Hurricane season preparations

Hurricane
season here in Florida runs for 6 months of the year - June through
November. It was reported last year that we have probably begun the bad
part of a 30-year cycle of mild seasons vs intense seasons. Well last
year was pretty nasty, with several strong hurricanes hitting Florida.
Many areas that had not seen a hurricane in decades were hammered last
year. The recent prediction from the Florida Division of Emergency Management supports the theory that we in for some heavy storms.

The good news is that the local media have been blasting folks with
reports emphasizing how critical it is to be prepared, and it appears
that many are paying heed to the warnings. We are among them.

So today we went to Lowe's and spent about US$1700 on steel storm panels and mounting hardware. This pic (not our house; the pic is from the manufacturer's site)
shows what a home looks like before and after storm panel installation.
We had toyed with the idea of buying plywood and making storm shutters
using free plans posted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But we decided to follow one of our favorite mottos and "Buy the best
and cry once". The steel panels are much lighter and easier to handle
compared to plywood, we won't have to paint them, it will be very fast
to install the panels when needed (they install with wing nuts and we
have a power driver), and the panels stack in a very small space!

We've purchased panels, tracks (upper and lower mounting tracks),
and mounting hardware to cover the front door and all windows
(including sliding glass doors). The exception is a door leading out of
our "pool bath" (bathroom that leads to the lanai). We plan to coat the
glass of that door with 3M film
(and also plan to use that film on a small semi-circular window above
the front door). That will protect the house from flying objects in a
storm, and still allow us to use the pool bath door and garage doors as
emergency exits.

Our bank account is wounded from this outlay, but we consider it a very sensible one-time expense.