What do people in Puerto Rico do when a hurricane is coming?

Question

I'm just curious because I just went there for vacation and the fact that the island is so small compared to the rest of the United States made me a little clausterphobic. I wouldn't know where to go in a hurricane. Is the inland "safer" or less severely hit in a hurricane because of the mountain?

Answer 1

they have bunkers in land

Answer 2

Because the houses are built of cement (the majority), they withstand more, than the ones from the US.  What we do at our house is board up the windows, buy candles, buy canned food, first aid kit, little gas stove and invite the neighbors to play dominoes or hang out lol : D When the hurricane is weak we just sit it out, no worries

Answer 3

There is no safe place...& its a good thing that you worry because most puertorricans dont. They wait until the hurricane is right around the corner to go buy a couple of stuff and then go home...some even go out to other family members houses in the middle of the hurricane. But yeah, there is no safe place but the safer is the city. I lived there myself and i found it safe!

Answer 4

Most of the houses and buildings are constructed to face hurracaine winds.  We just protect glass windows and other weak points like that specially for flying objects like tree branches.

You must get bottled water and food that do not require cooking for three days in the case of electrical power goes down and then potable water service also go down due to power failures.

Some areas are prone to flood. In those cases the goverment will alert population to get out of those areas and come to temporary public shelters that the goverment setup in schools and other buildings.

If you come here on vacation and a hurracaine shows up, stay at your hotel and follow instructions given at the front desk.

Answer 5

Actually, in PR when a hurricane comes the whole island feels it completely cuz as you said PR is very small in fact the whole island is 100 miles by 35 miles so u can imagine how do we feel when an hurricane comes.  However, we have  excellent builders who makes our homes(concrete ones) that supports basically all types of hurricanes so it is safe and we don't suffer at all. However, those who have their homes made by wood like in the US are the ones who suffer the most because the majority of these types of homes do not support the strong winds of a hurricane so these people are the ones who suffer the consequences.

Answer 6

I live here and have been through various hurricanes.  We board up the windows, secure all outdoor items down if they can not go into the house, bring in all the pets, if there are farm animals secure the barn.

  With this, there is a very important task and that is to get enough supply of water, food, medications, first aid kits, battery operated equipment and the batteries, candles, have all the clothes washed even if the hurrican is to come at 10pm for example, you can wash the clothes in the morning and dry them before the hurrican comes.  Also, park the car in the garage or car port and keep it full of gas just incase. Pay attention to the radio and tv for how the weather is and if possible have things packed incase you have to evacuate.  We do an emergency preparedness.  Our hurrican season is from May until November and during this time everyone has the supplies needed.  It is better to prepare ahead of time than to be sorry later.

In the mountains where I lived, they do get hit hard such as was the case with hurrican Georges.  The roads were full of mud slides, trees were down, the river over flooded, the lines were down for electricity and phones.  And of course school was closed until all roads were cleared and safe.

  For Georges, I was a month without lights, and water.  But, since I had a tank, candles and old fashioned ways, I was able to even iron.

Answer 7

Trust me on this, they just do some coke and pray for sunshine.

Answer 8

surfers, get their boards

party people, get their instruments and start singing and playing dominoes or table games, drink lots of coffee and eat ritz crackers with with cheese and guava paste.

talk and bet money to see how bad and what category the hurricane will be.

and then their is the scary cats who run to the stores and make a riot to buy things and leave the store way empty

yep! that's what we do before a hurricane hits

besides the fun part, we dint get hit that badly, because of the cement houses and hard soil, PR is made partly of non active volcanoes. we also have high mountains and most houses have metal gates in their doors and windows. we get small earthquakes sometimes, but barely noticeable