Hillsborough County Expands Hurricane Evacuation Zones for 2026 Season

Hillsborough County has redrawn its hurricane evacuation zone maps for the 2026 season. Changes came after 2024's storms taught officials hard lessons. Residents must check the new maps online to see if their homes now sit under different evacuation orders.

Officials made adjustments based on flooding patterns from previous storms.

Zone A and Zone E saw the most changes.

"Evacuation zones are very much based on storm surge, but we, of course, saw a lot of inland flooding, that riverine flooding," said Katja Miller, operations section chief for Hillsborough County's office of emergency management, according to FOX 13 News. "So, we take a lot of that into account when we're talking about evacuation orders or things of that nature."

Zone A, shown in red on county maps, now pushes farther inland in Apollo Beach and Town 'n' Country. This zone receives evacuation orders first. It includes the coastline.

"We're going to see a bit of expansion along, really the entire coastline, even inland along the Alafia River with expansion of Zone A evacuation, which, remember, also includes mobile and manufactured homes in Hillsborough County," Miller added.

Zone E, the last to receive evacuation orders, now includes neighborhoods that weren't in any evacuation zone before.

The purple-coded zone now covers areas just north and south of Tampa Executive Airport, sections of New Tampa, and inland portions of Apollo Beach south of Big Bend Road.

The changes arrive as the 2026 hurricane season approaches. The 2024 season brought riverine flooding that hit areas beyond traditional coastal zones. Water crept into places nobody expected. Some communities watched rivers spill over banks and creep through streets that had stayed dry for decades.

Residents can look up their evacuation zone on the county website.

The updated maps are available now.