Hurricane Readiness Resources for Emergency Managers

The Atlantic hurricane season has begun. As an emergency manager, you want to prepare your community in the best way possible. 

FEMA has resources to help you.

Preparing your town, county, state, tribe or territory for a hurricane now can save lives. This season is forecast to be above average, with 13 to 19 named storms, six to 10 hurricanes and three to five major hurricanes. Any of them could wreak havoc on the coast – where storm surge causes half of all deaths from tropical cyclones in the U.S. – or hundreds of miles inland, where last year’s Hurricane Helene dumped over 30 inches of rain.

Whether you’re drafting your first plan or refining one you’ve practiced for years, you can use these resources to get your agency and community ready.

Resources for Emergency Managers

Find the tools you need to prepare your community.

• PrepToolkit: A collaborative environment where individuals from all levels of government and the private and nonprofit sectors can prepare for risks in their communities. Allows you to easily share ideas, information, files and data with peers across the nation and provides web-based tools to help you with readiness efforts in your community and agency.
• FEMA Planning Guides: Comprehensive guides for community leaders on how to develop disaster plans. Includes resources for specific audiences, like elected officials; locations, such as schools, hospitals and houses of worship; hazards, such as chemical spills and cyber incidents and other considerations like supply chain management, information sharing and post-disaster housing.
• FEMA Recovery Resources: Federal recovery resources you can use during pre-disaster planning or in the wake of a storm.

Get support so you can make the best evacuation and response decisions.

• The National Hurricane Program: An interagency partnership between FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the NOAA National Hurricane Center that provides tools, data, training and technical assistance to support your evacuation and response decisions during threats. Their services include:

Use data to fine-tune your disaster plan.

• FEMA Case Study Library: Contains case studies and best practice reports from across FEMA's areas of expertise.
• Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT): GIS tool that lets you examine the interplay of census data, infrastructure locations and hazards, including real-time weather forecasts, historic disasters and estimated future risks.
• Building Science Resource Library: Contains all of FEMA’s hazard-specific guidance that focuses on creating hazard-resistant communities. It includes resources for state program managers, building professionals, engineers, homeowners and families.

Communicate before, during and after the storm.

Resources to Share with Residents

You can encourage your community to:

Be ready.

Get flood insurance.

• FloodSmart.gov: The homepage of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program, which offers policies to help homeowners, renters and businesses protect the lives they’ve built. Most homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover floods. Where it can rain it can flood. Now’s the time to get insured.

Stay alert.

• FEMA App: The FEMA app is your personalized disaster resource, so you feel empowered and ready to take charge of any disaster life throws your way. Download to learn how to prepare for disasters, stay safe if one strikes and recover once it’s passed.

Local, state, tribal and territorial emergency managers have always led their communities through disasters. As this year’s hurricane season gets underway, you can use and share these resources to prepare your team and neighbors now, before the storm.