Houseboat Owner Reveals How She Survives Hurricanes—’Prepared for Anything’

A video of a woman preparing her sailboat for safety before the passing of a “very dark and eerie” hurricane has gone viral on TikTok.
The clip was shared by Natalie Hoffman (@earthinecho), a 25-year-old based in the lower portion of the Florida Keys who has a sustainable small business, and has garnered 4.6 million views since it was shared on September 26.
Hoffman told Newsweek: “I’ve lived aboard my sailboat home Sol for about two years while she undergoes a major refit.”
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The viral video shows her “shopping for provisions in case the roads aren’t drivable, or the power goes out, and adding extra dock lines because heavy wind is expected as the hurricane [Hurricane Helene] made its way north passing the Keys,” she explained.
Hoffman noted: “I’ve been aboard for one other hurricane—Ian. But this one felt a lot different. It felt very dark and eerie as it made way past. The wind felt double the strength of Ian. At one point half of the boat lifted up. The next morning, my neighbor said there was a tornado forming above my boat that luckily didn’t touch down while I was sleeping.”
The National Hurricane Center is keeping an eye on a disturbance in the northwestern Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico that could evolve into a tropical storm and bring more rain to Florida just a week after the state was ravaged by Hurricane Helene.
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The hurricane made landfall near the city of Perry in Florida’s Big Bend region on September 26. The Category 4 storm was ranked among the most powerful to hit the United States, with winds reaching 140 mph (miles per hour), notes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The storm later moved northward and swept through Georgia, bringing fatalities across several southern and southeastern states, with storm surge, devastating winds and torrential rain threatening several dams and inundating Asheville, North Carolina, with floodwaters.
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More than 150 people were killed by the hurricane across six states, including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
At the time of writing on Wednesday, more than 1.2 million were reported to be without power across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia, according to the PowerOutage.us website.
A message overlaid on the viral TikTok clip says: “How I prepare for a hurricane living on a sailboat.”
The video shows Hoffman checking and securing all dock lines, getting extra gas and stocking up on groceries, taking “only what you need,” including canned food, bread, “easy meals” and water.
According to a caption shared with the post, there were no evacuation notices in the poster’s area. “If there were, I would park my car at the highest elevation I could find and proceed to quickly move my home into protected waters. In cases like these, you hope for the best and motor against the wind if you have to,” Hoffman noted in the caption.
She added: “My marina (and many others) requires me to leave dock if a cat 2+ [category 2 storm] is planned to make landfall here. Times like these are always scary. Things can switch very quickly.”
Hoffman told Newsweek: “Hurricanes are very unpredictable, you have to be prepared for anything. When preparing I make sure to have enough food and water to get me through the next few days.
“Luckily the Keys did not sustain damage due to Hurricane Helene aside from flooding and some boats getting loose in the bay, but I’m deeply sorry for everyone up north who’s been affected. They are all heavily in my thoughts.”
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