Beyond the Forecast: The Critical Path to Weather Preparedness

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Augason Farms affiliate link https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu

Fear not—unless you're unprepared for emergencies. As severe weather events intensify across the country, practical preparedness has never been more crucial.

The numbers don't lie. Already in 2025, we've experienced 1,400 confirmed tornadoes, vastly exceeding the 1,200 total from all of 2024. One outbreak alone claimed 28 lives in mid-May. Flash flooding has devastated communities from New Mexico to the Carolinas. Yet 90% of Americans still don't have a basic 72-hour emergency kit ready.

Whether facing tornadoes with minimal warning or hurricanes with days of lead time, your response strategy must be tailored to the threat. For those in traditionally sturdy structures, sheltering in place during tornado warnings remains safest—but manufactured home residents must seek sturdier refuge. Hurricane evacuation requires planning multiple escape routes rather than relying on a single highway that will inevitably become congested when thousands flee simultaneously.

Transportation preparedness deserves special attention. Maintain at least half a tank of fuel in your vehicles at all times, supplemented by safely stored fuel reserves at home. When Hurricane Hugo struck, evacuees drove as far as Boston seeking hotel rooms as accommodations filled hundreds of miles inland. Having predetermined evacuation destinations with family or friends provides security that last-minute planning cannot.

Emergency food supplies represent another critical preparation component. While there's satisfaction in self-sufficiency practices like canning and freeze-drying, commercial emergency meals offer convenience that shouldn't be overlooked. The ideal approach combines both—maintaining home-preserved foods while supplementing with grab-and-go options for rapid evacuation scenarios.

Don't wait until warnings blast across your phone to prepare. Developing multiple evacuation routes, maintaining adequate fuel, establishing distant safe havens, and preparing proper emergency kits today ensures you won't become another statistic when disaster strikes tomorrow. Subscribe now and join our growing community of practical preppers facing an increasingly unpredictable world with confidence rather than fear.

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Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [e-mail]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Episode Transcript

Professional Voiceover Guy (00:00):
The only thing we have to fear is
fear itself.
The National Weather Servicehas issued a severe thunderstorm
warning.
Welcome to the Common SensePractical Prepper Podcast, where

(00:21):
prepping doesn't have to becomplicated or expensive.
Coming to you from awell-defended, off-grid compound
high in the mountains, comingto you from his Florida room in
Richmond, virginia Neitheroff-grid nor well-defended,
unless you count as chickens andcats, here is your host, keith
hey y'all, this is Keith, andwelcome back to the Common Sense

(00:43):
Practical Prepper podcast, july31st 2025.

Keith (00:48):
First off, I want to take a minute and thank everybody
who listens to the podcast.
Over the last 90 days, there'sbeen about a 37% increase in
listenership.
I also take the time to readall of the reviews.
So for those of you that haveleft the reviews both good and
bad I appreciate the extra timeyou take out of your day to

(01:10):
leave those reviews because itreally helps me a lot when I try
to form new content.
So I want to give a shout outto some of the folks that are
new to the podcast, some newcities that have recently popped
up McAdoo, pennsylvania, McAdooI mean, how cool is that A name
for a city Hampton, newHampshire, alameda, california,

(01:32):
and I'm going to try this townin Germany, zindenfegen, and
it's in the area ofBaden-Württemberg.
I hope I didn't butcher it toobad.
My fans in Germany.
If anybody wants to get a holdof me practicalpreppodcast at
gmailcom I'm also on the Twitteror the X.

(01:53):
The handle is prep_ podcast.
Okay, with those administrativethings out of the way, I am
excited to announce that I amnow part of the affiliate
program with Augason Farms.
Now, for those of you who arenot familiar with Augason Farms,
they're a company that makeslong-term food supply, survival

(02:16):
food, emergency food suppliesvery similar to Patriot Supply,
ReayWise and some of those othercompanies.
Now I've tried all of them anda lot of them are very good.
Not every single recipe does itfor me, but a lot of these
recipes I really, really enjoy.

(02:37):
So, when it came down to it, Ienjoy the variety that Augason
Farms have.
The pricing is very competitivewith the other companies.
It's a very competitive market,don't get me wrong.
But what I'm going to do, I'mnot going to blast everybody
with Augustine Farm links andthat sort of thing.
But if I do run across a deal,regardless of the company, I'm

(03:00):
going to go ahead and promotethat.
I'm going to go ahead and putthat mention in the podcast.
Regardless if it's Augason andFarms or Patriot Supply or
ReadyWise or ReadyHour or allthe other different companies
out there, I'm going to go aheadand put a link in the show
description in the show notesfor the podcast.
And this is an affiliate linkand what this does if you go to

(03:20):
the affiliate link and place anorder, I get a small percentage
If you go to the affiliate linkand place an order, I get a
small percentage, a very smallpercentage, of the total order.
That helps support the podcast.
Hosting podcasts aren't free.
There's all sorts of littleadd-ons and filters you can add.
Again, it's not a superexpensive hobby.
Like any hobby, you can spend$100 or a million dollars.

(03:42):
It just depends on how involvedyou want to get.
So also, if you click thataffiliate link when you go to
checkout, here comes the couponcode that you hear about all the
time, PODCASTPREP will get youan extra 10% at checkout.
I really appreciate the support.
Again, I really enjoy doing thepodcast as a hobby and I also

(04:06):
enjoy, you know, prepping.
It's a.
It's a hobby, I guess, but it'smuch more involved than that
and I believe it's veryimportant to have a variety of
food in your prepping pantry.
I can a lot.
I freeze, dry a lot, butthere's and I also supplement it
with the food storage pantrythat's run by the Mormon church

(04:27):
not too far from my house.
So I have a little bit ofeverything.
I have a five gallon bucket ofrice or whatever it happens to
be, sugar and flour.
I would normally get from thefood storage pantry down the
road.
And then the convenience of alot of these companies promote
their product and they're inbuckets, which means if you need
it you just grab the bucket, oryou just grab the package with

(04:49):
the little handy dandy handleand you put it in your go bag,
you put it in the car, you grabthe kids, throw them in the
family truckster and you get ondown the road.
So there's a convenience factor.
So I'm all about convenience.
I'm all about not spending moretime than I have to on my preps
.
However, when it comes tocanning and freeze drying, there

(05:09):
to me there's a sense ofaccomplishment.
When I bring out a few trays ofstrawberries or broccoli or
freeze dried Skittles orwhatever I happen to be doing,
there's a there's a sense ofaccomplishment or pride, I guess
, when you actually do somethingyourself.
But it's difficult to get awayfrom the convenience and that's
what a lot of these companiespromote.

(05:29):
The recipes are really good.
Again, not all of them arefantastic, but there's some that
are really really good.
And again, I'm not going toblast everybody and talk about
Augason Farms 24-7.
If you would please support thepodcast, hit the affiliate link
podcastprep at checkout get youan extra 10%.

(05:50):
Okay, I want to talk aboutprepping and severe weather.
When I was thinking earliertoday, I was wondering are we
having a outbreak?
Are we having more tornadoesand floods and flash floods and
severe weather?
Are we having more this yearthan previous years?
Or am I just paying moreattention to the Weather Channel

(06:12):
and a few other folks that Ifollow on YouTube?
So I actually dug up some stats.
So far in 2025, we've had 1,400confirmed tornadoes.
In 2024 total, there was only1,200 confirmed tornadoes.
So already, seven months in,we've exceeded the total number

(06:32):
of tornadoes, and I think it wasin middle of March.
So March 15th I believe March15th through April 1, there were
145 confirmed tornadoes.
Now, that's early in thetornado season.
In May, may 16th, there was anoutbreak of tornadoes that took

(06:53):
28 lives.
Just that outbreak, severaltornadoes, several states, and
that was a pretty.
That was a pretty bad time.
Of course, you've got theflooding, the flash flooding New
Mexico was recently, kentucky,north Carolina, south Carolina
and several other states.
That's why it's important, in myopinion, to have a 72-hour kit.

(07:14):
I've preached it a milliontimes.
90% of the population does nothave one when it comes to a
severe storm and tornadoes.
If you pay attention to theweather weather channel, whoever
you happen to follow, whateverapp you happen to use, you
normally have a pretty good leadtime.
Normally it's several hours fora severe storm.
Now for tornadoes maybe not somuch, but you do have the

(07:37):
ability.
If you pay attention to some ofthese apps and some of these
content creators or the weatherguy, they'll tell you when a
storm is favorable to spawn atornado and then react
accordingly.
Folks will tell you thatsheltering in place is probably
the safest thing to do in theevent of a tornado.
Thing to do in the event of atornado.

(07:59):
Now, if you live in a trailerpark, manufactured home, an RV
at a campground, then that isnot the place to shelter in
place.
You need to find a bettershelter or you probably just
need to get in the car andevacuate as best you can.
Now, when it comes to tsunamisor hurricanes and tsunamis after

(08:22):
following an earthquake andthen your hurricanes, we have
several hours hurricanes,several days of lead time,
plenty of time to get your folks, get your supplies and get the
heck out of Dodge Tsunamis.
The same thing, the tsunamithat spawned from the earthquake
in Russia.
What's that?

(08:43):
Monday, late Monday night.
We have the ability to trackthose and, even though it wasn't
as bad as it could have been,you always have to err on the
side of caution.
Hawaii got hit with severalwaves, some I think the tallest
was like six and a half sevenfeet, don't get me wrong.
It caused localized floodingbut, as you know, the tsunami

(09:04):
that hit Japan gosh, that's been, that's been what 10, 12, maybe
15 years ago.
That one was at Fukushima.
They hit the nuclear powerplant.
That was a very bad scene.
So you have plenty of time.
When it comes to evacuating,when it comes to bugging out,
you need to have multiple routesof egress.

(09:24):
A lot of people only know oneway to get to work, one way to
get home, one way to get to thestore, one way to get to
grandma's house, only one way toget across town to go to the
mall or what have you.
You need to invest in multipleroutes of egress.
If you only know one route andit's closed for whatever reason

(09:46):
flooding, construction, a badaccident then you're stuck.
Okay, you need to have multipleroutes of egress, regardless of
where you're going In the eventof an evacuation.
Let's say, for the tsunami, thefolks in Hawaii set of islands.
They were very limited in theirroutes of egress.
They just had to get to higherground as quickly as they could.

(10:10):
The folks in SouthernCalifornia I'm not really sure
how well those folks hated thetsunami warnings.
I'm not sure what percent ofthe population moved to higher
ground or not, but when it comesto hurricanes we have several
days.
Don't wait until the very lastminute to evacuate.
There's no sense in gettingcaught in that traffic.

(10:32):
Have your 72-hour kit, haveeverything you need, have the
car filled up with gas and yougo ahead and evacuate.
In many of these states theyhave dedicated hurricane
evacuation routes.
Here in Virginia, let's say,you're in Virginia Beach,
hampton Roads area, highway 64,for the most part from Virginia

(10:55):
Beach to Richmond and vice versa, is three lanes east and west,
a hurricane evacuation route.
What they do?
They take 64 east and they turnit into 64 west.

(11:15):
So you have six lanes oftraffic going away from Virginia
Beach, going westbound, andthat has helped a lot.
So when you evacuate, evacuateearly, get your supplies and go
where you need to go.
Have a plan If you're inVirginia Beach, are you going to
Grandma's house in Baltimore?
If you're in Miami, are yougoing to your cousin's in
Atlanta.
Have a plan.

(11:36):
A lot of times when folksevacuate, they start making
hotel reservations and theyrealize they're going five and
600 miles inland to get a hotel.
Back in the day, a long, longtime ago, when Hurricane Hugo
hit the East Coast, there wereno hotel rooms on the East Coast
.
There were people driving asfar as Boston.

(11:57):
Now this hit Florida, northCarolina, south Carolina and
parts of Virginia.
There are people having to goto Boston or having to go to the
middle of Ohio to get hotelreservations.
So have a plan.
If you have relatives, you havefriends.
Again, it sounds kind of silly,but if you have relatives in
West Virginia, if you haverelatives in Ohio or Kansas and

(12:23):
you make a plan, hey, in theevent we need to evacuate.
Grandma, we're coming to you.
She'd be happy to see thegrandkids anyway.
But have a plan.
Don't try to do it allwilly-nilly, because that's just
another factor that can gocompletely sideways and screw up
your evac.
Speaking of evacuation from theDepartment of Easier Said Than

(12:45):
Done always have at least a halfof tank of fuel in your vehicle
.
I'm just as guilty as the nextperson driving my vehicles.
Less than a quarter of a tank.
Oh look, the low fuel lightcame on.
I have 50 more miles to go.
I'm just as guilty as the nextperson.
So try to have at least a halfa tank at all times, especially

(13:10):
if you live on the East Coast,on the Gulf Coast of Florida,
north Carolina, south Carolina,florida.
Have at least a half a tank offuel.
If you're going to run lessthan a half a tank, have some
fuel on standby at your home andyour garage and your shed.
Have five or 10 gallons.
Have two five-gallon Gary cansor Jerry cans full of fuel ready

(13:35):
to put in your vehicle.
That's going to help you inseveral different ways.
When you decide to evacuate,you're going to fill up at home.
You're not going to have toworry about finding a gas
station and compete with all theother people that don't have
enough fuel.
So you're going to have to getoff the road, which is get off
the main evacuation route.
Get to a gas station whereeverybody else and their mom is

(13:56):
trying to get gas.
Getting to that gas station isgoing to be difficult.
It's going to clog up the roadsand it's going to delay your
evac.
Go ahead, have the half a tankIf you need to top it off.
You've got the fuel at yourhome and you're going to be able
to go ahead and make a safe,timely evacuation.
Again, don't wait to the lastminute.
You always hear about thesepeople on the news.

(14:17):
I'm not evacuating.
I've lived here for 20 yearsand no hurricane is going to
drive me out of my house.
Okay, well, that's on you pops,but I would suggest evacuating
as soon as possible.
Do not wait to the last minute.
All right, folks, again, thankyou so much for listening to the
podcast.
I am going to add anotherlittle add-on to the podcast.

(14:42):
It provides a transcript.
I believe it breaks it up intochapters, if I remember
correctly.
I'm going to add that to thispodcast.
So hopefully you'll like that.
It adds a little bit to thecontent and you'll be able to
you know, kind of pick andchoose what you want to listen
to.
Again, folks, thank you.
Thank you so much for listening.
It's because of you and theincreased listenership that I've

(15:04):
been able to go ahead and add afew things and get this
affiliate link with AugasonFarms.
As always, take care of oneanother, be careful out there,
and until next time.

Professional Voiceover G (15:18):
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