What to do during a hurricane

Reading Isla Burns’ article on her Market Street construction hell, I couldn’t help but feel a tad smug about the fact that, while my Kinnessburn house may be a bit […]

12 years ago

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Reading Isla Burns’ article on her Market Street construction hell, I couldn’t help but feel a tad smug about the fact that, while my Kinnessburn house may be a bit further from the town, at least I was spared the constant drilling at 7:30 every morning. Fat load of good that was today; the sound of Njord blasting wind at my window woke me up at the unholy hour of 11:00am. So with 90mph winds being predicted for Scotland, the stand is providing you with five top tips to surviving a hurricane.

1. Stock up on alcohol
Fortunately I’m a dap hand at this hurricane survival lark, having been trapped in Florida a few years back by Hurricane Ivan. The one piece of advice we were given was to stock up on the essentials – water, food and medicine. Fuck that. If I’m going to be trapped in my house for a few days then I’m going to make the most of it. Once you’ve polished off a couple of crates of beer the Hurricane won’t seem like the slightest problem. Drop some acid and you’ll be too busy fretting about the dragon in your cupboard to take the slightest notice of that wind.

2. Catch-up on iPlayer
Let’s face it, no matter how urgent your dissertation deadline is, the temptation to indulge in tip 1 is overwhelming. So why not make the most of your time off and watch some top quality television? Highly recommended is Frozen Planet, not only because it is simply brilliant, but because the Arctic conditions on display help you appreciate that our current predicament isn’t actually that bad. I say that as someone who can see their own breath in their living room at the moment.

3. Don’t go for a walk in the eye of the hurricane
Yeah… Been there, done that. Had the t-shirt ripped of my body and land 56 miles away. During my aforementioned hurricane experience in 2004, my family decided it would be a good idea to get out of the house and take a walk… in the eye of a category 3 hurricane. Of course, we got our timing completely wrong and ended up running back to our house through the renewed winds.

4. Risk

Starting an epic boardgame, such as Risk, by torch light (headtorch preferably – it frees both hands for more effective game play), will keep you away from windows and from using power. So although a high intensity battle is happening on a two foot space on your floor, and you may be losing countries and troops by the dozen, your storm-related risk management will be more than adequate.

5. Look out the window and laugh at people being blown over.
We’ve now given you the key advice to surviving a hurricane – stay inside and get sozzled. People still outside either a) don’t read the stand b) don’t take advice from the stand. This makes them fair game to laugh at. This is where that Market Street flat comes in handy again – giving tenants a good view of the key streets in town where comedy falls are most likely. Speaking as an out-of-towner, I fully expect the best clips to be swiftly uploaded onto Youtube.

Written by James Hopkins, understand writer

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