I didn't buy any prepared meals either because they were too expensive when thinking of storing for a year.
However, last year before hurricane season, I bought 12 MRE type meals with the heater included in each box and put them in a rolling bag I will take with me if a hurricane comes. There are two huge oak trees behind my back fence belonging to houses behind me. They are as tall as the Empire State building (they look that tall) and the heaviest part of those trees is facing my townhouse. If one or both come down my townhouse is smashed.
I went through Ike hoping I wouldn't get killed in this house if they came down. I was very worried about that. Next time when one comes, I'm taking the dog, the backpacks and that rolling bag and going across the street to a hotel and staying there until the hurricane passes. That's what the MRE type boxed meals are for.
If the house isn't smashed by the trees, I'm back at the house with my dog.
During Ike, which came through here in the dark of night, trees came down all over town and the countryside. One woman was killed in her bed - those trees I'm worried about would first hit my upstairs bedroom and I don't want to be in there if that happens.
Another death was just awful. A lineman was working up on a power line at one place and a tall tree that had loosened due to the storm, fell, he couldn't get out of the way fast enough and the tree hit him and killed him.
This is also pine tree country and right now their yellow pollen is falling and every car in this area is yellow. I have to use the windshield washer before I can see out the windshield when I go somewhere.
So, we are subject to tall trees falling during a hurricane. If the wind doesn't destroy part of your house like the roof, the trees might.
Sometime after Ike, we went south to Houston and from here all the way there were blue tarps over the roofs of houses and businesses and apartment buildings everywhere you looked and part of that destruction was caused by falling trees.
So, I think boxed MREs with heaters in the box have a place if you have to leave your house fast. I know there are 12 prepared meals in that rolling bag and I picked meals I knew I wouldn't hate.
During Hurricane Fran a huge tree fell across my back yard but missed the house by about 75 degrees. It would have killed both of us in the back bedroom but went a different way.