Red Cross urges people to be prepared for the worst ahead of Hurricane Lee

AccuWeather

Kelly Isenor, with the American Red Cross, explains the ways you should be sure you're ready for the impacts of Hurricane Lee if you find yourself in the storm's path.

Transcript

00:00 All right, as Hurricane Lee gets closer to New England, there's still time to get prepared to keep your family safe.

00:04 Kelly Eisner, the director of communications with the Red Cross of Massachusetts, joins us from Boston.

00:10 Thanks for joining us, Kelly. You're in New England in the path of Hurricane Lee's potential impacts.

00:15 What is the Red Cross warning people to do if you live along Hurricane Lee's path?

00:19 Well, right now one of the first things that you can do is to pay attention to the forecast.

00:25 You want to make sure that you know

00:28 what's being said, what those timelines are,

00:31 and prepare to evacuate if you're asked to. You know, part of that preparation is knowing where you're going to go.

00:36 You also want to make sure that you're talking to your family in case that evacuation

00:40 order comes when you're separated. You want to make sure your

00:44 school, work, everything is sort of on the same page when it comes to that.

00:49 You know, what I'm doing right now too, I'm charging all my devices and making sure I've got a good full charge.

00:55 You want to make copies of important documents so that you don't have to go digging for those things if you have to leave suddenly.

01:02 Okay, we hope that nobody has to evacuate their homes, Kelly,

01:06 but now is a good time to set up a go bag, unless you've already done it.

01:09 What items should you include if you make your own go bag?

01:13 Sure. Well, we always encourage people to bring a gallon of water per person per day. That's a lot of clean, fresh water.

01:22 But you want to have that with you. Non-perishable food items, those, you know, granola bars, energy bars, meals ready to eat, things like that.

01:29 You want to have a flashlight, a battery-powered radio in case you do lose power,

01:34 all your chargers in case you are able to charge your devices where you're going to be.

01:39 If you have pets or infants that are going to evacuate with you, you'll want to make sure to have enough

01:44 supplies for all those pets for those infants.

01:48 A multi-purpose tool is a great thing to have. And then if you go really analog, think about

01:53 cash in case, you know, if power is out, then APMs might not be working. You want to have a supply of cash.

01:58 Paper mats. Paper mats are a great thing. Hygiene items, things like that, a blanket.

02:04 Those are all things that you should have ready to go at the notice. And Kelly, are you in Boston right now?

02:11 I am, yes.

02:13 So it's interesting to me that you're in charge of, you know, a large area there, the Cape, and there's so many little,

02:19 you know, local topography areas. In some cases, it's going to be the power outages. In some cases, it's going to be the storm surge.

02:25 So you probably have to really work hard to tell the people how to prepare for all of those things.

02:30 We do. And I mean, thankfully, the Red Cross has been in the preparedness business for a little over 100 years.

02:36 So we, you know, we have the messages down pat.

02:40 But it really is important what you guys do, too, telling people where that storm is and when it's coming, what those timelines are.

02:47 We do expect power outages to be a big portion of this storm.

02:50 Hopefully the storm surges will stay low. But again, it's better to be over-prepared than under-ready.

02:57 Yeah, great advice. And we want to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

03:02 Hey, thank you for joining us tonight, Kelly, from the Red Cross.

03:04 Thank you so much.

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