When it comes to my home, I get obsessive about climate risk. I come by the caution naturally. For one thing, it is my job, as an energy and sustainability expert who has studied U.S. climate resilience under a grant from NASA.

But I have also had to deal with many extreme-weather events while living in climate-stressed places. At the end of September, in fact, a powerful nor'easter toppled a huge tree on my property, thankfully missing my house. Meanwhile, just weeks before, the sump pump in my basement was working overtime in the teeth of torrential rains.

It was the latest in a long string of extreme weather events I have lived through. One time in Houston, a hurricane turned so suddenly toward the city that we couldn't evacuate safely in time. Awaiting the landfall, we slept upstairs with a life raft, axes and an emergency weather radio, in case we had to escape through the roof. Luckily, water never got past our front lawn, but we lost electricity for over five weeks.

In Davis, Calif., the transformer on my block repeatedly blew up during heat waves, leaving us sweltering, sometimes for days at a time. Worse still, we were all constantly sick from breathing in the smoke from nearby wildfires. The blazes never reached Davis itself, but sometimes they kept me from commuting home to Davis when I was working in my office in Oakland.

I was also in New Haven, Conn., during the famous Snowmageddon that dropped 108.6 inches of snow on Boston in a single winter. It also brought polar-vortex cold -- and my rental house had ridiculously thin window glass and poor insulation.

So maybe it isn't all that surprising that before my husband and I bought my dream home in southern Connecticut, I made sure my place would be as climate-proof as possible.

Most people will find some of the measures I've taken excessive (my family does at times). But I believe that every home buyer should give at least some thought to climate issues, especially as a warming planet makes extreme-weather events more likely and potentially more intense.

No matter where you live, chances are climate preparation is worth considering. I was part of a team whose research shows that extreme heat and rainfall have already intensified in many parts of the U.S., and some of the worst future severe weather events are going to come in places that haven't had such an event to date.

Here's what I picked for my current home based on lessons from climate disasters I've lived through:

Flood and fire risk

In a climate-challenged environment, being close to the nearest food store, pharmacy or emergency room, if possible, is beneficial. So, I selected a property that wouldn't leave me isolated in a crisis. The hill we live on, as we say in Connecticut, is "walk to town," which means I can get to a grocery store and commuter rail no matter how much snow without using my car.

Living on a hill also makes a difference. My street doesn't have a propensity to flooding and sea-level rise won't affect my real-estate value or insurance rates over time, based on 2050 flood maps -- a widely used reference. My driveway also has drains built into it. That matters not only for repeated downpours but for melting snow.

What's more, I nixed anywhere with high wildfire risk, as well as any property that borders forestland. I love to hike in nature preserves, but don't want them as my next-door neighbors. I have a friend who lives amid the trees, and one bright morning, she found a half-eaten deer carcass in her yard. Her husband has had to beat off hawks with a baseball bat if their small dog is outside.

Then there's the majestic white oak tree that stood as a stately landmark on our property just weeks ago. It looked magical -- like something that might talk to small children in a Disney movie -- and I truly loved it. But as part of my disaster planning, I took some steps that were sad at the time, but maybe saved my house.

Early on, I consulted an arborist about the tree and came up with a plan. We trimmed the canopy -- this needs to be done regularly -- so it would be less apt to catch the wind, and trimmed back branches that had the highest risk of falling on the house during a bad storm.

At the suggestion of the arborist, we had the tree's main limbs secured by industrial wiring that prevented them from swinging too wildly. The strategy worked for countless previous storms but unfortunately not the latest one. But who knows what kind of damage the now-downed branches might have done otherwise.

Keeping the lights on

The way the climate is going, backup generators or batteries are worth having. My house came already equipped with a full-to-scale, whole-home generator. I learned the hard way how important one of these can be, when a two-minute cyclone tornado came ashore Long Island Sound a few years ago and hit a major transmission line. Friends and neighbors were in the dark for weeks with no refrigeration or modern conveniences. I hate to brag, but in addition to being able to see at night, we could take a hot shower and prepare a home-cooked meal.

The most reliable fuel for a home-generator backup system varies depending on where a person lives. My general expert opinion is rooftop solar plus battery. But rooftop solar can be expensive to install on an existing home, and not every roof is amenable. My house has gables and skylights, so surface area for solar is limited.

We currently use propane in our generator and, so far, supplies haven't been a problem, regardless of the weather. Many Houstonians have home diesel generators, but I don't recommend that. Diesel supply chains often get disrupted in extreme weather, and diesel generators can be finicky if they have been sitting dormant for long periods.

We also have a way to stay mobile in an emergency: our electric vehicle. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but based on my experience, an EV with a home charger and a backup generator is better than a gasoline car for storm resistance. Remember, gasoline can't be pumped without electricity. In blackouts, EV owners often do better than their friends and neighbors with regular cars for local driving. For those drivers, always fill your tank early ahead of a severe storm so you know you have enough fuel to get out of harm's way if you need to.

Playing defense

In today's torrential downpours, you must have an automated sump pump for the basement. Originally, we had ours hooked up to a battery system -- then the battery failed during a bad storm. Now we have the pump connected to our home electricity network, which has proved to be reliable, given our generator. Earlier this month, the pump held up against a deluge of rain that brought about 7 inches over just a couple of hours.

That is also a reminder: In today's changing climate, you can never be too careful about what you stick in your basement. Whatever it might be, it needs to be stored on shelves high off the ground. We also have the whole basement and crawl spaces covered in mold-protecting wall covering. That is also a must for post-flooding cleanup, should the worst happen.

To keep our electronics safe, we have a whole-house surge protector, which filters out sudden electrical spikes in the grid that can harm our appliances. I learned my lesson after a heat wave in Davis, Calif.: A power surge from an exploding transformer fried the circuit board of my refrigerator.

Charming as it is, we don't use the fireplace regularly. (We have blocked off three others for weatherizing purposes.) One of my climate obsessions, post-California, is clean indoor air, which rules out burning wood inside the house. My current home is also stocked with multistage, HEPA-filter air purifiers that combine carbon absorption and ionizer technology all around the house, which came in handy during Covid. We could isolate someone and keep everyone else uninfected. Here in New England, they are also proving useful in combating Canadian wildfire smoke.

All this is to say that climate tech can be useful, no matter your thinking about global climate trends or the climate risk in your area. Your family might grouse about all these precautions, but in the end, they will be thankful for the results.

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