Hurricane Matthew: Keeping informed during a storm

We live in Eastern North Carolina. Originally, we were under a tropical storm warning, but Matthew didn't do what it was expected to do and things were worse than I expected them to be. It was rough, but I've learned a few things this go around (the last one was Irene) that I'll share in a series of posts.

Today is about keeping informed. I really like to know what is going on around me. Before we lost power we watched the local news quite a bit. After that, it was a little more challenging to get information.

Facebook and my cell phone were my best friends. We lost power right after dinner on Saturday night. We don't have a generator, nor a battery-operated radio (should probably get one). We used the car to charge our cell phones and tablets (which is way slower than the outlet in your house).

Here is a list of apps and Facebook pages that have helped tremendously to keep us informed:

Facebook can be tricky because they don't show you everything in your feed, even if you select "most recent". At least it doesn't for me. So, even though information is being repeated, I'd rather "Like" the pages of multiple sources than just one.

• Your local power company (which I didn't find until the day after our power was restored; it's found for the next time)
• City/town public services page, even if you don't live in the city/town, but in the county.
• County emergency services page (my favorite page!)
• Local news stations' pages
• Local newspaper's page

*Note: I found that clicking the pages feed helps a lot! You don't have to wade through so many posts to find the information you need.*

Phone Apps (I have an Android phone, so all of my apps came from the Play Store):

• Local news station's apps. 
• Weather channel
• ReadyNC (or whatever you might have in your state): It gives information on road closures and emergency measures. 
• Local radio station
• NextRadio- I can turn my cell phone into a radio!
• Facebook

Yes, this all eats data, but if you are like me and cannot stand not knowing what is going on, you bite the bullet and deal with the data issue later.

We weren't without power as long as some people--only 2 1/2 days--but it seems a lot longer while you're living it. Everything in our home is electric, so we couldn't cook or take showers. There are times when I wish some of that was gas, but not enough to switch.

My next post will be the "Power Outage Survival Kit" that I am putting together. There are things that we bought this time around that worked out great for us and I'll show you what they are. 

And below is a terrible picture of the flash flooding around our storage building. We had about 1 1/2 to 2 feet of water inside of it during the worst of the flash flooding. We've got a few things in there that might be ruined. We won't know until we get them fully dried out and try to run them. 

Flash Flooding around our storage building.

Do you have any apps or Facebook pages that you rely on in an emergency?