Hurricane preparation tips you may not have thought of

As you prepare for Irma, here are a handful of do-ityourself hurricane hacks that use common household items.

• Dishwashers are watertight. Double-bag your valuables, such as jewelry, in large freezer or garbage bags, then put these in the dishwasher for safekeeping. No dishwasher? The washing machine or dryer works in a pinch.

• Can’t find water anywhere? Thoroughly clean a 5-gallon garbage bin, or any available trash receptacle, and fill it with water. If your

home loses access to water, you’ll be able to use this for drinking and hygiene and to flush your toilets.

• Need to know how long refrigerated food will last before spoiling after the power is knocked out? Grab a glass and fill it with water. Freeze it overnight, then place a penny atop the ice and leave the glass inside the freezer. When the ice fully melts and the penny rests at the bottom of the glass, it means refrigerated goods are likely spoiled.

• Here’s a tip that has been shared on social media (but we haven’t tried ourselves) to charge your smartphone with a battery: Take the coil from inside a pen and lace it through the metallic side of a USB car charger. Then, connect the coil from the charger to the wider metal mouth of a 9-volt battery. Finally, plug the metal nub of the car charger into the other hole of the 9-volt battery and connect the charger to your phone.

• Here’s how to illuminate a room with one flashlight: Fill a clear, plastic gallon jug with water. Next, switch on your flashlight and balance it upside-down on the mouth of the jug. The container will function like a lantern.

• You can’t walk your dogs in the middle of a hurricane, but you can try to trick your potty-trained pooches into using the bathroom safely indoors. Buy artificial turf from the pet store or take leftover pieces of sod and place them inside a kiddie pool. Then place the kiddie pool in your garage. Dogs will think it’s a patch of grass and use it as a bathroom.

• Close all the doors in the home. If you lose your roof, the doors will keep the belongings inside each room and hopefully semi-protected, possibly against flying projectiles.

• If water seeps inside your home during the hurricane, protect furniture by resting chair and table legs atop disposable aluminum cooking pans. It won’t help against major flooding, but it may minimize water damage.

And here are some lastminute reminders:

• Do your laundry ahead of the hurricane so you’ll have clean clothes during an outage.

• Don’t run your generator inside the house. Keep it at least 20 feet away from windows and doors.

• Make extra ice ahead of time by filling airtight plastic bottles and sandwich and freezer bags with water and storing these in the freezer now.

• Take plenty of pictures and video of the house before the storm in case you need to make an insurance claim due to hurricane damage. Take a visual inventory of items covered by your insurance policy, and shoot a video of the objects before the storm. Keep those photos and video stored in the cloud or email them to yourself.

CARLINE JEAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Fort Lauderdale International Airport was jammed earlier this week as tourists evacuated and residents sought to flee the monster hurricane.