Hurricane Preparedness Week is May 15 - 21. To prepare for the upcoming hurricane season, consider these tips from America's PrepareAthon. 

How to Get Home, Family Ready
The Office of Emergency Management suggests following these steps to get your family and home ready for hurricane season.

Determine your risk.
Understand how hurricanes can affect where you live, work, go to school and play and how the weather could impact you, your family and your community. When you understand your risk, you are more likely to know how to prepare. Check the weather forecast regularly and sign up for local alerts from emergency management officials and obtain a NOAA Weather Radio.

Develop an evacuation plan.
Create an emergency plan and practice how and where you will evacuate if instructed by emergency officials. Ask about evacuation plans at the places where you spend time such as work or community organizations. If you typically rely on elevators, have a back-up plan in case they are not working.

Secure an insurance check-up.
Examine your insurance policy to understand your coverage and make sure everything is up to date. Most standard policies for homeowners, farm and ranch owners, renters and condominiums do not cover damage caused by rising water. Contact your local insurance provider to discuss National Flood Insurance Program policies.

Assemble disaster supplies. 
Create a kit to plan for at least three days based on you and your family's personal needs. Set aside one gallon of water per person per day, including pets. Some recommended items are: perishable food, battery-powered or hand-crank radio, flashlight with extra batteries, first aid kit, can opener, prescription medications, infant formula and diapers, pet food, and important documents (i.e., copies of insurance policies, bank accounts, identification).

Strengthen your home.
Fortify your home can reduce the impact to your property. You can act now by trimming trees and shrubs, reinforcing roofs, windows, and doors, elevating and anchoring utilities and installing sewer backflow valves.

Identify sources of information for a hurricane event.
Identifying trusted sources to stay informed of a hurricane event is critical to understanding the expected impacts from the storm for your area, instructions from local officials, and when it is safe to return home.

Complete your written hurricane plan.
Create a communications plan. Your family may not be together when a hurricane strikes, so plan on how you will contact one of another. Text messaging or email may be more accessible than landlines during a disaster but we strongly urge you to designate an out-of-town contact, not in the impacted area, to be a point of contact for your family.

Residents getting ready for the season can get tips and advice on the federal government's website. To keep up with potential storm activity, bookmark the National Hurricane Center's website. For local weather and severe weather alerts, visit the National Weather Service.