Tips for NH Residents to Prepare for Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene is barreling toward New Hampshire, and regardless of whether it will be a devastating natural disaster or an overhyped rainstorm, there are some simple measures you can take to make sure you’re not caught unprepared this weekend. 

1. Keep Essentials Nearby: Make sure you have plenty of non-perishable food, water, batteries, flashlights and power-free fun just in case you get stuck inside without power for a couple of days. 

There probably isn’t a need to stockpile a bunker like it’s the apocalypse, but having some extra supplies around the house is never a bad idea.

2. Use Common Sense: Don’t go around roadblocks, and definitely don’t put a generator in a room where you’re sleeping or spending long periods of time.

Generators give off carbon monoxide, so if you have a generator and plan on swinging by a store to grab some supplies today, toss a carbon monoxide detector into your cart so you won’t have any issues with the toxic gas.

3. Take Flooding Precautions: It’s time to get that photo album, collection of obscure ’40s magazines and other belongings not so friendly with water off the floor.

Fire officials recommended putting any items you don’t want to get wet on a high shelf, or at least covering the belongings and boxes with a sealed, waterproof material.

4. Head to Shore: Many Bedford residents have beach homes or lake houses, but you definitely don’t want to be in the water Sunday, let alone be near the beach.

Weather conditions could create some unsafe situations near the coastline, so it might be a smart idea to seal your cottages and stay inland to avoid possible injury or getting stuck in a complete washout.

5. Pull Out: If you can, be sure to pull your boats and other toys out of the water before Sunday to avoid damaging your vessel, your neighbor’s, surrounding docks, houses and other structures.

If you can’t remove the boat from the water, Hampton River Marina employee Keith Blinn recommended using extra tie-downs while remembering to leave enough slack to account for larger waves and wind.

What are you doing to prepare? Be sure to tell us and share other tips with us on Facebook and Twitter by marking your comments with #HurricanePatch.

Also, safely grab those cameras and take some shots of this weekend’s weather for our Photo of the Week. E-mail your pictures to Ryan.OConnor@Patch.com.

Some information above was taken from interviews with area safety officials.

For weather predictions and additional tips, check out the National Weather Service website and be sure to monitor this site and the official Bedford websites for other important information.

Related Topics: How to survive a hurricane, Hurricane Irene, hurricane tips, and what to do during a hurricane

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Tips for using less data while mobile – ABC15.com (KNXV

You recently ran a poll (on your Facebook page) of users as to their data usage on cell phones. What were the averages?

The recent changes by many cellular data providers to eliminate unlimited data plans for new customers has created a lot of concern, so we decided to poll our Facebook users to get a sense of just how much data the average user used.

Since most of the carriers are going to a 2gb cap for their standard package, we wanted to see how many people would be impacted if they no longer had an unlimited plan.

While our poll was anything but scientific, we asked our Facebook community to post their current data usage with the billing cycle date or their previous month’s usage so we could calculate some averages.

We had 95 responses, so we started by separating those that used more than 2gb (17) from those that used less than 2gb (78). This meant that 18% used more than 2gb and 82% used less (the 80/20 rule rears it’s head once again!)

The average usage for those that went over 2gb was 5.4gb while the average for those under 2gb was just over 450mb (or only @23% of a 2gb cap).

What was even more interesting was that nearly ¾ of the users (70) consumed less than 1gb, meaning that very few even came close to the 2gb cap (only 4 people used between 1.5 2gb of data).

Most of the users that went over 2gb went way over, meaning that they likely used lots of streaming audio and video services during the month.

Another interesting number was that over 37% of those that were under would use less than 10% of the allocated bandwidth if they were on a 2gb plan.

Those users could actually save money if they switched from an unlimited plan to one of the entry level plans (usually 250gb of data) offered by some carriers.

Those that had high-bandwidth usage aren’t necessarily consuming more or different kinds of content on the Internet than those with lower usage numbers. Streaming video is one of the fastest growing types of content on the Internet and virtually every mobile device these days can stream video.

How and where you stream online video (and audio for that matter) will have a huge impact on your cellular data usage.

For most of us, the primary places we use our mobile devices are at home and at work. In most cases, a wifi signal will be available to connect to, which saves you from using your cellular bandwidth.

If you pay attention to how you are connected before you start streaming video or audio, you can dramatically reduce your cellular data usage.

For those that travel, doing the same thing when you are on the road can be a big data saver as well. Connecting to a hotel’s or coffee shop’s free wifi before starting any data intensive activity is a good habit to get into.

If you find yourself without any wifi options but want to watch streaming video, look for lower resolution options to save data. YouTube videos can range from really basic to 1080HD, so avoid the super high resolution choices when you aren’t on wifi.

Netflix users also have an option to stream movies in lower resolutions in order to cut down on bandwidth usage (the ‘Manage Video Quality’ setting can be found in the ‘Your Account’ section).

Copyright 2011 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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