Securing guns during a disaster

I'm in central Florida and 90 ft above sea level. Not worried about flooding but I am running From a cat 3 or better storm. All the guns, generators, chain saws, gas and the big tractor on the trailer. Want to have what I need when I come back. If I flood that means most all the west coast of Florida in under a lot of water.
 
25 years ago I bought a house that had a coal bin in part of the basement with a bit of work I made it into a vault. I lined the steel door and frame with conveyer belt which turned out to make it water proof. I learned this in Sept. 2004 when hurricanes Francis, Ivan, and Jean cause major flooding in Western North Carolina.
 
What I would do with my firearm? Move it to a known secure location before a historical storm event.
In MN. Blizzard Snow Storms are not a problem no matter the snow depth or wind blowing cold. Most have equipment for its quick removal cloths and boots to keep them toasty warm in such stormy conditions.
Rain /Flooding. "I can't imagine what its like to feel >overwhelmed."
 
If your house floods, you built too close to the water.
If a hurricane bothers you, you live too close to the coast.
If tornados are a problem, you live where its too flat (or too windy)
If an earthquake hits, you live too close to a fault line.
If fires are a hazard, you live where its too dry.

SO, where to live? The scenic Pacific NW is nice, but then, you live too close to a VOLCANO!!!

The time to get things to preserve your property is not when the news says there is a storm on the way. That's the time to seal and check with the supplies you should already have on hand.

If you want what is about the ultimate in protection, and horribly inconvenient, invest in a few hundred pounds of paraffin wax, a torch and something to use as molds.

Encase your guns in solid blocks of wax (meaning melt the wax and using the mold pour it to surround your gun(s) with a few inches of wax on all sides.

This will absolutely keep water out, and since they no longer look like guns, reduces the risk of theft. Stack the wax blocks somewhere you would normally store such things, and cover them with the unused extra wax you bought in its boxes and packages, toss a tarp over them...odds are good no looter will give them a second glance. Leave the gun safe open, and empty, looters will think either you took them all with you, or somebody else got there first...:rolleyes:

have the safe insured, incase they steal IT...

After the disaster, when your safely back home, melt the wax and get your guns back in the safe...

Time consuming and a PITA but it will protect your guns!

(and no, I don't do it ;) Where I live fire is the only big risk, and the wax won't help with that...)
 
Talk to your insurance agent.
Get a policy that covers everything. (or as much as possible)

When disaster heads your way, I'll toss my wife and the dog in the Family Truckster and head to a Holiday Inn Express in a safe place and watch the drama unfold on TV.

The guns? Probably won't make the cut.
I have medications, a couple of nebulizers, oxygen tanks & a couple oxygen concentrators that are far more important....

Oops - sorry - the topic is securing & I forgot to include that.
The guns I leave behind will be locked up in the safe. They will probably not fare well if there's much in the way of water.
 
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I live about 25 feet above sea level. In T.S. Fay (2008) we had 26 inches of rain in 36 hours (storm moved very slowly) and the water stayed just below the level of our slab foundation. The house was an island. So I figure that we are pretty safe from anything less than a 500 year rain event. My main concern would be that the roof blow off in a hurricane so covering a safe with plastic or taping it up against wind-blown rain might be a reasonable precaution.
 
Doesn't mean squat if we here in FLA were to receive the rain fall that Houston has from this storm
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It has more to do with terrain than actual elevation. When I lived in Manatee county, my house was in one of the highest neighborhoods in the county. If I recall, it was somewhere around 55-60 ft above sea level. There was probably a 25 ft drop between my house and Lake Manatee only about 1000 yds away. No flood since Biblical times would have ever been able to reach that neighborhood. Yet, other areas further inland with an actual higher elevation above sea level have been flooded when local creeks overflowed.
 
The natural lay of the land matters a lot. But so does what man does to said land.

The last annoying tropical storm that I dealt with in Florida came through while I was living at the end of a 1/2 mile dirt road, with my house above a natural drainage that ran down the back property line. (In all, I was only about 3/4 mile from the Gulf, and my elevation was about 32 feet.)

I prepared nothing for that storm season, because I felt safe from flooding and anything big enough to cause damage would wipe me out completely, anyway.

But for that tropical storm, the drainage barely had any water in it.

...Because some new housing construction about 300 yards up the hill from me (on a different road) had temporarily blocked the drainage with fill that was removed for running utilities.

So, the water was unintentionally diverted into an undeveloped, elevated, roughly six-acre, wooded 'bowl' in front of my house, where over 2 feet of water remained for about three weeks (partly due to additional storms and rain). I had water lapping at the front door for about four days, followed by about five weeks of only decent 4-wheel-drive vehicles or tractors behind able to churn through the deep mud of the road, and tapering off to basic AWD/4WD vehicles and my neighbor's 2WD tow truck (with chains on) being able to get down the road as the water finally started draining.

It was about three months before the road returned to normal, and most of the residents could actually get to their own driveway. ...All because of a pile of top soil.

The area never would have flooded naturally.
But it sure did with a little help from man...


Always be prepared (at least mentally) to encounter problems in getting home, and actually trying to save firearms that may have been wet or waterlogged, as well.


This photo was taken about two months after the storm, with the water down far enough that it isn't even in view. Crap photo, I know. But it's all I could find.
Two months, and still a slimy, soupy, nasty mess.
It doesn't look like it from the angle provided, but the established ruts in the road were still about 14" deep at that point.
My room mate actually bought that crappy 4x4 Blazer just so he could drive home, rather than parking his 2WD car on the highway and walking 1/2 mile through the mud.

Note the red staining all over the driveway from previous water levels, as well as mud that was washed off the driveway daily, once the water retreated:

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And Tampa is the only city in Florida to prepared for such an event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_Bypass_Canal
an event like Houston would quickly turn the Green Swamp into it's name sake. This is the headwaters for the Hillsborough River and what feeds Tampa's drinking water. The river runs in protected wetlands until just north of Tampa. A flood control plane constructed along with a diversion dam to route all the flood water to the bypass canal.

Houston needs something like this for Buffalo Bayou
 
44AMP's idea works. But put the gun(s) in sealed bags first so you won't have to clean the wax from the guns!
 
FrankenMauser brings up something that I realized. There is ONE and ONLY ONE cause of flooding. That being more water entering an area than leaving that area (I know, you say DUH! but that general concept tends to elude some people). You can have a virtually unlimited supply of water coming into an area and never have flooding as long as that water has a place to escape. That is what has happened to so many areas (like Houston). Urban sprawl has removed the water's natural path to escape. That means, it has no choice but to pile up somewhere.
 
For hurricanes here in Florida I put my guns in a car trunk for protection...assuming flooding wont get that high. Otherwise I take them in the car and evacuate far far away.

My cousin had a huge safe and kept about 80 guns in it during Hurricane Andrew. It didn't flood but when the house roof came off the 160+ mph winds blew hard enough to get the guns wet. The safe never moved. The next day he dried and oiled them. Some still rusted badly before getting them oiled (saltwater blew in from Biscayne Bay) and he sent them to S&W and Ruger. Both companies refurbished the guns to new condition and wouldn't take a dime for payment. He also sent 550 & 650 Dillons in and they did the same.
 
...weapons are banned in the shelters.
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Keep track of things like that for the aftermath, take photos and see if you can get recordings of officials making statements. TSRA will want to know about it to insure that what was done was legal or to push for new legislation/changes to the law if there's a need.
 
Doyle said:
FrankenMauser brings up something that I realized. There is ONE and ONLY ONE cause of flooding. That being more water entering an area than leaving that area (I know, you say DUH! but that general concept tends to elude some people). You can have a virtually unlimited supply of water coming into an area and never have flooding as long as that water has a place to escape. That is what has happened to so many areas (like Houston). Urban sprawl has removed the water's natural path to escape. That means, it has no choice but to pile up somewhere.
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Houston is considered urban sprawl?
 
Houston is considered urban sprawl?
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Development on the outskirts has gone absolutely nuts in the last couple of decades. All that land that used to absorb water is now hardscaped so the water has to go somewhere.
 
Possum,
The blog you point to is a great reference. It reminded me of another blog or journal from a guy who lived through the Kosovo "war" and what it took to survive.
 
i thought of the zip lock bag thing and also maybe sealing the safe with silicone, it will make it hard to get the door open later but if it keeps the water out its worth it
 
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