Things I've learned...

Glow sticks are a great hurricane box item. No batteries required, will not burn the house down, water proof, last 8 hours (overnight). Basically use them like nightlights: put them in bathrooms and hallways. With the power out and shutters up your house will be pitch DARK at night.

Don't forget a radio. Cell towers will be likely be down, thus your only communication may be an old AM/FM radio. Laptops and tablets will run out of juice. Internet services might not work.

Send text messages. During Wilma voice calls wouldn't go thru but text did easily even with only 1 bar of service.

Get heavy duty gloves for putting up panels and cleaning up broken glass, split wood, twisted metal.

If you have an ice maker start emptying it into your freezer now. Eat anything frozen now (pizza, waffles, ice cream, etc). If you are evacuating throw out all food in the fridge/freezer, then leave the fridge doors open so it can air out while your gone. Unplug or flip the circuit breakers on your major appliances, TV, etc to protect from surges when power comes back on.

Take down your satellite dish, just the reflector (oval part), leave the brackets and wiring in place. When you return its alignment should be OK so you'll have TV again. During Wilma as soon as we had power we had TV, our cable neighbors didn't have service for nearly 2 weeks due to equipment damage and lines being down.