Hurricane season has just started and it is never to early to start preparing! Hurricanes can spawn tornadoes, landslides and floods, so if you're in a hurricane's path, you should take extra precautions to ensure a safe evacuation and return to the area.
Being prepared can help you escape the hurricane's trail of destruction.
Progressive Insurance offers these great tips to protect yourself and your car during a hurricane:
Be Prepared
Leave the area and leave early.
Use a hurricane planning guide/map or listen to the radio to identify your evacuation route.
Take important documents with you.
Place your auto/home insurance documents, vehicle registration, title and other important documents in a waterproof bag and keep them with you.
Bring supplies.
Fill your vehicle with gasoline as soon as possible to avoid the long lines.
Drive Safely
Fill up on fuel.
Bring along a flashlight and extra batteries, a first-aid kit, cash and credit cards and snacks and other food. Remember: You could end up spending a day or more in your car.
Beware of live wires.
Do not, under any circumstance, drive over a downed electrical line.
Avoid flooded streets.
Do not travel down a road submerged in water. Underlying currents could carry your vehicle away and your car could stall, trapping you in rising floodwaters. Don't overlook deep water dangers during hurricanes. Dirty water and sediment flow in with sudden coastal and inland flooding, and if you try to drive through deep water, you're not only risking your personal safety, but you could damage your car's inside — seats, electrical components, carpeting, etc.
Notable statistic: More than half of all hurricane deaths in the last 30 years resulted from inland flooding, reports the National Hurricane Center. Of those deaths, one in four people drowned in a car.
What You Can Do to Ensure Driving Safety
- If you are evacuating and leaving a vehicle behind, be sure it is not left in a low-lying area prone to flooding. Rising water can seep in and cause damage.
- When you're evacuating or returning following a storm, watch for standing water in parking lots or on streets.
- NEVER drive in standing water. Find an alternate route.
- If you encounter a situation where you have no other reasonable alternative than to drive in standing water, first try to determine how deep it is by watching other vehicles that drive through it. Know that the threat of the roadway collapsing under water is real and that, depending upon the vehicle you drive, as little as a foot of water can cause your car to float and be carried away.
- Drive slowly and steadily through the water.
- If your vehicle stalls in the deep water and you attempt to restart it, you may cause irreparable damage to the engine. However, you may need to re-start the car if this is the only way you can make it to safety.
- If you and your vehicle become trapped in rising water, immediately abandon it for higher ground. If you are unable to get out of the vehicle safely, start the vehicle and drive it out. If the vehicle will not start, call 911.
- Once you and your vehicle are out of deep water and are in a safe area, depress your brakes slowly several times to help dry them out.
Insure with us today, Be sure of tomorrow!