ID photos are a great idea.
When I lived in the Keys, hurricane season had added difficulties for horse owners. There are not very many horses in the islands, there are a few places that have backyard type horse keeping, no boarding setups except for a riding school in Islamorada. But several dozen privately owned horses are located in the middle and lower keys, tucked away from the main road.
The islands are linked by 42 bridges from Key West to the mainland. Once wind speeds reach a certain level, all high profile vehicles are prohibited from traveling the US-1 highway. This includes RVs, boat trailers and horse trailers. (This also can occur on some of the bridges up in the mainland of FL, like the Sunshine Skyway bridge going to Tampa/St. Pete, or other roadways over water.)
Planning for an evacuation (from the Keys and elsewhere) can be tricky, because you have to make the call to leave around 72 hours prior to anticipated landfall. That can be while the storm is quite far away, and predictions can evolve and change during that 72 hour window. So you either load and go, and hope you don’t end up where the hurricane has jigged or jogged, aiming for the west or east coast of the mainland, or do like some people do, just send horses to the Ocala area for the peak of the season.
There is NO place in Florida that is safe from hurricanes, they can cross the islands, or the peninsula, reach water on the other side, re-intensify, and cross back over land! Inland areas may be out of range of storm surge, but as others have mentioned, lightning, wind speed and tornadoes are still all very dangerous.
We had the worst storm surge in recent history in 2005, during Hurricane Wilma. All eyes were already on the northern gulf coast, due to Katrina. But Wilma hit on October 24, impacting the middle and lower keys from the gulf side of the islands. A few hours after the main part of the storm passed, daylight arrived, and so did an 8’+ surge of seawater that flooded over the islands. It had been at least a generation since any surge like that had happened, so no one was really thinking of it, or preparing for it. It raced over the islands in a matter of a few minutes, flooding everything.
Wind-driven water is not unusual in the Keys, but a storm surge is a different thing all together. It washed over the islands, flooded many older homes that were at ground level, and things like natural gas tanks were pulled away by the water’s power and were floating in the streets. Cars were inundated with salt water, shorted out and started fires. One of the local restaurants right on the water, The Island Fish CO and Tiki Bar, was essentially washed away as water and waves battered the open air/tiki bar restaurant. The owner took some jaw dropping photos as he sheltered at his restaurant.
The worst damage was right on the water. The power of the surge lifted up docks and their pilings anchoring them to the sea bottom, piers, boats of all sizes, and all manner of debris. Had the surge happened at night, there surely would have been loads of fatalities. Thankfully, it arrived in the morning, so people could react.
Sorry for the tangent, but I hope it reminds people that hurricanes can be completely unpredictable, and the storm path that forecasters try to project is not necessarily what any storm will actually do. The shift of a few degrees in direction, and/or the slowing of a few mph by a storm over warm water, can mean a major impact might happen hundreds of miles from the previous forecast.
There are several resources on line for preparing for storms and hurricanes when considering horses, pets and livestock. And so many other good suggestions have been posted here, as well.
and I only have 1 horse and own a truck and trailer that’s always at the ready since I show her. And I work from home anyway so I can easily leave whenever and still work…so I guess that does it…evacuation it is :lol:
