Seeing as we've got a few people that have never been in a tropical system I'll offer some advice, hopefully some other people will chime in with their tips.

Don't go crazy buying water, your tap water will be fine until the power goes out, just clean out any empty milk jugs or liters of soda, fill them 90% and put 'em in the freezer. There water problem solved... plus when the power goes out (and it WILL) you can move those frozen jugs to the fridge to keep it cold for the first day (or two). In addition to flashlights in Wilma we used those glow-sticks, you know the kind you snap and shake - worked great: no batteries, no open flames, very safe, very durable. Provides light for 6-8 hours, so throw a few in bathroom and a few in the hall and you can walk around at night in the dark without crashing into everything.

Cat 1 is no big deal (to me atleast) I don't even bother with the panels. Cat 2 then the panels go up. Cat 3 and all of sudden getting out of town seems like a really good idea. Thus gassing up the car and having cash on hand is very important. Lastly if your cell phone calls aren't getting thru try texting (like all the kids do) data travels on a different network and needs very little bandwidth so even with low signals (cell towers fall down too!) your message will get thru.

Hope this helps. Stay safe - most hurricane related problems occur AFTER the storm passes when people go outside and do stupid things, avoid ANY standing water/puddles as you don't know what is down there (including live powerlines!). One last thing... I got beat up pretty bad BEFORE Frances while putting up my shutters, so you have to judge the risk/reward of doing the job: get help, go slow, use the right tools, ect.