4 Lessons We Learned After The 2024 Hurricane Season

The 2024 hurricane season was one of the worst we've seen in decades. Florida and Tampa Bay got hammered by three powerful storms. Milton, Hurricane Helene, and Tropical Storm Debby hit within just eight weeks. The devastating trio destroyed homes across the region. Sarasota was underwater while Pinellas got torn apart by fierce winds and waves. With the 2025 season starting June 1st, we wanted to share some lessons we learned from our rough season last year.

If it's not your first time and you made it through last year, we won't bore you with the regular supply checklist. But if you need a refresher of what you need to stock up on, you can follow this floridadisaster.org checklist. These are tips that you may not think of or have tried during/after a major storm.

If you had trouble with FEMA and insurance claims, this may be a tip you'll never forget. Before any major storm hits, take as many photos and videos of your home and belongings as you can. Make a list of important items and keep documents in a secure place. It may seem like a no-brainer now, but a lot of people skip this step.

Maybe you've heard of the freezer quarter hack or filling containers with water and leaving them in your freezer. But did you ever find a hack for sandbags last year? We did. When supplies were running low, we turned to our local hardware store and bought bags of mulch and laid them over some tarps as sandbag replacements. If you want to get ahead on your prep, you can buy empty sandbags on Amazon and fill them yourself!

And make sure you clean your home before any storm hits. Do the laundry, dishes, clean the bathrooms and mop the floors. You'll thank us later when you lose power and aren't sitting in a stink house with no AC.

With the tax holiday coming up, many people will tell you it's the perfect time to get a generator for your home. But not everybody can splurge on a generator and may even have trouble finding gas to keep it running after a storm. Instead, stock up on camping supplies like solar powered lights, headlamps, camping stoves and wipes, and even a crank-powered radio so you don't need batteries.

If there's one thing we learned last year after Helene and Milton, is the Tampa Bay community comes together strong after a storm. Local businesses jumped in and provided meals for their community, neighbors checked on evacuated houses and created donation drives. One thing we won't take for granted if we get hit with another storm this year is relying on help from our community and returning the favor when needed.