How to prepare for natural disasters like Hurricane Irma

Photo from NASA

Six days before Hurricane Irma it, everyone in the state of Florida went into motion.

Stores everywhere sold out of plywood, Tapcons, generators, water, and canned food. Florida entered a gas shortage as ships that normally brought fuel to the Port of Tampa were delayed due to Hurricane Harvey just a few weeks before.

I’m located in the Tampa Bay in an area that normally floods during heavy rain, so the news of hurricane headed straight this way was no joke. Nervous that I’d lose all my adult worldly possessions due to flooding or the roof ripping off, I did what I could and lifted things off the ground, secured them in my closet, and prayed.

A day before the storm hit, I finished packing and evacuated my house, along with my cat, wondering if I’d come back to it the same way I left it or in pieces.

 

In two suitcases, I had packed only the essentials:

• 10 days worth of clothes
• 1 pair of shoes
• water
• gin & tonic (let’s be honest, it was medicinal at this point)
• my pillow
• my blanket (for comfort)
• a flashlight
• my laptop
• my camera
• 5 of my favorite kids books
• my medicinal seed pack (with turmeric, black cumin seed, & ajowan,
• Sophie (my cat)
• cat food
• a week’s worth of boxed soup and lentils
• and PrimalOil

 

Why PrimalOil?

First of all, PrimalOil is my favorite cold-application oil, hand’s down. It’s more flavorful than olive oil, and I feel good after eating it. Literally, my body feels happy. I don’t know how to explain that if you’ve never been really really sick before and then known the difference to feel really really healthy.

Well, I’ve been chronically sick in the past, and so whenever my body feels really good, it makes me very happy. PrimalOil gives me the happy’s, and with a hurricane barreling down on us bringing lots of low pressure and stress, I wanted all the happy’s I could get.

Second of all, I’ve found that PrimalOil is good on pretty much anything, and since it’s cold-application, it’s still good when you don’t have the ability to heat and cook food.

On Sunday night, made landfall as a Cat 4 in southwestern Florida and raged through the state and on into Georgia. By the end of the storm, around 6.7 million homes and businesses were without power.

My neighborhood went without power for 8 days, and in the Florida heat, that’s brutal. Some neighbors had generators and shared power to save freezers and run window AC boxes. Other people suffered in the nearly 100% humidity and 90˚F-100˚F heat.

And the stink. One thing you’ll never be able to imagine from the pictures of the aftermath is the hot, musty stink of rotting food and soggy trash being pulled out of flooded homes, and the sweaty, pungent stink of unwashed constantly sweating grumpy people.

In the days following the storm, I had to get creative with cooking. One of my friends had a butane cook stove. We made rice and heated up palak paneer out of one of those pouches. I added a drizzle of PrimalOil. #liquidgold

We had lettuce and raw veggies that needed to be eaten before they went bad, and PrimalOil made the perfect salad dressing.

On Wednesday, with a different friend, I made a pasta salad with spiral noodles, spinach, grape tomatoes, canned olives, sun-dried tomatoes, cucumber, and feta cheese. The recipe called for olive oil, but I subbed in the PrimalOil instead, and Oh LORDY was it good!

In a disaster situation, having a food like PrimalOil is a good idea because:

• It can be used to add flavor and nutrition.
• It is cold-application, so it doesn’t require or need heat to be used.
• It provides antioxidants, essential Omega-9’s and Omega-3’s, as well as healthy fats.
• It does not require refrigeration.
• It’s a a great pick-me-up (what with all the polyphenols and all).

Today is the 3rd day I’ve had power back since Hurricane Irma, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more thankful to have air conditioning. More than that, I’m thankful my house didn’t flood or have any major damage. The last two weeks have been rough, and hey—not to sound like a broken record—but I’m glad I packed the PrimalOil.