Five Steps to Prepare for Hurricane Season
Staying informed and connected to family and friends, especially during severe weather or hurricane season is a top priority.
It’s important to plan ahead for how your family will handle preparation and evacuation if a major storm threatens our coast.
HTC Gets Prepared
Before severe storms hit our area, HTC wants you to know that we take the necessary precautions to protect our equipment and support you with reliable service.
HTC teams place sand bags around our retail offices and remote stations to protect the equipment that provides you with Internet, home phone use and other telecommunication services. We also prepare our generators to be available and ready to use in a time of need.
Lastly, we prepare for any outages caused by severe storms by assembling teams that work 24/7 to monitor disruptions in service. We deploy those teams as soon as it’s safe for them to travel to remote stations and make the needed repairs to restore service.
HTC is dedicated to creating a storm preparation plan that keeps our employees safe and keeps you connected to those who matter most. Your Cooperative wants the same for your family.
Five Steps to Prep for Hurricane Season
Follow our five simple steps to prepare for hurricane season:
- Be sure your cellphones and other mobile devices are fully charged. Have extra, or chargeable, battery as backup or have an external charger on hand for additional usage.
- Consider a quality surge protector for your home. A whole-house surge protector will guard against power surges caused by lightning or downed power lines. Without this protection, electronics and appliances in your home are susceptible to major damage from extreme bolts of electricity.
- Build a family communication plan. Be sure everyone’s cell phones have the correct phone numbers for out of area family members and also choose a point of contact for all family members to reach if they become separated.
- If flooding is a concern, move your electronics and HTC equipment to a higher room in your home, like the second floor or attic, if possible.
- Back up important data from your computer, phones and cameras on external hard drives or thumb drives. The cloud is also an option, as it is ideal for saving all your info so you don’t have to worry about protecting the equipment.
Preparing now will help you better protect your family when major storms approach our community.
Seeking Shelter
As your family creates a communication and evacuation plan, keep in mind that shelters will fill more quickly, so you may need to modify your plan accordingly. Safety officials urge families to have an evacuation arrangement plans that gets you and your family out of harm’s way. You should only use shelters as a last resort.
Horry County Emergency Management officials confirm that public shelters will only be available in Horry County for Category 1 storms or below. Storms that reach Category 2 strength or above will result in all Horry County shelters closing.
Update Your Plan Annually
With all the changes in our community, make sure you know the current processes and procedures. As the typically more eventful portion of hurricane season approaches, South Carolina Emergency Management Division (SCEMD) is providing its 2023 Hurricane Guide, with information on evacuation routes as well as tips and resources to prepare for and move forward in the event of a storm.
