyhound bus ticket back home for that night.
- Charging all my electronics
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When colleges cancel classes, that doesn’t mean your homework gets canceled, too. Professors are often lenient, but I still ended up a week behind because the stress of the hurricane made me forget about important assignments.
So, I made sure that my iPad, my laptop, and my headphones were all charged because I know that being a student never ends. Before the power went out, I made sure to (kind of) do my schoolwork because who knows when it’ll be back on. I was still behind on some of my work, but it could’ve been much worse if I had forgotten to charge everything.
- Packing C-tier clothing
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The bus left at 6 p.m., and my class ended at 4:20 p.m. This meant I had an hour and a half to commute back home, stop at Target for clothing essentials, eat dinner, and pack. I packed in less than 30 minutes and somehow made it on the packed bus.
Because I packed so quickly, I didn’t have my A-tier clothing. A-tier clothing consists of items like the dress you know you look good in or your everyday jeans that fit you just right. All those clothes were in the laundry basket, and I hated packing dirty clothes. So, I only brought my C-tier clothing, which included my shorts that technically fit but not quite, or the shirt that’s been sitting at the bottom of my drawer for weeks. I somehow even forgot to pack a single bra.
It’s not always possible to bring your best clothing during emergencies like this. The important thing is that I was able to evacuate on time!
- Staying in contact with my family
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This was more for Hurricane Milton than Helene, but during hurricane season, it’s important to keep in contact with your family as much as you can, especially if they live in any part of Florida or the surrounding states.
During Milton, my family lost power and couldn’t contact me as much. Since they didn’t have power, they also couldn’t see the important information the city was providing. This meant I was texting my mom constantly about sandbag locations, boil water notices, and road closures because she couldn’t access this information.
During Helene, I was always contacting my family and discussing how to best be prepared and when to evacuate. My family is one of the biggest reasons I survived hurricane season.
These tips helped me manage to get through Milton and Helene rather than just focusing on all the destruction it’s caused for our beautiful sunshine state. These two hurricanes have shown me how important it is to be prepared for absolutely anything to happen during hurricane season in Florida!
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