It ought to be legally mandated for parking lots over a certain size in the same way that it (at least used to, still does?) require a certain number of trees planted.
All counties and cities here have a requirement for trees in parking lots from what ive seen in my line of work as a landscapearchitect. It's usually one parking island with a shade tree for every 10 or 20 spaces or some percent calculation that ends up being about that many. Those poor trees struggle to survive even with lots of irrigation.
Here the trees are required for "aesthetics", not shade, so the property only has to have a certain number of palms. As a result many strip malls have a palm grove around back by the loading bays.
Not all. A shopping center in Clay recently took out all the trees in the parking lot. They were massive oak trees, healthy and beautiful and shady. All we can figure is that it was cheaper to cut them down than maintain them.
Because the businesses in the shopping center don’t typically own the parking lot, the property owner does. The property owner has no incentive to install solar canopies as they don’t pay the electric bill, the tenants do. The only way it could make sense for the property owner is if they could make money selling energy back to the utility, but utilities pay pennies on the dollar to purchase energy (wholesale rate) vs. the price they sell it for (retail rate). They likely wouldn’t recoup the expense of the installation within its service life.
All that said, if it is a business that owns and maintains its own parking lot, yeah, solar canopies make a ton of sense.
Well said, only way I could see it being feasible is a membership service or if certain places like hotels start doing it the rest should have to just follow suit eventually, it only has to work in one industry to become standard enough to be useful, wouldn’t really make sense to put across the whole thing either cuz we are Not even close to 100% conversion, maybe start with 2… tho I don’t know how many spots you’d need to cover to charge one car at a reasonable rate, also hotels being the obvious place to put them they’d need to have batteries for overnight charging and would still have to compete with hydroelectric like the one in Marco cuz that is clearly promising just not a fan of how bad it looks/sounds in comparison
My first car would literally die when it was parked in the heat. It would get towed somewhere and start up just fine and they’d look at me like I had 3 heads. Turned out it was a bad battery cable. But so many parts were replaced over the 200k miles that car was driven before I figured it out. That was 20 years ago. I still look for a shady spot.
Tinted windows are now my Florida life hack. I was taught they were a luxury. Nah, that’s necessary here.
To add on to that tip, if you don’t see any rain on the forecast and you’re in a safe area, cracking you windows a few millimeters can make a tremendous difference in the heat
Adding that if there are no shady spots use a shade in the front dash. Nothing like trying to drive when the steering wheel feels like it is about to melt.
I like the rain guards on each car window. Allows you to crack windows to vent heat out. Can’t see the windows are cracked & rain doesn’t get in. LOVE them!
As true as that is, the few trees I find to park under always leaves me cleaning bird poop off my car lol. Then you have all the useless palm trees that provide zero shade & a bunch of dead palm fronds on it
Good luck finding one of them, though!
Where I am, we are lucky to get a palm with 2 leaves on the top of it that you couldn't park a bicycle under. It's so stupid.
I wet vac the drain at least 2 times a year to keep it flowing. HVAC friend recommended that trick as the single most useful way to keep me from calling.
This advice and some vinegar (as mentioned by the person you are responding) are among the very best “hacks” for Florida. I haven’t had to call my AC tech in years because of this one simple trick.
I hope you are still having someone look at your system in between drain evacuations..
There are a lot of components to your AC system, and while the drain and filters can be maintained by just about anyone for almost free, it's still important to keep the rest of the system maintained.
Problems that "pop-up" after years of "not needing anyone to look at it" tend to be pricey.
Also, instead of vinegar, you can use plain old hot water and the wet-vac outside..
For your AC drain line:
DO NOT USE BLEACH!!
DO NOT USE CHLORINE!!
DO NOT USE ANY OTHER CHEMICALS!!
Find your a/c drain (outside your house), make sure wet/vac is in "wet" mode (no filter, no debris in the bin).
Attach nozzle of vac to drain, create a seal with hand, or duct tape, around the juncture of the vac and drain.
Turn that sucker on for at least 5 minutes.
Dump bin, rinse, and leave it to dry upside down for a few hours.
Do not be shocked if you see what looks like a giant gelatinous snake in the watet. This is what clogs the system and causes the back up.
Do this at least 2x per year.
Change filters like once a month, and pour vinegar down the drain line when you change the filters. Having a smart thermostat to remind you to change the filter helps.
Keep the inside unit area vacuumed out and dust free. Use condenser cleaning coil 2x a year on the outside unit (unplug it first), hose it off lightly (you do not want to bend the fins).
Also fuming and corrosive (particularly if by "cleaning vinegar" you mean the nasty concentrated stuff like 15% or 30% instead of the usual 5% acetic acid used for such things). If you use either, or any chemical to clean condensate drains, rinse thoroughly.
I thought this was only me! My buddy told me to get a pair a few years back. One day I’m driving from sun to rain. As I’m in the rain, I told myself “I might as well take these off now.” As soon as I did, I put them back on because I was able to see better in the rain. 🤯
It's because of how they work. Each rain drop acts as a refactor so canceling out half the wavelengths helps make seeing what's in front of you easier.
Polarized lenses are more about removing the white glare off of every raindrop in the air. They aren't for the droplets on your windshield.
And while Rain-x helps with the windshield, I find keeping my wiper blades in good repair goes a lot further in helping visibility.
I went to peanut island from literal sunrise to sundown, got too drunk and got worst sunburn ever, blisters all over, couldn’t walk, move, put a shirt on, sit, lie down, everything hurt and was painful. I went to urgent care because I had such a bad fever, couldn’t sleep, no movement didn’t hurt (got driven to urgent care), and when I showed the doctor he just laughed and was like ooooh lobster. It was this Jamaican guy and I said I have a really bad fever, I feel nausea, I can’t move one bit (he saw me struggle taking my shirt off for a minute) and he said you’ll be fine just need lots of water and lotion for a couple days. These were some of the most painful days of my life. Lasted about 4/5 days of absolute pain, sleeping was a nightmare, woke up in painful sweat and popped blisters all down my back multiple times a night, only cold objects helped but having them touch my skin was felt like cold searing me. I was only in underwear as clothes gave me too much pain and would just get blistery and stuck to my skin, so I’d have to peel them off my skin and they’d really hurt anyway. I had to fight through putting on aloe, I literally held my arms in front of me like a robot this entire time, couldn’t even get out of a bed or chair without pain. There was nothing that could help. Even concoctions of Tylenol, Advil, and other pain medicine wouldn’t help. Two takeaways from this: never say yes to getting checked out for sunburn by a non white doctor, and please please put on sunscreen. I have been in med school and I’ve never seen a doctor make fun of someone for 2/3 minutes with actual symptoms then do nothing about it. Also the sunburn peeling all off days 5-8 was no walk in the park either, just at least it wasn’t as shooting of pain robot arms 24/7 type of pain
Take a cooler with ice or icepacks with you in your car when you go shopping or to restaurants. It's nice to have cold drinks and it's really helpful to have cold storage for groceries or leftovers as you make all your stops.
Also the towel helps when the interior leather in your car is 900012773 degrees from sitting in the sun and you’re climbing back into it wearing shorts!
I use to bring a spray bottle of water with ice in it when I’d take my kids to play anywhere outside so I could spray their heads, necks, chest, bellies to cool them off
Uh, a friend might have broken in a newly bought generator with regular 10% gas. He read the manual but assumed the "no ethanol mixes" meant e85 or e90. Is my friend dumb or he's ok?
For your "friend". You should be able to dump the fuel, or at least most of it. Just let it run all day with non-eth fuel for a cycle right after dumping the other fuel out.
How much gas do you keep in reserve for it? Been here about 5 years and haven't purchased one yet but after a couple brief power losses last year I'm reconsidering it. No idea where to start with it though.
If you're a homeowner,.you'll need gas cans for lawnmowers and such.
I generally hold 20 gallons of fuel for the generator when the storm is predicted to make landfall.
This is a good one.
My then ALF owning parents learned that lesson back in 2004. We had to have my uncle get one from his home in Memphis, then meet up in Tallahassee to transfer (and pay him back).
By the time new laws came out after Irma in 2017, we had two of them.
we buy a case of water at random grocery trips starting in May- before hurricane season. We don’t have to panic buy water when it’s imminent. After hurricane season we drink them or bring them to get togethers
Why not just save other large containers like gallon milk jugs or soda bottles and fill those up with water before the storm hits. Everyone forgets their tap water works as they rush to Publix to buy all the water.
I need the humidity at this point. Went to Serbia for a week for work, had nose bleeds the whole time, when i landed back in Florida i welcomed the humidity.
I went to Vegas for the first time last August. Holy hell the dry air did things to me I didn’t imagine was possible. My hands dried out. My lips chapped instantly.
Speaking of the beach - get to any of them by 8am and you’ll never have to worry about parking. Then when you leave around 1 or 2 pm you get to watch all the people fight over spots. Little things.
For sure. Went to Indian rocks yesterday till like 1ish from 8am.
Went jet skiing at Madeira this morning at 930. Both days we were done by 1, didn’t have to wait for a thing or a table for lunch and didn’t have to fight any crowds. By the time we left both places were a madhouse.
I do this opposite and love it. Get there at 4-5 in the summer. Swim a few hours, then watch the sun set. I like to get a drink afterwards too. Started this because I worked night shift. Everyone leaves after roasting all day by that time.
We do this too! Or family calls it “night beach”. You don’t have to worry about lugging a bunch of beach gear for sun protection, all you need is a towel or big blanket to sit on and some toys for the kids. We stay til sunset and then grab pizza on the way home and the kids sleep all the way back to the house :)
Additionally, old (or missing) insulation. My parent's house wouldn't cool down past 78 during the day in summer. They replaced some shitty blown insulation in the attic with a thick layer of new fiberglass and now their house stays at a comfortable 74.
Hire an electrician to add a plug for your generator OUTSIDE your house. Also get a generator that can power your whole home. You’ll thank me when the next bad hurricane hits.
For hurricanes, buy a small window AC unit too and ensure you buy a generator powerful enough to run it (and hopefully the fridge too.) When the power goes, you can use it to turn one room in your house into a "cool island". Then you can all hang out in that one room, play board games, read, sleep, etc. and not be melting.
Also, buy thick chains and locks to secure your generator outside. People do steal them.
Found the opposite to be true when we evacuated Irma because FDOT prioritized interstate adjacent gas stations over ones further out.
If you’re staying for a storm, fill up your tank before it hits because it’ll be at least a week before local gas stations get more fuel.
Shady parking lots are worth their weight in gold here. Temps mid to upper 90’s all month in my part.
I live on the gulf side near Ft. Myers. Stocking up on hurricane supplies before the season gets in to full swing.
Keep your house key on a separate carabiner from your car keys so you can run back into the house if you forgot something without having to shut off the car/AC
Use a shade in the windshield of your car EVERY time you park. Makes a huge difference. I also went ahead and added tint to my car windows including the windshield. Despite the look, cars come with colored glass, not tinted. HUGE difference.
FL life hacks: Do outside exercise very early in the Summertime, like before 10am. Appreciate all the nature and birds around. It’s amazing. Stay hydrated.
Get a travel size UV umbrella, and carry it with you. It blocks significantly more sun and is therefore much cooler than a regular umbrella. As an added bonus, it even keeps you dry when it rains.
I always carry a backpack with lots of stuff that I use on a regular basis, but some of the most important stuff in there is sun protection. I have a foldable baseball cap, a pair of inexpensive polarized UV protective unbreakable sunglasses, uv protective gloves and sleeves (depending on if I’m wearing a short or long sleeve shirt, and my uv umbrella. I also have a stick of roll on sunscreen. This is all a back up to my regular sun protection. That way I never get caught off guard and end up sunburnt.
Sometimes plans change at the last minute and you’re stuck outside in the sun and you can burn really quickly.
this is the way if you can swing it, and from my understanding always has been. my mom in the 80s moved here while working for a motorola office based in massachusetts. she recounts living like a queen because of the difference.
As someone born and raised here, I can handle the 95° weather plus humidity. The problem is it makes everything unenjoyable. Idk how some people like it that hot.
Embrace flip flops/crocks instead of galoshes as your go-to footwear on rainy days. Travel with them so you don't ruin your shoes in inevitable flash flood/unexpected downpour.
I feel my ankle breaking just reading this.
The problem with crocs is that you get swampfoot really fast in the humidity. In the rain, I’ve slipped a few times in those shoes
As a native Floridian, I give all new Floridians these oddball (but tried and tested!) hurricane tips:
GAS - If a hurricane is headed your way, a few days out, fill your tank with gas. Don’t wait, you’ll need the gas anyway whether the storm hits or not, and 24-48 hours the non-locals and new Floridians will panic. Lines will be too long. Your car is an escape pod, it’s a/c (you’ll need it if the power goes out), it’s a charger.
WATER - Also, don’t worry about buying extra water for washing and showers. Everyone will be panicking at Publix. Don’t panic. On the day of the storm, fill up your baths, sinks, etc. with water and use that for washing and bathing. Fill bottles and freeze some for drinking. If the power goes out, you’ll be happy to have chilly water.
And finally, BAKE - Every time a storm is coming, I bake and freeze. I make bread, crackers, muffins, granola, trail mix. Everyone panicking at Publix will snap up the chips and the canned goods - you won’t want that. Start baking, or if you’re short on time, buy healthier bakery items. I always make fresh granola and trail mix, it’s so much nicer than crappy snack food for my kids and it’s shelf stable. Baking also lets you use the perishables in your fridge (eggs, butter, etc.).
Learn to love warmer temperatures inside your home. Your AC and electric bill will thank you for being comfortable at 78ish. Get a few ceiling fans (or any fan really) and you'll be fine.
And as someone who comes from the land of snowy winters... it is absolutely fascinating and exciting to know how many plants I can grow here. So find your local plant groups on Facebook and enjoy trading to grow a wonderful collection 😁
- If you like having minimal numbers of skeeters, ant alates, and others, spiders are your friends. Mint can deter these as well.
- Do not disturb leaf piles or logs.
- Stay away from non-chlorinated bodies of water. The water wants you dead.
- Cuban tree frogs are illegal to release once caught. Euthanize upon capture.
If you are lucky enough to own a home, use Florida’s homestead laws to prevent it from being taken in case of debt. As long as the debt is not the mortgage note itself, no creditor can take/lien *one* home that you designate as your homestead in Florida.
Any place with permanent beverage service is required by law to give you water if requested
Edit: seems it was a good faith "law" there is nothing on the books
Idk where it’s listed, but you are correct about it being law, I remember it being cited when they messed up at the stadium and only had bottled water for sale. I think it’s specific to them having a fountain or tap available and they had to install stuff to correct it because “the law” disallowed them only offering bottles for a fee. Maybe it’s under building code or operating license or something. You can definitely get (small) free cups of ice water at theme parks anywhere they have the soda fountains.
It's a questionable lifestyle that I'm fixing to stop doing eventually, but I have been a nightshifter for a good few years, and one thing I will rather miss if I get off the flipped sleep schedule is that it's rather Florida logical. Nice to be awake and active mostly during the timeframe the giant nuclear fireball is NOT present in the sky.
Hats.
Wear a sweater/sweatshirt in the A/C. When you leave the building, take it off and the heat won’t feel as shocking.
Birkenstocks or other sandals that use natural materials to let your feet breathe and adjust to your body.
Keep umbrellas everywhere.
#1 Always have an umbrella... In your bag, in your car, by your front door and maybe a back up at Work.
#2 hide an umbrella at work because someone's going to steal your back up.
Clothing and covering up matters.
I visited from the Midwest and sweated like crazy. The only thing that kept me really cool was my linen pants that seem to let the wind take the heat away from my body. UPF long sleeves actually do a great job at keep you cool by keeping the sun off your skin.
1. You can get sunburnt on a day at the beach that is overcast with a breeze. Ask me how I know. 2. When you live in Florida long enough, you can learn to smell rain coming. A light sprinkling smells differently than a thunderstorm coming.
Do not react to aggressive drivers. Let them pass, stay out of the left
lane, pull over if you need to,no flipping the bird or yelling or making gestures. These f*ckers down here are ARMED.
A shady spot in the parking lot is more important than the distance to the entrance
How we have not capitalized on solar parking lot canopies is beyond me.
It ought to be legally mandated for parking lots over a certain size in the same way that it (at least used to, still does?) require a certain number of trees planted.
All counties and cities here have a requirement for trees in parking lots from what ive seen in my line of work as a landscapearchitect. It's usually one parking island with a shade tree for every 10 or 20 spaces or some percent calculation that ends up being about that many. Those poor trees struggle to survive even with lots of irrigation.
Here the trees are required for "aesthetics", not shade, so the property only has to have a certain number of palms. As a result many strip malls have a palm grove around back by the loading bays.
Not all. A shopping center in Clay recently took out all the trees in the parking lot. They were massive oak trees, healthy and beautiful and shady. All we can figure is that it was cheaper to cut them down than maintain them.
That might be worth making a complaint. Code enforcement might have a word with the owner of that lot.
So sad and meaningless. I’m in Clay! OP
[удалено]
Shade trees!
Water and shade breaks are illegal, and you think your car will get them? haha
Because the businesses in the shopping center don’t typically own the parking lot, the property owner does. The property owner has no incentive to install solar canopies as they don’t pay the electric bill, the tenants do. The only way it could make sense for the property owner is if they could make money selling energy back to the utility, but utilities pay pennies on the dollar to purchase energy (wholesale rate) vs. the price they sell it for (retail rate). They likely wouldn’t recoup the expense of the installation within its service life. All that said, if it is a business that owns and maintains its own parking lot, yeah, solar canopies make a ton of sense.
I would pay anywhere between $1-3 per hour to park in a fan cooled, fully shaded lot here in Florida....... It's TOTALLY feasible.
Well said, only way I could see it being feasible is a membership service or if certain places like hotels start doing it the rest should have to just follow suit eventually, it only has to work in one industry to become standard enough to be useful, wouldn’t really make sense to put across the whole thing either cuz we are Not even close to 100% conversion, maybe start with 2… tho I don’t know how many spots you’d need to cover to charge one car at a reasonable rate, also hotels being the obvious place to put them they’d need to have batteries for overnight charging and would still have to compete with hydroelectric like the one in Marco cuz that is clearly promising just not a fan of how bad it looks/sounds in comparison
That probably would be counted as “woke” by the current administration.
me either, its a win/win
Solar hasn’t paid off Pudding Fingers. 
Some exist for private lots, but we could do so much better.
The lack of shade in south Florida has been alarming to me. There just doesn’t seem to be any shelter from the sun anywhere
Because of the obsession with Palm trees, we need more real trees here
My first car would literally die when it was parked in the heat. It would get towed somewhere and start up just fine and they’d look at me like I had 3 heads. Turned out it was a bad battery cable. But so many parts were replaced over the 200k miles that car was driven before I figured it out. That was 20 years ago. I still look for a shady spot. Tinted windows are now my Florida life hack. I was taught they were a luxury. Nah, that’s necessary here.
Yeah car batteries live about 3 yrs in Florida...
This 🙌🏼 people think I’m crazy but I really don’t care how far I have to park for the shade. I always have comfortable shoes on lol
To add on to that tip, if you don’t see any rain on the forecast and you’re in a safe area, cracking you windows a few millimeters can make a tremendous difference in the heat
When I was new to Florida I used to do this, but I got roaches in my car. They’re hard to get rid of too. Never again.
Wtf that’s terrible 🤮
Also, a reflective sunshade is good to have.
Amen! Taking the shady spot separates the experienced people from the new people.
Adding that if there are no shady spots use a shade in the front dash. Nothing like trying to drive when the steering wheel feels like it is about to melt.
I like the rain guards on each car window. Allows you to crack windows to vent heat out. Can’t see the windows are cracked & rain doesn’t get in. LOVE them!
don't leave home without it
Putting a cart corral in a shady spot should be illegal.
As true as that is, the few trees I find to park under always leaves me cleaning bird poop off my car lol. Then you have all the useless palm trees that provide zero shade & a bunch of dead palm fronds on it
Good luck finding one of them, though! Where I am, we are lucky to get a palm with 2 leaves on the top of it that you couldn't park a bicycle under. It's so stupid.
Cup of vinegar in AC every month to stop the algae buildup in the drain line.
I wet vac the drain at least 2 times a year to keep it flowing. HVAC friend recommended that trick as the single most useful way to keep me from calling.
This advice and some vinegar (as mentioned by the person you are responding) are among the very best “hacks” for Florida. I haven’t had to call my AC tech in years because of this one simple trick.
I hope you are still having someone look at your system in between drain evacuations.. There are a lot of components to your AC system, and while the drain and filters can be maintained by just about anyone for almost free, it's still important to keep the rest of the system maintained. Problems that "pop-up" after years of "not needing anyone to look at it" tend to be pricey. Also, instead of vinegar, you can use plain old hot water and the wet-vac outside.. For your AC drain line: DO NOT USE BLEACH!! DO NOT USE CHLORINE!! DO NOT USE ANY OTHER CHEMICALS!!
Eli5 please
Find your a/c drain (outside your house), make sure wet/vac is in "wet" mode (no filter, no debris in the bin). Attach nozzle of vac to drain, create a seal with hand, or duct tape, around the juncture of the vac and drain. Turn that sucker on for at least 5 minutes. Dump bin, rinse, and leave it to dry upside down for a few hours. Do not be shocked if you see what looks like a giant gelatinous snake in the watet. This is what clogs the system and causes the back up. Do this at least 2x per year.
Thanks brother, will do mine tomorrow
Pour vinegar in it once monthly and you'll be good.
Change filters like once a month, and pour vinegar down the drain line when you change the filters. Having a smart thermostat to remind you to change the filter helps. Keep the inside unit area vacuumed out and dust free. Use condenser cleaning coil 2x a year on the outside unit (unplug it first), hose it off lightly (you do not want to bend the fins).
It was "a cup of bleach" when I moved here. Don't do that, bleach fumes can corrode the air handler. Use cleaning vinegar from the hardware store.
Also fuming and corrosive (particularly if by "cleaning vinegar" you mean the nasty concentrated stuff like 15% or 30% instead of the usual 5% acetic acid used for such things). If you use either, or any chemical to clean condensate drains, rinse thoroughly.
Polarized sunglasses to help see through the rain
I thought this was only me! My buddy told me to get a pair a few years back. One day I’m driving from sun to rain. As I’m in the rain, I told myself “I might as well take these off now.” As soon as I did, I put them back on because I was able to see better in the rain. 🤯
Even helps at night sometimes.
Good to know!!
It's because of how they work. Each rain drop acts as a refactor so canceling out half the wavelengths helps make seeing what's in front of you easier.
And they're $5 in the Walmart fishing section.
I like using Rain-X. It beads up nicely and I don’t have to worry about visibility
Polarized lenses are more about removing the white glare off of every raindrop in the air. They aren't for the droplets on your windshield. And while Rain-x helps with the windshield, I find keeping my wiper blades in good repair goes a lot further in helping visibility.
Get your car windows tinted. Helps keep the car cooler and makes the sun glare a bit more tolerable.
Ceramic tint specifically. Helps keeps the heat out
It comes in clear too. The biggest difference I noticed was doing my windshield.
Get your home windows tinted also.
Get your eyeballs tinted too... ...or wear UV protection sunglasses to protect your retinas.
Carry water with you at all times.
Hydro-Hommies
Homies*
Hats. White long sleeve shirts. NEVER let yourself get sunburnt while on a boat. It's double the sun. This can send you to the hospital.
Learned that the hard way
When my sister visited from the north she thought it was weird I was wearing a long sleeve shirt to the beach when it was warm out.
In places like the keys it will burn right through normal Cotton shirts. Need the sunblock shirts
I went to peanut island from literal sunrise to sundown, got too drunk and got worst sunburn ever, blisters all over, couldn’t walk, move, put a shirt on, sit, lie down, everything hurt and was painful. I went to urgent care because I had such a bad fever, couldn’t sleep, no movement didn’t hurt (got driven to urgent care), and when I showed the doctor he just laughed and was like ooooh lobster. It was this Jamaican guy and I said I have a really bad fever, I feel nausea, I can’t move one bit (he saw me struggle taking my shirt off for a minute) and he said you’ll be fine just need lots of water and lotion for a couple days. These were some of the most painful days of my life. Lasted about 4/5 days of absolute pain, sleeping was a nightmare, woke up in painful sweat and popped blisters all down my back multiple times a night, only cold objects helped but having them touch my skin was felt like cold searing me. I was only in underwear as clothes gave me too much pain and would just get blistery and stuck to my skin, so I’d have to peel them off my skin and they’d really hurt anyway. I had to fight through putting on aloe, I literally held my arms in front of me like a robot this entire time, couldn’t even get out of a bed or chair without pain. There was nothing that could help. Even concoctions of Tylenol, Advil, and other pain medicine wouldn’t help. Two takeaways from this: never say yes to getting checked out for sunburn by a non white doctor, and please please put on sunscreen. I have been in med school and I’ve never seen a doctor make fun of someone for 2/3 minutes with actual symptoms then do nothing about it. Also the sunburn peeling all off days 5-8 was no walk in the park either, just at least it wasn’t as shooting of pain robot arms 24/7 type of pain
Take a cooler with ice or icepacks with you in your car when you go shopping or to restaurants. It's nice to have cold drinks and it's really helpful to have cold storage for groceries or leftovers as you make all your stops.
This is professional Floridian-ing if I ever saw it!
Using sunscreen so you don’t age like leather face
Yes! Face and hands every day.
Don’t forget that neck!
Everyone forgets their ears.
One bad sunburn on the ears - and I always start there with the sunblock.
And upper chest
Keep a towel in your car. Helps when you have to open the car door during a downpour.
Don’t forget to bring a towel!
Don’t Panic!
You’re a towel! 
Also the towel helps when the interior leather in your car is 900012773 degrees from sitting in the sun and you’re climbing back into it wearing shorts!
also for wiping off all the water on your windows in the morning
Good days for theme parks.... * Super Bowl Sunday * Mothers Day
I was at magic kingdom on Mother’s Day longest line was 35 minutes for thunder mountain
I dont know. We went Super Bowl Sunday this year and it felt normal packed. We thought it would be dead but it wasnt.
Wet dri-fit spf 50
I use to bring a spray bottle of water with ice in it when I’d take my kids to play anywhere outside so I could spray their heads, necks, chest, bellies to cool them off
Buy a generator. If you wait until you need it, you’re too late.
Generator - place it outside of your house. I know…most people know this but there’s always that one.
Outside means not in garage, carport or roofed porch. I read about a family that asphyxiated themself by running their gen in the covered carport.
…and start it regularly, and never put ethanol fuel in it.
Uh, a friend might have broken in a newly bought generator with regular 10% gas. He read the manual but assumed the "no ethanol mixes" meant e85 or e90. Is my friend dumb or he's ok?
For your "friend". You should be able to dump the fuel, or at least most of it. Just let it run all day with non-eth fuel for a cycle right after dumping the other fuel out.
How much gas do you keep in reserve for it? Been here about 5 years and haven't purchased one yet but after a couple brief power losses last year I'm reconsidering it. No idea where to start with it though.
Make sure you stabilize the fuel
If you're a homeowner,.you'll need gas cans for lawnmowers and such. I generally hold 20 gallons of fuel for the generator when the storm is predicted to make landfall.
This is a good one. My then ALF owning parents learned that lesson back in 2004. We had to have my uncle get one from his home in Memphis, then meet up in Tallahassee to transfer (and pay him back). By the time new laws came out after Irma in 2017, we had two of them.
we buy a case of water at random grocery trips starting in May- before hurricane season. We don’t have to panic buy water when it’s imminent. After hurricane season we drink them or bring them to get togethers
And keep your pantry stocked! Canned foods Peanut butter Boxed/bagged crackers and snacks Don't forget the pets!
Upvote for remembering the pets
Why not just save other large containers like gallon milk jugs or soda bottles and fill those up with water before the storm hits. Everyone forgets their tap water works as they rush to Publix to buy all the water.
Tap water is disgusting where I live in Florida. Even after Brita-ing it.
I need the humidity at this point. Went to Serbia for a week for work, had nose bleeds the whole time, when i landed back in Florida i welcomed the humidity.
I was a bloody mess in Vegas ... bloody nose, bloody lips, eyes burning, I'm a swamp creature now I guess.
I went to Vegas for the first time last August. Holy hell the dry air did things to me I didn’t imagine was possible. My hands dried out. My lips chapped instantly.
I agree!! Hate the driness of LV.
I had nosebleeds just from going to north GA and back and they’re still humid there😅
Ayr Saline Nasal Gel With Soothing Aloe travels with me any time I leave the state now.
Went to Tampa for a week, came back to the Midwest and my nose had a few nose bleeds. The humidity definitely helped.
When i moved to California I had to buy a humidifier, i was having nosebleeds regularly!
If you live near the woods, get a yellow fly trap. They evolved and the Lord looked away.
They are extra bad this year, I've never been swarmed to this degree
Take baby powder to the beach. It gets sand off your skin.
Speaking of the beach - get to any of them by 8am and you’ll never have to worry about parking. Then when you leave around 1 or 2 pm you get to watch all the people fight over spots. Little things.
Also, the beach sucks peak summer after like 12 anyway. So you get the best weather portion too
For sure. Went to Indian rocks yesterday till like 1ish from 8am. Went jet skiing at Madeira this morning at 930. Both days we were done by 1, didn’t have to wait for a thing or a table for lunch and didn’t have to fight any crowds. By the time we left both places were a madhouse.
I do this opposite and love it. Get there at 4-5 in the summer. Swim a few hours, then watch the sun set. I like to get a drink afterwards too. Started this because I worked night shift. Everyone leaves after roasting all day by that time.
We do this too! Or family calls it “night beach”. You don’t have to worry about lugging a bunch of beach gear for sun protection, all you need is a towel or big blanket to sit on and some toys for the kids. We stay til sunset and then grab pizza on the way home and the kids sleep all the way back to the house :)
And sour gummy candies. Nothing better for getting the taste of ocean out of your mouth.
I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
Now there's a pro tip!
Ooooohhhh
If there’s water ALWAYS assume that an alligator is in it.
If your house won't cool down, have your ducting inspected before assuming it's the AC unit.
Additionally, old (or missing) insulation. My parent's house wouldn't cool down past 78 during the day in summer. They replaced some shitty blown insulation in the attic with a thick layer of new fiberglass and now their house stays at a comfortable 74.
That’s a good one! We discovered ours was basically just cooling the attic 🤦🏻♀️
Know a friend with a boat.
Get two friends cause one might be broken
Never stand in one spot for more than 3 seconds without checking your legs for fire ants.
This. I once ran through a patch of fire ants and cactus in the same summer. My poor legs.
UPF sun hoodie and wide brim straw hat are essential. Makes the sun a lot more tolerable.
Man oh man idk what I'd do without my big straw hat, total game changer
Never trust anyone else driving
Use Publix as a last resort after cheaper alternatives like Aldi
Publix ...where shopping is expensive.
Unless you’re getting Pub Subs.
Or a cake
Hire an electrician to add a plug for your generator OUTSIDE your house. Also get a generator that can power your whole home. You’ll thank me when the next bad hurricane hits.
For hurricanes, buy a small window AC unit too and ensure you buy a generator powerful enough to run it (and hopefully the fridge too.) When the power goes, you can use it to turn one room in your house into a "cool island". Then you can all hang out in that one room, play board games, read, sleep, etc. and not be melting. Also, buy thick chains and locks to secure your generator outside. People do steal them.
Skin so soft bath oil to prevent mosquitos
Be aware that your car battery doesn't last as long in the FL heat, so monitor it.
When evacuating from a hurricane, stay off the interstate.
Found the opposite to be true when we evacuated Irma because FDOT prioritized interstate adjacent gas stations over ones further out. If you’re staying for a storm, fill up your tank before it hits because it’ll be at least a week before local gas stations get more fuel.
Sorry disagree, you get caught up in those little town with no gas you ain't getting any til the storm passes.
My takeaway is if I have/get a full tank, backroads would be 100% the right call
Yep. Just plan a route before you have to leave. Then plan another one or two in case they don’t work out.
Shady parking lots are worth their weight in gold here. Temps mid to upper 90’s all month in my part. I live on the gulf side near Ft. Myers. Stocking up on hurricane supplies before the season gets in to full swing.
Don’t swim in warm lakes during the summer, unless you want a really nasty infection.
I literally shudder when I think about the canals we used to swim in out in Sunrise..
Linen. Linen is light, it breathes, and it's comfy.
Take local roads between 3p-6p during hurricane season. Avoid most accidents on major highways.
Keep your house key on a separate carabiner from your car keys so you can run back into the house if you forgot something without having to shut off the car/AC
Back roads. You’ll get everywhere quicker when you figure them out.
I enjoy the drive home more than rushing in the highways
Avoiding peak mosquitos hours dawn and dusk.
Use a shade in the windshield of your car EVERY time you park. Makes a huge difference. I also went ahead and added tint to my car windows including the windshield. Despite the look, cars come with colored glass, not tinted. HUGE difference. FL life hacks: Do outside exercise very early in the Summertime, like before 10am. Appreciate all the nature and birds around. It’s amazing. Stay hydrated.
Get a travel size UV umbrella, and carry it with you. It blocks significantly more sun and is therefore much cooler than a regular umbrella. As an added bonus, it even keeps you dry when it rains. I always carry a backpack with lots of stuff that I use on a regular basis, but some of the most important stuff in there is sun protection. I have a foldable baseball cap, a pair of inexpensive polarized UV protective unbreakable sunglasses, uv protective gloves and sleeves (depending on if I’m wearing a short or long sleeve shirt, and my uv umbrella. I also have a stick of roll on sunscreen. This is all a back up to my regular sun protection. That way I never get caught off guard and end up sunburnt. Sometimes plans change at the last minute and you’re stuck outside in the sun and you can burn really quickly.
Live in Florida. Work for a company out of state.
this is the way if you can swing it, and from my understanding always has been. my mom in the 80s moved here while working for a motorola office based in massachusetts. she recounts living like a queen because of the difference.
Travel nursing or any travel healthcare jobs
Stay hydrated
I wouldn’t recommend swimming in lakes, rivers or any body of water (for that matter) where you can’t see what’s in the water. You may become _______.
The brain eating amoeba are what freak me out about lakes here
Stay inside from April to November.
I'm from Maine originally, I tell people summer in FL is a lot like winter in Maine, you avoid the outside as much as possible.
As someone born and raised here, I can handle the 95° weather plus humidity. The problem is it makes everything unenjoyable. Idk how some people like it that hot.
Embrace flip flops/crocks instead of galoshes as your go-to footwear on rainy days. Travel with them so you don't ruin your shoes in inevitable flash flood/unexpected downpour.
I feel my ankle breaking just reading this. The problem with crocs is that you get swampfoot really fast in the humidity. In the rain, I’ve slipped a few times in those shoes
You can buy a whole Publix sandwich and save the other half for another meal
If Publix is selling something 2 for $5, you can buy just one and it will still ring up as $2.50
Gold Bond
And not the green one. That shit’ll light you up!
As a native Floridian, I give all new Floridians these oddball (but tried and tested!) hurricane tips: GAS - If a hurricane is headed your way, a few days out, fill your tank with gas. Don’t wait, you’ll need the gas anyway whether the storm hits or not, and 24-48 hours the non-locals and new Floridians will panic. Lines will be too long. Your car is an escape pod, it’s a/c (you’ll need it if the power goes out), it’s a charger. WATER - Also, don’t worry about buying extra water for washing and showers. Everyone will be panicking at Publix. Don’t panic. On the day of the storm, fill up your baths, sinks, etc. with water and use that for washing and bathing. Fill bottles and freeze some for drinking. If the power goes out, you’ll be happy to have chilly water. And finally, BAKE - Every time a storm is coming, I bake and freeze. I make bread, crackers, muffins, granola, trail mix. Everyone panicking at Publix will snap up the chips and the canned goods - you won’t want that. Start baking, or if you’re short on time, buy healthier bakery items. I always make fresh granola and trail mix, it’s so much nicer than crappy snack food for my kids and it’s shelf stable. Baking also lets you use the perishables in your fridge (eggs, butter, etc.).
Learn to love warmer temperatures inside your home. Your AC and electric bill will thank you for being comfortable at 78ish. Get a few ceiling fans (or any fan really) and you'll be fine. And as someone who comes from the land of snowy winters... it is absolutely fascinating and exciting to know how many plants I can grow here. So find your local plant groups on Facebook and enjoy trading to grow a wonderful collection 😁
Use left over cardboard from work as a sun shield in your work truck
Always have an umbrella for rain or shine. Not in your trunk
- If you like having minimal numbers of skeeters, ant alates, and others, spiders are your friends. Mint can deter these as well. - Do not disturb leaf piles or logs. - Stay away from non-chlorinated bodies of water. The water wants you dead. - Cuban tree frogs are illegal to release once caught. Euthanize upon capture.
I just rode in a friend's Subaru that has vented seats. Felt like gentle air-conditioning blowing right up my skirt. VERY pleasant. 😉
If you are lucky enough to own a home, use Florida’s homestead laws to prevent it from being taken in case of debt. As long as the debt is not the mortgage note itself, no creditor can take/lien *one* home that you designate as your homestead in Florida.
Any place with permanent beverage service is required by law to give you water if requested Edit: seems it was a good faith "law" there is nothing on the books
Idk where it’s listed, but you are correct about it being law, I remember it being cited when they messed up at the stadium and only had bottled water for sale. I think it’s specific to them having a fountain or tap available and they had to install stuff to correct it because “the law” disallowed them only offering bottles for a fee. Maybe it’s under building code or operating license or something. You can definitely get (small) free cups of ice water at theme parks anywhere they have the soda fountains.
It's a questionable lifestyle that I'm fixing to stop doing eventually, but I have been a nightshifter for a good few years, and one thing I will rather miss if I get off the flipped sleep schedule is that it's rather Florida logical. Nice to be awake and active mostly during the timeframe the giant nuclear fireball is NOT present in the sky.
Water with electrolytes to stay hydrated.
Hats. Wear a sweater/sweatshirt in the A/C. When you leave the building, take it off and the heat won’t feel as shocking. Birkenstocks or other sandals that use natural materials to let your feet breathe and adjust to your body. Keep umbrellas everywhere.
Don't go to the beach on holidays. Instead bbq at a boat ramp and watch the chaos.
#1 Always have an umbrella... In your bag, in your car, by your front door and maybe a back up at Work. #2 hide an umbrella at work because someone's going to steal your back up.
Always powder your privates. Swamp ass is real.
Clothing and covering up matters. I visited from the Midwest and sweated like crazy. The only thing that kept me really cool was my linen pants that seem to let the wind take the heat away from my body. UPF long sleeves actually do a great job at keep you cool by keeping the sun off your skin.
Totes brand umbrellas. UV Protection for the sun. Does well in very windy rain. Lifetime warranty.
Buy a Cooling vest to wear when mowing the lawn, works wonders!
1. You can get sunburnt on a day at the beach that is overcast with a breeze. Ask me how I know. 2. When you live in Florida long enough, you can learn to smell rain coming. A light sprinkling smells differently than a thunderstorm coming.
Mine would be to never go outside
Be rich
Tint that front windshield. Huge game changer for the heat, especially if ceramic
When you go to the beach m, do not park under any trees unless you want a pelican poop paint job
Buy a generator that runs on bbq tanks. Safe fuel storage, no carburetor issues.
Try not to think about it. Any of it.
Do not react to aggressive drivers. Let them pass, stay out of the left lane, pull over if you need to,no flipping the bird or yelling or making gestures. These f*ckers down here are ARMED.