Nicole's Hurricane Checklist

Ok, so how the hell do you prepare for a hurricane when:

• you've been trying to hammer in good eating habits by consuming 99.9% fresh meat, veggies, and fruit, and most of the edibles that will survive a power-outage are highly-processed nutritionless crap;
• you adhere to a structured (but sensible) mostly outdoor workout regimen; and
• your livelihood depends on you having a working laptop and internet access?

I don't know about YOUR plan, but here's mine for what it's worth. Of course, if you are starting to plan now for Irma, um... procrastinate much?? Put this in your back pocket for the next one, though, it may not be very far behind...

Step 1: Go to the library. Be grateful that your employer gives you paid time off, and you've banked enough to get you through two weeks of a power outage if for some reason you can't work for that long, so you're not going to worry that much about it and you might as well have something you can entertain yourself with by candlelight. It's also very important that said entertainment is Grandma/Mom appropriate, because they got the news today that they are required to start evacuating beginning at 6 am tomorrow, and who knows how long they'll be staying with you for.

I'ma curl up with a good read and 120+ mph winds. You?

Step 2: Go to the grocery store. Implode when all of the canned tuna, salmon, chicken, and veggies are sold out. Compose yourself and ask your husband about how you can keep stuff cold for as long as possible if the power goes out. 

My provisions currently include the following:

• Fresh chicken and salmon: To be cooked the night before the hurricane arrives and used in salads before fresh veggies go bad
• Eggs: To be hard-boiled and used in the same way
• Bananas: Slightly green, have some shelf life
• Green smoothies made with pre-frozen bananas: To be blended before power goes out and kept in the refrigerator with ice packs and consumed first 
• Almond Milk. Not shelf stable, unfortunately. They were out of that. I do have two cans of coconut milk though
• RX Bars
• Gluten-free cereal - both hot and cold. Wonder if I'll be able to get hot water, though... When I lived in NJ, I had a gas stove and was still able to cook when the power went out during Sandy. I have electric here, so not as lucky.
• Coffee. But there's that question of hot water again. Wait, no coffee??? Are you fucking kidding me?? (We've been over this, iced coffee is not my jam).
• But jam is my jam. Got two types of jam, actually.
• And sunbutter
• Nuts
• Paleo Wraps - just a stroke of luck I had these from a previous Thrive Market order
• Loaf of bread, chips and salsa - food to keep the husband happy should definitely be part of your hurricane survival checklist
• Bottled water
• Whatever my mom's bringing

So most of the above heavily rely on the fact that I have plenty of ice, will keep my fridge/freezer cold for as long as possible, and also have two coolers I can use if needed. But if it comes down to it, I'll eat damn PB&J (er... SB&J?) sandwiches. 

Step 3. Go for as many runs outside along the bay as possible while you still can. Sure, you'll probably have one or six of the worst runs of your life because of exhaustion and stress and the like, but... who knows if your favorite path along the bay will still be there in a few days and when you'll even be able to go running again? No regrets.

And I'm going to die.

Step 4. Marry an Eagle Scout to handle everything else. You know, the minutiae like batteries and flashlights and candles and boarding up windows and filling up bathtubs and first aid and stuff.