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When a hurricane is bearing down on your area, if authorities tell you to evacuate, that is what you should do, but plenty of people choose to stay and weather the storm. For those people and anyone else facing a natural disaster, there are some helpful hacks that make survival easier using items you probably already have in your house.
A fire department in North Carolina had some suggestions and posted them on their Facebook page. Among their list of handy hints are: filling your tub with water so you have a supply of H2O in the house to use in toilets and to drink; stocking up on baby wipes to have something to clean with; and putting ice in a washing machine to use as a cooler since you won't have to worry about drainage when it melts.
There are also other tips that most people might not think of, like freezing Ziploc bags that are 3/4ths of the way full with water to keep freezers and coolers colder longer, freezing washcloths before the storm to use to stay cool if the power goes out, and filling thick trash bags a third of the way with water to use in your house in place of sandbags. You can also elevate your furniture on paint cans or buckets if your home has some minor flooding. Trash bags on furniture legs can also help if that happens.
Another ingenious tip is to burn crayons if you don't have candles. Apparently, they can stay lit for up to 30 minutes.
Other suggestions include using mirrors to amplify light, storing important documents in waterproof containers, keeping phones on airplane mode to conserve batteries, not parking under trees and, of course, keeping lots of flashlights handy.
While all the hacks are helpful, the fire department that posted the list made sure to note that the hints are just compiled from Facebook and from the internet so they can't be guaranteed and should only be tried at your own risk.
Stay safe out there.
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