Hurricane Season in Lee County: A Practical Guide to Getting Ready (2026)

Hurricane season opened June 1 and runs through November 30, and if you have spent even one summer in Lee County you know how this goes. The smart move is to handle everything on this list now, in June, while the stores are stocked and nobody is in line. The people who did that before Ian in 2022 spent the warning days helping neighbors instead of hunting for water.

Here is the whole job, start to finish. Most of it takes one weekend.

Know your zone

Lee County divides into evacuation zones, A through E, based on storm surge risk rather than wind. Zone A sits closest to the water and gets called first. Plenty of longtime residents guess their zone wrong, and a surprising number assume their flood insurance map answers the question. It does not. Surge zones and flood zones are drawn separately.

Look yours up at leegov.com/hurricane, write it on the fridge, and have everyone in the house memorize it. When the county calls zones on the radio, you want to know in one second if they mean you.

Sign up for alerts before you need them

The county’s emergency notification system, AlertLee, sends evacuation orders and shelter openings straight to your phone. Registration takes about two minutes. Add the National Weather Service office in Tampa Bay on whatever social platform you use, and keep a battery radio in the kit for the hours when cell towers get cranky.

Sheriff Carmine Marceno’s office also posts steady, level-headed updates through every storm. His monthly safety column runs right here on Fort Myers Living, and this month’s edition covers smart habits for residents who live alone, which matters double during storm season.

Build the kit in one store run

Lee County Emergency Management recommends supplies for seven days. The full cart looks like this:

• Water, one gallon per person per day. A family of four needs 28 gallons. Yes, really.
• Food that needs no cooking and no refrigeration, plus a manual can opener.
• Every prescription filled, with a 30-day supply if your insurer allows it.
• Cash in small bills, because card readers die with the power.
• Flashlights, batteries, phone power banks, and that battery radio.
• A basic first aid kit and a week of anything your household runs on: contact solution, diapers, dog food.

Put your documents in a waterproof bag while you are at it. Insurance policies, deeds, IDs, and a list of policy numbers and phone contacts on actual paper.

Get the house ready in June, not October

Trim the trees now. Tree crews book solid once a storm has a name, and debris pickup schedules fill fast. Test your shutters or count your plywood, find the wing nuts, and label which panel fits which window. Clean the gutters.

Then walk through the house with your phone and film every room, every closet, the garage, and the lanai. Open drawers. That ten-minute video becomes the backbone of any insurance claim, and adjusters settle faster when you can show exactly what you owned.

Two more June chores. Keep every vehicle at half a tank or better all season. And if you own a generator, plan where it will run: outside, at least 20 feet from the house, never in a garage, with a carbon monoxide alarm inside. Generator exhaust kills more Floridians after storms than the storms themselves.

Check your insurance this month

Flood damage is excluded from standard homeowners policies, and federal flood insurance carries a 30-day waiting period before coverage starts. A policy bought when a system enters the Gulf protects nothing. Bought in June, it covers the whole season. Renters can buy flood coverage on contents too, which surprises most renters who learn it.

Call your agent and ask three questions: what is my hurricane deductible in dollars, do I have flood coverage, and does my policy pay for living expenses if the house is unlivable.

Make the pet plan now

Microchip registrations current, vaccine records in the waterproof bag, one carrier per animal, and a week of food in the kit. Lee County operates a pet-friendly shelter during evacuations, and it requires registration ahead of time, so handle that this month. Hotels along your inland route are worth researching now as well, since the pet-friendly rooms go first.

If the county says go

A shelter is a lifeboat, plain and concrete. Bring bedding, snacks, medications, chargers, and patience. Most evacuees do better driving tens of miles inland to a friend, a relative, or a hotel rather than hundreds of miles up an interstate that everyone else picked too. Leave early, tell two people your destination, and take the documents bag.

And if you live in Zone D or E in a newer concrete-block home, the answer is often to stay put and shelter from wind. Running from surge is the rule. Hiding from wind is the other rule.

After the storm

Stay home until officials clear the roads, treat every downed line as live, and keep the generator outside. Photograph damage before you tarp or repair anything, then file claims quickly.

Then do the thing Lee County does well: walk next door. After Ian, the first chainsaws on most streets belonged to neighbors, and the first hot meals came off somebody’s grill three houses down. Check on the folks who live alone. June is also a fine month to learn their names, and the community calendar is full of low-key ways to do it.

Quick answers

When is hurricane season? June 1 through November 30, with the busiest stretch from mid-August through October.

How do I find my evacuation zone? Use the lookup tool at leegov.com/hurricane. Zones run A through E, and they measure surge risk, separate from FEMA flood maps.

How much water should I store? One gallon per person per day for seven days, plus extra for pets.

Do I need flood insurance if I am not in a flood zone? Lenders may not require it, but surge and rain do not read maps. Remember the 30-day waiting period either way.

Where will shelters be? Locations are announced as storms approach, through AlertLee and local media, since openings depend on the storm’s track.