Hurricane

The first thing is to know whether you live in an evacuation zone. The National Weather Service lists this as step one of the family plan: find out from your local emergency management agency now, not once a warning is out. That answer changes everything else.

The two official alerts and what they mean. They are not interchangeable, and the difference is hours of lead time:

Hurricane watch — conditions are POSSIBLE

Issued about 48 hours before the anticipated onset of tropical-storm-force winds, per NOAA. This is the time to fill the gas tank, bring in the yard furniture, charge everything, and decide where you would go. There is still time to move calmly.

Hurricane warning — conditions are EXPECTED

Issued about 36 hours before those same winds. At this point you no longer prepare: you carry out what you already decided. If you are in an evacuation zone, you leave now, because the window closes fast and the roads fill up.

• Put together a kit with water and food for several days, medicine, flashlights and batteries. The CDC adds something people forget: check your carbon monoxide detectors, because generator days are coming.
• Install permanent impact protection on windows —storm shutters or panels—, the measure the NWS recommends over last-minute improvising.
• Review your insurance policy before the season: most have waiting periods and can't be bought once a hurricane is bearing down.
• Keep cash in small bills: without power there are no card terminals.
• Save your important documents to a phone and a drive, and upload a copy to the cloud.
• Agree with your family on how to get in touch and where to go. The NWS lists this as part of the plan, not an extra.

• Stay away from windows and glass doors, even with protection installed.
• Keep a battery-powered radio on: it's what keeps working once power and cell signal go down.
• Fill the bathtub and containers with water before the worst arrives: there can be days without service.
• Avoid candles if you can. Use a flashlight, always.
• If water starts coming in, move to a higher level, but do not go up into an attic with no way out to the roof: the water can keep rising and trap you.

The CDC stresses a point that people forget in the rush: wait for authorities to give the all-clear before returning. Going back early means walking into an area with no power, downed lines, no safe drinking water, and emergency crews still working.

• Avoid standing water. It may be electrified by a downed line, contaminated by sewage, or hide sharp debris and open manholes.
• Treat every downed power line as live, and report it.
• Don't drink tap water until authorities confirm it's safe. If there's a boil-water notice, follow it or use bottled water.
• If you use a generator, read the safety rules first: the power outage kills more people through carbon monoxide than the hurricane itself does through wind.
• Photograph all damage before moving or cleaning anything, for insurance and public assistance.
• Throw out refrigerated food that has gone more than 4 hours without cooling. Never taste it to decide.

The hurricane family plan has one thing the others don't: there is time, and that time gets wasted deciding. These decisions get made in the off-season, not with the forecast cone on the screen.

1. Do we leave or do we stay?. Decided ahead of time based on whether you live in an evacuation zone, not on the hurricane's category. If you're in an evacuation zone, the answer is already set.
2. Where exactly?. A specific address: a relative's home further inland, an official shelter, a booked hotel. "North" is not a destination.
3. Who takes whom?. Older adults, children, anyone with limited mobility, pets. Shelters may not accept animals: work that out beforehand.
4. How do we stay in touch if there's no signal?. A contact outside the affected area everyone can check in with, and a physical meeting point in case phones don't work.

How to store it so it works when you need it

The CDC calls for approved food-grade containers with a tight-fitting lid, made of a sturdy, unbreakable material —never glass— and with a narrow mouth for pouring. An explicit warning: never use a container that has held toxic chemicals such as bleach or pesticides. And what almost everyone forgets: stored water should be replaced every 6 months. To disinfect the container before filling it, use a teaspoon of unscented household bleach per liter of water, wait 30 seconds, and pour it out.

What food to keep on hand

Ready.gov recommends several days of non-perishable food and gives a concrete list: ready-to-eat canned meats, fruits, and vegetables —and a can opener—, protein or fruit bars, dry cereal or granola, peanut butter, dried fruit, canned juices, and pasteurized long-life milk. The rule when putting it together is simple: food your family will actually eat, that needs no cooking, and that you can rotate before it expires.

• Keep the refrigerator and freezer closed: every time you open one, you waste hours of stored cold.
• Throw out any food that has touched floodwater, even if the container looks intact. This is an explicit Ready.gov instruction.
• Keep a manual can opener. It is the item people forget most, and without it your pantry is useless.
• If you buy bottled water, keep it sealed in its original container, in a cool, dark place.

When the cell network is overloaded: text, do not call

The joint FCC and FEMA guide explains why: "text messages may get through when your call does not", even if delivery is delayed when the network is congested. And it asks for something almost no one does: "limit non-emergency calls", because every call takes up space that emergency communications need. Also save a contact under the name "ICE" (In Case of Emergency), the convention rescue personnel look for on someone else's phone.

How to stretch your battery

The same guide recommends lowering screen brightness and turning off apps to conserve charge. In an emergency your phone stops being entertainment and becomes your only line to the outside world: treat it like your water supply.

The battery-powered radio is still irreplaceable

The FCC and FEMA recommend a battery-powered radio or a portable television to follow emergency bulletins during power outages. It is the only channel that depends on neither your electricity nor the cell network.

The alerts you already have and did not know about

In the United States, Wireless Emergency Alerts are free messages that go straight to your phone for severe weather, AMBER alerts, and threats to safety in your area. Two things worth knowing: you do not need to sign up —phones have supported them since 2012— and they are not affected by network congestion, so they get through when calls no longer do. Find out what the equivalent system is in your country, and do not mute it.

• Have at least one light source that does not depend on the grid: a battery-powered or hand-crank flashlight, or a rechargeable lamp.
• Charge phones and backup batteries before the forecast event arrives, not after the power is already out.
• Keep a list of important phone numbers on paper: if your phone dies, your contacts die with it.
• Agree with your family that after an emergency everyone texts the same contact instead of calling each other.

This is the section that decides who has a hard time and who has a dangerously hard time. An emergency does not suspend diabetes, high blood pressure, pregnancy, or dependence on an oxygen concentrator: what gets cut off is access to the pharmacy, the clinic, and electricity. Everything that follows needs to be prepared beforehand, because once the emergency hits, there is no more room.

1. Keep a reserve of your medications, and know which ones hold up. Ready.gov calls for a several-day supply of prescription medications. For those that need refrigeration, the CDC is blunt: once the power has been out for a day or more, discard any medication that requires refrigeration, unless its label says otherwise.
2. The insulin exception, worth knowing word for word. The FDA documents that insulin in the manufacturer's original vials or cartridges —opened or unopened— can stay unrefrigerated between 15 and 30 °C (59 and 86 °F) for up to 28 days and still work. It loses effectiveness at extreme temperatures, and the longer the exposure, the less effective it becomes. In an emergency "you may still need to use insulin that was stored above 30 °C" —that is better than not using it at all— but as soon as proper storage is available again, those vials should be discarded and replaced.
3. If someone depends on electric medical equipment, there is one step almost no one takes. Ready.gov says it explicitly: you can ask your power company to put you on a priority list for service restoration. That step is free, can be done on any ordinary day, and changes the order in which you get reconnected. Add a backup battery for an electric wheelchair and for any assistive device, and talk with your doctor about how to keep the equipment running during a power outage.
4. Keep a copy of medical information, not just the pills. A list of medications with dosages, allergies, diagnoses, doctors' contact information, and —for infants— the vaccination record. A prescription bottle cannot always be refilled at a pharmacy in another city; a written list can solve that.

Pregnancy and newborns

The CDC calls for prenatal vitamins and other medications in the kit, plus supplies in case delivery happens without being able to reach a hospital: clean towels, clean sharp scissors, a bulb syringe, gloves, two clean white shoelaces to tie the cord, clean sheets, sanitary pads, soap or alcohol, and garbage bags. For infants: diapers, wipes, ointment, bottles, and formula. One detail that matters: ready-to-feed formula is the safest option in an emergency, because it does not need to be mixed with water and comes in sterile, single-use containers.

Disability, reduced mobility, and older adults

Ready.gov stresses planning accessible transportation in advance for evacuating or getting around, and including a service or support animal with its food, water, and supplies. That plan should be worked out with specific, named neighbors, not left vague.

The blow that comes later: mental health

The CDC names the normal reactions after a disaster —fear, anger, sadness, worry, numbness, frustration, trouble sleeping, or nightmares— and recommends taking care of your body, staying in touch with other people, and taking breaks from the news. In the United States and its territories, the Disaster Distress Helpline is available 24 hours a day: 1-800-985-5990, with service in Spanish. Asking for help here is not weakness: it is part of recovery, just like repairing the roof.

1. Before you go back in: look, smell, and listen from outside. The CDC lays it out this way: if you smell gas or suspect a leak, shut off the main valve, open all the windows, and get out immediately. If there is standing water inside and you can cut the power from a dry spot, do it. And one simple warning that prevents explosions and fires: use battery-powered flashlights, not candles, gas lanterns, or torches.
2. Ventilate before you settle in. The CDC recommends going in briefly to open doors and windows, and letting the house air out for at least 30 minutes before staying inside.
3. Shutting off utilities: when to do it, and the mistake you cannot make. Gas has a rule with no exceptions: if you shut it off for any reason, only a qualified professional can turn it back on. Never turn it back on yourself. Electricity is shut off by switching off the individual circuits first and the main breaker last —the order matters, because an electrical spark can ignite gas if there is a leak—. Water should be shut off if pipes may have cracked, because that contaminates the house supply, and should not be turned back on until authorities confirm it is safe to drink.
4. Go back only when authorities say it is safe. It sounds obvious, and it is the instruction people break most often: go back home only when authorities say it is safe. Structural damage is not always visible from the street.

• Make a photo inventory of what is in each room today: it takes twenty minutes and is worth its weight in gold for a claim.
• Keep that inventory and your policies outside the house —in the cloud or with a family member— because a file that gets soaked along with the house is useless.
• If you have to leave, take your documents with you, not your furniture.
• Do not sign anything with a contractor while you are in shock: check the money section for the warning signs of fraud.

The documents you need to protect today

The official recommendation is to keep insurance policies, deeds, property records, and other important papers in a safe place outside the house. FEMA publishes the Emergency Financial First Aid Kit for this, organized into four sections: household identification, financial and legal documentation, medical information, and contacts. Its rule for paper: a fireproof and waterproof box or safe, a bank safe-deposit box, or in the hands of someone you trust. For digital files: password-protected files on an external drive or in secure storage outside the home. And if you pay everything online, print your account records periodically.

An emergency fund, even a small one

The CFPB avoids magic formulas: "the amount you need depends on your situation", but "even a small amount can provide some financial security". Its underlying argument is the one that matters: without that cushion, a single unexpected expense can grow far larger than the original bill through interest and fees, because it forces you to rely on credit.

A hurricane is one of the few disasters that announces itself days in advance, and that splits demand into two distinct markets: the three days before it hits, and the weeks after.

• Before: window protection (plywood, tape, shutters), securing rooftop tanks and antennas, preventive tree trimming, and moving furniture to upper floors.
• Before: water, ice, batteries, safety candles, rechargeable lamps, and battery-powered radios.
• After: removing fallen trees and branches, clearing drains, and cleaning up mud.
• After: drying out interiors, removing wet carpet and drywall, and mold control.
• After: roof, siding, and window repair; tarps and temporary sealing while the permanent repair arrives.
• All the time: prepared food, laundry, and device charging for those left without services.

It helps to start with one figure to size up what we're talking about: according to the ILO, informality affects nearly half of the employed population of Latin America and the Caribbean, around 47%, with huge differences between countries — under 30% in Uruguay and Chile, over 70% in Bolivia and Peru. For millions of families in the region, "looking for a job" and "starting something on your own" are the same sentence. What follows is not a promise of income: it is a map of what people actually do when a crisis hits, with the requirements and the risks laid out plainly.

Window protection and securing, in the run-up

It's a 48-hour business that repeats every season. With plywood, a drill, screws, rope, and zip ties, you can handle several houses a day. The trick is having the material bought before a storm is announced: by the time people start looking, the hardware stores are already picked clean. It's worth offering the later removal too, which most people forget to quote.

Drying, wet-material removal, and mold control

NIOSH sets the clock precisely: you need to remove or dry water-damaged material within 24 to 48 hours to keep mold from growing. That figure is both your sales pitch and your limit: the EPA considers that above 10 square feet of mold, or if the water came from sewage, the job is for an experienced professional. An honest service handles what's below that threshold and refers out the rest.

Removal of fallen trees

It pays well and it's where the most people get hurt. NIOSH is explicit that only someone trained should operate a chainsaw, recommends keeping 30 feet between workers when cutting and twice the tree's height when felling it, and OSHA warns about chainsaw kickback. If you don't have that training, there's plenty of work in hauling and chipping, which doesn't require running the saw.

United States — SBA disaster loans

For areas with a declared disaster. The Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) provides working capital for affected small businesses and nonprofit organizations; the physical damage loan covers losses not covered by insurance. Combined cap of $2 million, interest not exceeding 4% if you cannot obtain credit elsewhere, terms of up to 30 years, and the first payment deferred 12 months. There is also a line for homeowners (up to $500,000) and for renters for personal property (up to $100,000).

Mexico — what actually exists today

FONDEN stopped taking on new commitments on January 1, 2021. What operates today in emergencies is PAEAN, run by Civil Protection, and it is worth knowing exactly what it is and is not: it delivers relief supplies — food kits, water, blankets, roofing sheets, cleaning materials — when a state's own capacity is overwhelmed. It is not a reconstruction fund or a loan for your business. For capital, look at state, municipal, or development-bank programs, always verifying on the official website: fraud schemes that use its name circulate around these programs.

Brazil — Pronampe for micro and small businesses

A credit line for microenterprises (annual revenue up to 360,000 reais) and small businesses (from 360,000 to 4.8 million). The amount can reach up to 60% of the previous year's gross revenue for businesses with more than one year in operation, and up to 50% for new ones. The maximum rate is the SELIC rate plus up to 6% per year.

The Saffir-Simpson scale, category by category, with the exact wind speeds the National Hurricane Center publishes:

Category 1 — 74-95 mph (119 to 153 km/h)

Roof damage, fallen trees, and power line cuts.

Category 2 — 96-110 mph (154 to 177 km/h)

Extensive damage. The NHC warns of possible power loss lasting days to weeks.

Category 3 — 111-129 mph (178 to 208 km/h)

Now a major hurricane. Devastating damage.

Category 4 — 130-156 mph (209 to 251 km/h)

Catastrophic damage. Areas isolated for weeks or months.

Category 5 — 157+ mph (252 km/h or higher)

Catastrophic damage, with near-total destruction of homes.

Two hurricanes, two lessons that changed how people prepare.

Katrina, August 29, 2005 — help may not arrive in time

Made landfall at Buras, Louisiana, as a strong Category 3. The NHC's official report counts 1,392 deaths —520 direct, 565 indirect, and 307 undetermined— and a cost of $125 billion in 2005 dollars, roughly $186.3 billion in 2022 dollars. The lesson: the official White House report identified 17 critical failures in the response —no unified command, destroyed communications, no prior plan for mass evacuation. Preparing isn't only about surviving the wind: it's about assuming that in the first days you may be on your own.

Otis, October 25, 2023 — the warning window can fall short

Made landfall at Acapulco as a Category 5. The NHC documents 52 confirmed deaths and 32 missing, and warns in the report itself that the true toll "could be much higher." The cost, between $12 billion and $16 billion, makes it the costliest cyclone on record for Mexico. The lesson: Otis intensified by 90 knots in 21 hours, the second-fastest rate on record in the eastern Pacific since 1988. It went from tropical storm to Category 5 in under a day. When rapid intensification like that happens, the 36- or 48-hour window the alerts give simply doesn't exist: that's why preparation happens during the season, not once the hurricane is in sight.

Related guides on this site:

• Flooding — what actually causes most of the deaths.
• Power outage — the days without electricity that follow.
• Severe storms and extreme rain — dangerous wind without a name.
• Supply shortages — when the truck doesn't show up.