The recent hurricane season has prompted widespread discussions about preparedness, but not all advice is sound. In this episode, Eric G. dives deep into the realm of hurricane myths, debunking prevalent misconceptions that could lead to grave consequences during emergencies. One of the most alarming myths tackled is the idea of using a dishwasher to safeguard valuables during a flood. Eric methodically explains how dishwashers are not designed to be waterproof, detailing how their internal mechanics can actually allow water to infiltrate. This segment underscores the critical importance of discerning reliable information from harmful myths, especially when lives and possessions are on the line.

The conversation shifts to the pressing issue of disaster preparedness, where Eric stresses the importance of self-sufficiency. He reflects on the challenges faced by communities in the aftermath of hurricanes, particularly the delays in government aid. Drawing from personal experiences, he illustrates the lengthy recovery timelines that can leave families in precarious situations. Eric's narrative encourages listeners to take charge of their own preparedness by ensuring they have sufficient resources, such as food and medication, well before a storm hits. This proactive approach is not just about individual safety; it’s about fostering a culture of readiness that can save lives during critical moments.

In the latter part of the episode, Eric emphasizes the power of community in recovery efforts. He calls attention to organizations providing crucial support to hurricane victims, encouraging listeners to contribute to these efforts. Operation Barbecue Relief is highlighted for its role in feeding first responders and those affected by disasters. By fostering a sense of collective responsibility, Eric inspires listeners to remain engaged and supportive, ensuring that no community is left behind in the aftermath of a storm. This episode serves as a valuable resource for understanding the importance of accurate information, individual preparedness, and community support during hurricane season.

Takeaways:

• When evacuating from hurricanes, do not trust the myth of using dishwashers for storage.
• Be prepared for disasters by having at least two weeks' worth of essential supplies.
• Avoid placing generators inside or close to your home to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning.
• FEMA assistance can be slow, so personal preparedness is crucial in emergencies.
• Material shortages often follow natural disasters, so plan ahead for home repairs.
• Support local charities that aid disaster victims, such as Operation Barbecue Relief.

To get your questions answered by Eric G give us a call in the studio at 833-239-4144 24/7 and Eric G will get back to you and answer your question and you might end up in a future episode of Around the House.

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Information given on the Around the House Show should not be considered construction or design advice for your specific project, nor is it intended to replace consulting at your home or jobsite by a building professional. The views and opinions expressed by those interviewed on the podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Around the House Show.

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Around the House Insider

It's around the house.

When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know, but we've got you covered.

This is around the house.

Welcome to the around the house show, the next generation of home improvement.

I'm Eric G.

Thanks for joining me today.

This is our midweek update.

This is what didn't fit into last weekend's show and not fitting into next weekend's show.

And this is the stuff where we do those updates where any breaking news, things happening, and we try to get things clarified during the week that we can't hit into the show on the weekend.

First off, man, I feel bad for the south.

You guys have been just getting crushed by hurricanes.

Another one coming in tonight, and I wanted to cover a few myths on social media that have been absolutely horrible and bad advice.

First off, I saw yesterday all over, it went viral for this little meme that was telling people to put their important things in their dishwasher when they evacuate so it would stay protected.

Sorry, folks, that is not waterproof and it will not protect your stuff.

Here's the thing.

A dishwasher, people think, oh, it holds water in it, it's going to be fine.

That's not how that works.

First off, if there's any sewage backup, the chance of that coming back into the dishwasher under pressure through the drain line that usually doesn't have a cutoff valve is going to be an issue.

That water will go back in there, fill it up, and you're going to have a problem.

Why is it filled up?

Because a dishwasher has vents.

If you sat there and put a dishwasher through the wash cycle and then you had the heating element and of course you had a steam thing in there, any one of the ones that have the sanitation and drying, it would never dry.

So there's vents.

Those vents are meant to equalize the pressure between both sides.

So guess what happens?

Water's going to come in through the drain.

Water is going to come in through the vents and anywhere else that there's a seal leak.

That's why when you put too much soap in a dishwasher, it can push the soap out through the vents and out through the side of the seal because it's just not that good.

So do not consider putting stuff in that unless you're putting it in bags and you're trying to contain it.

Maybe that will do that.

But to be honest, guys, don't put the valuables in the dishwasher.

It's fake news.

It's not going to work and there's too many ways that you're going to put water in there and it'll probably keep it in there.

So that's the thing.

So eliminate the dishwasher myth.

It's fake news.

Don't let people do it.

It's not going to save you anything and it's just going to give you a bad, false sense of hope.

The next one is that there are people out there complaining about FEMA and people donating electric.

I'm going to use the word electric because it makes a difference.

Chainsaws to people in western North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, stuff like that.

And my argument is great, they should be donating those, get them out there.

Because here's the thing.

Gas chainsaws work great.

Battery powered chainsaws work great as well.

And we can have a huge debate on what works better and what's easier for people to use.

But here's the thing.

When you don't have gas coming into town and you don't have two cycle oil coming into town batteries, it's going to be a little bit easier to find power.

Maybe you've got a farmer in there that's got his truck running or a welder or a generator, or you've got a natural gas generator that's working great.

You're most likely going to have an easier way or solar to find something that's going to get you power to charge that than you are finding the fuel to run it.

So I wholeheartedly support them putting out 60 volts, 40 volts, whatever.

Those are battery powered chainsaws.

People have power in certain spots and they have generators or solar.

So that's going to be not a bad deal.

Somebody could have their f 150 charged up or a vehicle that's got a plug in.

There's a lot of ways to do this, so let's not go beating on people for dropping off stuff out there that could help them out.

My bigger concern is the people that aren't getting help, and those are the ones that you're seeing out there.

And it's a good lesson for us to all learn.

Not that the people of North Carolina or western North Carolina and the south have done anything wrong, but if you're not prepared, it's going to get tough out there.

We're seeing there's communities that haven't had anybody come help them in two weeks.

So that should be our warning to ourselves that not slamming on the government.

But guess what?

They're not going to be there to bail you out for not being prepared.

So that shows you that maybe two weeks might not be enough if you're in a rural area or in an area where they can't get help to you.

So maybe if you have two weeks of food, maybe you should have three.

You see where I'm getting at?

We should watch this as our canary in the coal mine, because so many people rely on someone else to come give them a hand in times of need when everybody around you for miles and miles is in that same position and you're cut off from the outside world.

Two weeks, a long time, and the government, like everything the government does, is going to be slow.

So this isn't some big anti government rant.

I'm just saying, if you're depending on them, probably putting yourself in a bad position.

So make sure, find a.

Make sure you've got water, make sure you got food, make sure you got all that stuff.

We've talked about this, but make sure you have the basics, your medication, don't run to the last day on it, make sure you've got enough.

And you're keeping those things fairly full so you are prepared no matter what.

We're seeing some issues out there where people just aren't getting the help.

That could be any one of us.

So something to consider when you're looking at that next thing here is, as we're getting the second hurricane coming in, this is a time where we see a lot of people making huge mistakes.

So be careful of carbon monoxide, be careful of where you put that generator.

If it's under the carport, it could be funneling into the house, it's in the garage.

It's even a worse idea.

So if you're in the future, if you're thinking about being prepared, take a look at gen tent.

They're a tent that goes over the top of your portable generator.

They'll keep it outside, you can keep it 15, 20ft away from the house, and more importantly, it'll keep the weather off of it.

And it's good up to about 75 on our wins.

So you'll be good to go there.

Take a look at that in your preparedness kit.

So you could have it on there and you're good to go.

I just keep mine on at all times.

So just one less thing to do.

You can sit there and put that thing on it in about five minutes and you're good to go.

So take a look at gen tent.

Not a commercial.

They're not paying me to say this, but it's a great solution and it's going to keep you a lot safer.

Do not be burning anything inside the house, no barbecues, none of that stuff.

Wait for the weather to get better and then do stuff inside.

But keep that generator well away from the house so you don't get carbon monoxide inside.

And your carbon monoxide detector should be on battery power, so make sure they're in working order.

If you're running a generator so you know that you're going to be safe out there because that's, that's one that is just needless desks that we see.

And every time I can't.

Every time, even here in my area, I sit there and see, wow, neighbor saved somebody an apartment because they were running the generator inside the apartment.

That's a quick way to die, guys.

It's a quick way to die.

So be very careful out there.

Make sure you send this to your friends.

Just trying to keep people safe.

And of course, when they say evacuate, especially down in Florida in the south with these hurricanes, if you're going to have 20ft of storm surge coming in 15ft, the top of your roof is eight.

I mean, you're, you got two stories underwater.

If you're up to 20ft, that's a problem.

You're not going to survive that.

You can't even get on the roof of the house of a second story without probably running into issues.

So I hope you guys are heating out there.

The best advice, just to get out and grab the important stuff, grab the family.

The rest of it can be built back someday, but just stay safe out there, guys.

We love all you guys out there that tune into the show and I just want to make sure that we all stick together as one big family and that we can help as best we can.

Now, one thing that we're going to see after all these stuff happened in the south, and you're going to see in certain areas, material shortages.

Now, one thing that you see on the west coast here, which is pretty common, most of our lumber and plywoods and stuff are regional, right?

If we see wildfires on the west coast and we lose a lot of homes, well, see, months later, we'll see some shortages here of materials.

Of course, in the south, where those lumberyards are, if they're even existing up in the south up there, if they didn't get hit by the hurricane, you're going to be bringing stuff in.

So out of, you know, us on the west coast, you're not going to see as much of that.

But we will see some shortages, especially when it comes into woods that come out of that area.

So don't be surprised about that.

Those are issues that we see come up, and we'll see that.

Not tomorrow, but it takes so long for people to get stuff rebuilt.

Many times when homes are lost, it can take six months to a year just to get that being reconstructed.

So we will see some housing shortages out there.

We will see some of that stuff in those areas.

And it's super, super sad for people like that.

And I feel bad for you.

I have a house around the corner here from our major windstorm that hit us in February, early February, and today, October 9, I see them moving back into the house from where the trees landed on it.

So they have been working on that house since February now.

It set for probably 90 days with the insurance company trying to get out of it.

These people had to move the house because the trees landed on the top.

It literally lifted the roof off of it because the trees hit the edges of the trusses and it just completely damaged the top story.

So they had to take that down to the studs and a lot of structural underneath it because we had big 150 year old fir trees landed on it, which never a good thing.

Happy everybody survived that.

That's one thing we have in the Pacific Northwest with these big trees that can cause some serious issues.

So I've got a couple charities out there that we should keep in mind.

My favorite one helps first responders and people in need, and that is operation Barbecue relief.

I have volunteered with these guys before.

I have cooked side by side with them down in their pit and worked in helping first responders and check out operation Barbecue relief.

They're the ones that are, that are feeding the linemen, the rescue workers, the people that are in there volunteering.

That is a great organization.

Red Cross is also good.

I'll be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of the Red Cross at times, but they can put, you know, a lot of people on the ground.

And if you have your own favors, you know, your favorite religious charities out there, there's a lot of people doing good work out there, no matter what you believe in.

This is by no means a religious thing here.

But, you know, I've seen on the news groups like Samaritan's Purse and stuff where they throw in 40 people into somebody's house to dig out the mud, and that is stuff that people in there donating their time and helping.

These are all good causes, and it is by no means an endorsement of mine.

But anybody that's down there helping that is a legitimate organization trying to help people out, we should be supporting them.

Some of these organizations that we see out there, that the bigger ones, they do take a lot and have a lot of high overhead.

So not a lot of the money goes.

But one of those things, take a look, see, see what you feel comfortable donating and help who you can.

Operation BarBEcUe relief is one of those ones where almost all the money goes right into helping people out and keeping them fed.

And that's a good thing to go just for all those people out there, because when they're on the ground, that means there's a massive need.

And I'm sure they're, they're pivoting trucks to head down to Florida right now while they're keeping people up in North Carolina to keep those guys going.

And that's one thing I want to remind you, to remind you here, too, that's an important one.

Just because we have a new shiny object in Florida, we need to make sure that we help see things through with the people in North Carolina because those guys in South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, all you guys up there that are fighting this, make sure that these guys don't get forgotten because they have some really big projects.

Some of those road and infrastructure projects are going to take a year just to get back open, which means you might not be able to get in construction equipment, stuff to help people out.

So it's going to be a massive undertaking.

It's going to take years for them to go back there.

And there's a lot of talk about what's going on with FEMA out there.

And I think it's a legitimate conversation that we need to be having of what's going on in FEMA.

Where's the money going?

I'd love to see an audit of that to see, because obviously, if you go on the FEMA website, you can see that they do send money to these storms, but they are spending in other things.

And that's right off the FEMA website.

You can go over there and take a look for yourself and read it.

I'm not going to spread all the stuff that's on it, but you can see it on their website or where they're spending money.

And maybe it should be going into helping us out here in these disasters.

I saw the other day that they found, what, $8 billion that are sitting in different funds that they could be pulling out.

It's a good start at helping people out and getting them money in their hands to help get things going so they can be sustainable for themselves and their family.

So those are things we should be working on.

We got a great show coming up this weekend I want you to not miss out on.

We'll talk about that on probably Thursday and Friday on the show.

And if there's more stuff happening like we did last week, we had an extra episode last week because of things that happened during the midweek special.

And I will pop those out when I see fit and we'll see what we can do with that when things come up to get you more information and if there's something you want to see me talking about, guys, make sure and message me over at aroundthehouse online.com and I can help you out over there and I will get back to you.

Get back to everybody on that message over there.

Unless you're a spammer, I don't get back to those.

But everybody out there that needs help or has some questions, I'll be there to help you.

Another update from last week as well.

I am still dealing with Spectrum.

Called them back.

Work with them.

We'll call you back in five days.

So then we wait five days to get back to them.

They don't call me back.

I have to wait five days again.

So we're beyond the month to get a simple thing resolved with them.

I'll give you updates as we go and I'll let you know how that goes.

Should be a simple thing.

But I tell you what, I've never worked with a single company that has taken so long to get a simple accounting thing fixed and working with those guys.

So I'll let you know what happens with spectrum cable as we get things up.

Hopefully next week I'll have a better update for you.

We'll see what happens.

All right, everybody stay safe out there.

Let's support our neighbors as best we can through these troubled times here with the storms coming in.

And pray for all those people out there that are in harm's way this week and have been for weeks as well.

And whatever you believe in, I'll respect that.

Thanks for tuning in to around the house.

We'll see you Saturday.

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