How Will You Defeat Frankenstorm?
The likelihood that the East Coast will be clobbered by Frankenstorm (more correctly: Frankenstorm's Monster), perhaps starting as early as Sunday is 90% as of yesterday. Most people here have resigned themselves to the fact that they and their loved ones soon will be washed out to sea, and just as Apple was beginning to experiment with new, excitingly-sized products (bummer).
However, a growing band of plucky survivors—goddamn I love your spirit—have made it their mission to weather out the storm and repopulate the region once it has been wiped out.
Please use this space to share tips, tricks, and hurricane hacks people might use to survive Frankenstorm 2012: A Shitstorm of Problems.
We'll get you started with a few of our own:
What's My Role in All This?
The people who should be worrying right now are those who live in any of the New England states, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. If you live in one of these places, your role in this is: star!
I Think, I Can
This storm is coming at a pretty ideal time, as many people's homes will already be stocked with a surplus of candy in preparation for Halloween. If it's raining too hard to run out for a bagel, go ahead and consume everything you were planning on giving to trick or treaters — just make sure to take out the razor blades first.
In addition to the Halloween bounty, load your house with as many non-perishables as you can cart home from Costco. (Three days' worth is ideal for a hurricane. If you're lucky and resourceful, you can just use all the leftovers from Irene.) Don't worry about any of them going bad, for these foods do not perish.
Cans are a safe bet (make sure you have a non-electric can opener), as are cereal bars, peanut butter and crackers, and dried fruits. Anything a bird would eat should be good, except bugs.
Everybody Freeze!
Power companies are already predicting extended blackouts, which means that no one will have to catch their refrigerators because they won't be running. To combat this, freeze bottles of water and leave them in your freezer to keep food cold. If your water is cut off at some point during the storm—what's this—you've got a freezer full of drinkables. Water for everybody! (Just kidding; don't share your water with anyone. You have a limited supply.)
Keep the refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible, to trap the cool air inside like a malevolent spirit.
Catastrofashion
Now is the time to assemble all your rain gear. If you don't already have a pair, invest in some rubber boots. Cute ankle high booties don't count even if they really are the cutest, and you do not want to be that jackass sloshing around street sludge in soggy sneakers.
Wear bright colors so that you will be easy to spot in the event you need rescuing, and also so that you will be the talk of the party. Should society completely collapse and divide into warring neighborhood factions, people will be more likely to rally behind a flag that is an eyepopping shade of red, rather than one that is muddy green.
Do NOT wear white. Frankenstorm is like God hosting a wet t-shirt contest for the entire East Coast. Also, white shows dirt the most easily.
If you absolutely have to go outside, leave the wool, velvet, and suede at home in the 90s.
Yankee Candle Company
Make sure you have plenty of candles on hand. The howling winds will provide an intense backdrop to your lovemaking.
With Friends like These, I'm Sorry to Be Dying
If you can trick someone into loving you, you'll probably want to be with at least one other person during this ordeal. The right storm partner can help ward off tedium and will serve as a sounding board for your crazier survival technique ideas. ("What if we made a small fire in the bathtub?")
Go Go Gadget Bag
In addition to confirming that New York is going to require a shitload of blood for unspecified reasons in the coming days (probably because people will claw at one another like animals if transit service gets suspended, which happens when winds are above 39 m.p.h.), Mayor Bloomberg has advised residents to make a "Go Bag," in the event they have to leave home at a moment's notice. Bloomberg advises stocking your Go Bag with water, a first-aid kit, a flashlight, medications (Xanax and birth control — see you guys in Party Town), an extra set of house and car keys, and essential documents like your passport and any gelato customer rewards cards.
Odds and Ends
The Weather Channel also suggests setting aside everything on this list, which includes laxatives, petroleum jelly, and a compass.
How do you plan to defeat Frankenstorm? Will you give blood or hoard it? Are you going to tape your windows? How do tape your windows? Did you ever take off the tape you put on your windows for Irene? What won't it occur to people to do, that they should do?
Help save me.
Illustration by Jim Cooke.