Hurricane house

[NOLA]

We (wife and I )live in New Orleans. Thinking of getting a second home on higher ground that would be our evacuation home. Ideally be able to rent it periodically to help defray the expense.
Why don’t we move permanently? Grandchildren. And we loved the restaurants, festivals, plays, Mardi Gras we enjoyed pre covid and hope to enjoy again.
Any gulf coast residents have experience in getting a evaluation home?

 

[pacergal]

I do not live anywhere near hurricanes, so I have no experience, please pardon if these don't make sense.
My questions
would you plan on living there the entire hurricane season?
If not, at what point would you evacuate and if everyone else is on the road, you may not be able to access it.

 

[NOLA]

I do not live anywhere near hurricanes, so I have no experience, please pardon if these don't make sense.
My questions
would you plan on living there the entire hurricane season?
If not, at what point would you evacuate and if everyone else is on the road, you may not be able to access it.

No would not be full time during hurricane season. But that’s an idea. . Hurricane usually move slowly enough so you can get out of the way. So would plan to leave once city in in cone of uncertainty about 48-72 hours before forecast landfall.

 

[MRG]

I do not live anywhere near hurricanes, so I have no experience, please pardon if these don't make sense.
My questions
would you plan on living there the entire hurricane season?
If not, at what point would you evacuate and if everyone else is on the road, you may not be able to access it.

FIL built a beautiful home on Marathon Key, halfway to Key West. He always said if there's a hurricane route 1 is open with all lanes running north. Maybe that was true but they couldn't even get to route 1 before they ran out of gas. He moved back to Ft. Myres after hurricane Andrew.

OP depends on how many times you have to go right? Are you going to drive? How would you feel if you evacuated for naught? Would you only rent it out during hurricane off-season? What would you do if you rented it out for a while but a hurricane was just forecast?

 

[Beach Gal]

We bought our primary home in Houston with hurricanes in mind. It brings me great peace-of-mind to have a "safe house" that is outside of an evacuation zone. In fact, most of our family lives near the coast so our home will shelter them if an evacuation is called for. Our primary home was also near the coast and we had a beach house on Bolivar Peninsula. We lost the beach house to Ike's storm surge, but we realized a class 5 hurricane could have wiped out both houses. That realization prompted us to move our primary residence away from the coast. We rebuilt the beach house and now split our time between the two. We don't rent our evacuation Houston house but it's worth every penny during hurricane season!

 

[NOLA]

Thanks Beach Gal,
Sounds like you have a the perfect set up. Beach house and home far enough inland to be safe from flooding and extreme winds.
We’re trying to stay in town to be close enough to the grandchildren to be available for impromptu family times. If we move permanently those spur of the moments times will be lost.
But you’re given me some thoughts.

 

[Bamaman]

Your problem is that New Orleans is down on the coast, and getting away from hurricanes would require a 300 mile drive. There's nowhere within that radius I'd want to buy a second home, especially if you want to partially recover costs by renting it.

Floridians go to Northeast Georgia's mountains, Western NC, NW South Carolina and East Tennessee for vacation homes. That's just a little too far from LA.

 

[W2R]

Hi! I have lived in New Orleans for several decades.

I thought about buying a second home to use for evacuations, but I'm glad I didn't. For example - - in the 12 years since I have been retired, we have only evacuated once (for Hurricane Isaac, in 2012). That four day evacuation cost me a total of $913.80 . My sweetie, Frank, evacuated with me and he probably paid about the same. We each drove our own car and paid for our own gas and meals, but shared a motel room.

For us it's a lot cheaper to just drive somewhere and pay for a motel. One big advantage of doing this is that we can choose a destination that is a different direction from where the hurricane is headed.

Another big advantage compared with buying a home, is that there is no need for my time (or money!) for upkeep of a second home that I don't really want to use except during hurricanes. Now, if you have a desire to vacation regularly in some other location maybe that would not be an issue for you as it is for me. Also, in your case perhaps the kids and grandkids could evacuate to your second home too, and you would know they were safe there, with you.

 

[Aerides]

I'm in S.Fla, so there is no "safe enough inland" for a hurricane, not a big one anyway. We have impact windows and doors and should safely ride out most threats. For a Cat4/5 we might evacuate in advance. But anything less, nah. And the evac plan is just to drive out of Florida and stay at a decent hotel.

We will, however, evacuate after the storm, if left looking at days or longer with no power. And then we'd just go stay in a hotel for a few days.

 

[RunningBum]

For us it's a lot cheaper to just drive somewhere and pay for a motel. One big advantage of doing this is that we can choose a destination that is a different direction from where the hurricane is headed.

This makes a lot of sense to me. You may be evacuating when NO is on the fringe but your alternate house is smack in the middle of inland impact, where you could still be without power for days.

If you have another reason to have the second home, that's a different story.

 

[txtig]

We live southwest of Houston, about 35-40 miles from the coast. It would have to be an extreme storm before we would elect to evacuate, but if we do, our plan would be to head north or west in our 38’ class A motorhome. Hotel rooms are going to be hard to find in an evacuation event. We also would have access to a bathroom and food while on the road. Back during the mass evacuation for Hurricane Rita, people got trapped on the freeways for hours and hours and hours. Being in a motorhome would alleviate those problems, as long as I have fuel. I always keep it yanked up during hurricane season.

 

[bolt]

Being well prepared helps: As you can deduce.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/us/hurricane-michael-florida-mexico-beach-house.html

Thats all I have to offer up for consideration on gulfs (GOM) coast.

Good luck & best wishes....

 

[Sunset]

...

For us it's a lot cheaper to just drive somewhere and pay for a motel. One big advantage of doing this is that we can choose a destination that is a different direction from where the hurricane is headed.

Another big advantage compared with buying a home, is that there is no need for my time (or money!) for upkeep of a second home that I don't really want to use except during hurricanes. .....

Exactly, I think a second home purely for evacuation purposes is a big waste of money.
Have a full tank of gas and two 5 gallon containers of gas and a person can drive over 600 miles, get a hotel and relax for a few days.

A person could always evacuate more than a few days before the Hurricane is going to hit if they are nervous so there will not be a lot of traffic.

 

[W2R]

A person could always evacuate more than a few days before the Hurricane is going to hit if they are nervous so there will not be a lot of traffic.

Another tactic for us is to leave New Orleans between 2-3 AM. The "morning people" will leave around 6 AM, and the "night people" seem to leave around 10 PM. However fewer people seem to begin their evacuation trip at 2 AM so evacuation traffic, while somewhat heavy, is still moving smoothly via contraflow at 55 mph.

This 2 AM tactic worked for us many times, including the day before the Katrina disaster.

 

[eytonxav]

Probably also helps if you have some family living beyond harms way that you could evacuate to vs hotel.

 

[Out of Steam]

Probably also helps if you have some family living beyond harms way that you could evacuate to vs hotel.

Hasn't happened yet because they've decided to leave early and head to the New England, but we're in the evacuation plans of relatives who live in Coastal North Carolina.

 

[Koolau]

Costs of owning even a small home add up quickly. That kind of "insurance" is probably better spent on real hurricane insurance if available. I'd say plan a "bug out" to a safe area with lots of motels. Have several places on speed-dial to make a reservation. If you are considering an evacuation, do it before it's absolutely necessary. If you do it for "nothing" that too is cheap insurance.

Only experienced one near-miss hurricane so far, so I'm no expert. On Oahu, there are no safe places to "get away" from a hurricane, though we do have shelters - at least when Covid is not raging. As always, YMMV.

 

[Badger]

Only experienced one near-miss hurricane so far, so I'm no expert. On Oahu, there are no safe places to "get away" from a hurricane, though we do have shelters - at least when Covid is not raging. As always, YMMV.

Back in the mid 50s i lived with my parents on Okinawa in a small quonset hut house. Went through a few typhoons in that. They had to throw metal cables over them and stake them down to keep the quonset hut from being blown away. Kind of noisy with the rain and wind beating on the metal. Many of the Okinawans would safely hold up in the "Turtle Back Tombs" like the one below. If you are on high ground then going underground is about at safe as you can get.

 

[Car-Guy]

We live southwest of Houston, about 35-40 miles from the coast. It would have to be an extreme storm before we would elect to evacuate, but if we do, our plan would be to head north or west in our 38’ class A motorhome. Hotel rooms are going to be hard to find in an evacuation event. We also would have access to a bathroom and food while on the road. Back during the mass evacuation for Hurricane Rita, people got trapped on the freeways for hours and hours and hours. Being in a motorhome would alleviate those problems, as long as I have fuel. I always keep it yanked up during hurricane season.

Yep. I got caught in that one too... Sat on the beltway for hours (~8+ IIRC) After moving a mile or so we turned around and went home... Learned then you need to leave much earlier which of course usually doesn't make sense due to poor long range track forecasting. Never again.

Probably also helps if you have some family living beyond harms way that you could evacuate to vs hotel.

Yep, we are about 150 miles from the coast now... Every time a hurricane threatens the Texas or Louisiana coast we start hearing from "friends" that we usually only hear from when they send us a Christmas card.