It is sunny outside. You have been off work for two days. It’s all a big vacation, right? Well unless you want to be without power and have a flooded home in the next twelve hours….you need to do these things if you live in Nashville or Middle Tennessee.

Take a walk around your house. Where does your electricity go into the home? Are there limbs hanging above the line? If so, try to trim them back. We are about to get high winds out of the northwest and limbs weakened by two days of heavy ice will likely break and hit the line. With temps of -2 tonight….you don’t want to be without power. Do the same around phone and internet lines. You are stuck at home–you don’t want to be in a queue of a thousand other people calling Comcast to tell them your cable is out.

On your walk, look at your outdoor faucets. Is there a hose attached? TAKE IT OFF now. Do you have faucet covers? No, well go get some from Home Depot or Wal-Mart. I know you don’t like going to Wal-Mart but would you rather be the 47th person that has called their plumber to tell them their water line froze and then burst? If you can’t get out–then wrap the faucet with an old sweatshirt and tie it up with boot laces. Really. Do it.

What about your foundation vents? Do they close? If so, close them. Are they older and don’t close tightly? Go to Home Depot and buy a couple of 2’x2′ pieces of 3/4″ foam board. Bring it home and cut it with a box cutter to the size of the foundation vent (or even slightly larger so that it fits tightly) and install it in that opening. They are usually 8″x16″ so you can get three or so cut out of a 2’x2′ piece. This is especially important for foundation vents on the NW side of the home as that is the direction of tonight’s wind. Cold wind drives itself into any area it can–be prepared.

Inside make sure you keep your house as warm or warmer than you normally would. I know your gas and electric bill might be higher–but spending several hundred dollars on plumbing repairs will cost more than that. Open the cabinets where plumbing is so that the room temperature will surround your pipes and hopefully not freeze. I recommend turning on inside faucets and let them drip slightly to keep water moving in the pipes and therefore not freezing.

I recommend everything just listed when temps get in the lower teens but tonight it is getting down below zero for the first time in a long, long time and -2 is exponentially colder than 12. Cheers and here’s to hoping we all make it through it.

Charge up all of your devices. You might lose power anyway.