Is your home prepared for hurricane season?

Hurricane season is in full swing; if you are not prepared yet, now is the time.

When it comes to our area and getting hit by a hurricane, while our area can get a lot of physical damage, the power outages can cause a fatal tragedy.

Richard Trumka with the Consumer Product Safety Commission says, "When the power goes out people turn to portable generators. The problem is the carbon monoxide poisoning from generators kills about eighty people every year in the United States."

Trumka suggests testing your generators and equipment now before a big storm. Generators need to be at least twenty feet away from your home with the exhaust pointed away from any buildings, and that includes never using them in basements, crawl spaces, garages, or on the porch.

"They can create a gigantic buildup of carbon monoxide, which is you can't see it, you can't smell it. It's an invisible killer and one of these generators can put out as much as hundreds or even thousands times the amount of carbon dioxide a car puts out," Trumka adds.

Besides a working smoke detector, flashlights and batteries, also make sure you have carbon monoxide detectors on every level of your home.