Hurricane Season 2026 Starts Today: What Every SW Florida Family Should Do This Week

Hurricane Season 2026 officially begins today, June 1, and runs through November 30.

If you live in Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, Lee, or Collier County, you don’t need a reminder of why this matters. Last year — Debby, Helene, Milton — gave Southwest Florida one of the worst storm seasons in modern memory. Some of you are still finishing repairs.

So instead of repeating the standard preparedness checklist, here are the 5 things our crews wish every Florida family did this week, before the first storm shows up on the National Hurricane Center cone.

1. Photograph and video your home today — every room, every angle

This is the single highest-value 30 minutes you’ll spend all season. Walk every room of your house with your phone and shoot video plus stills of every wall, floor, ceiling, appliance, and built-in. Open closets and cabinets. Go in the attic and garage. Get the exterior — every elevation, the roof, the lanai.

If a storm damages your home this season, this footage is the difference between an insurance adjuster paying for what was actually there versus arguing with you about what kind of cabinets you had. Store the files in cloud storage (Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox) so they survive even if your phone doesn’t.

2. Pull your insurance policy declarations page

Right now — before the season heats up — read your homeowners declaration page. Check:

• Your hurricane deductible (it’s a percentage, usually 2–5% of your dwelling coverage)
• Whether you have flood insurance (it’s separate; standard homeowners doesn’t cover flood)
• Your coverage A dwelling limit — is it actually enough to rebuild your home at today’s construction prices?
• Whether you have Ordinance and Law coverage (pays for code-required upgrades during rebuild)
• Whether you have Loss of Use / ALE coverage (pays for hotels and meals if your home is uninhabitable)

3. Locate and label your water shut-off, gas shut-off, and main breaker

If a tree comes through your roof and water starts pouring in, you have about 90 seconds before serious damage compounds. Every adult in the household should know exactly where these three things are and how to operate them. Take 5 minutes today to walk it.

4. Stock the boring supplies, not the panic supplies

The bottled water and batteries usually disappear from shelves the day a storm forms. The boring stuff that nobody thinks to stock until they need it:

• Tarps and roofing nails — for emergency tarp jobs after wind damage
• Heavy-duty contractor trash bags — for soaked carpet and damaged contents
• A battery-operated weather radio — when cell towers go down
• A printed list of phone numbers — your insurance carrier, your doctor, family — because phones die
• Cash — ATMs and card readers don’t work without power

5. Save the right phone numbers in your phone today

When a storm hits, you don’t have time to Google. Save these now:

• Your insurance company’s claims line — not the agent, the actual 24/7 claims number
• Your insurance policy number — note it in your phone’s notes app
• Your county emergency management line
• WrightWay 24/7 emergency response: (941) 379-8669

If a storm does hit this season

WrightWay has responded to every major hurricane in Southwest Florida for years. Whatever the 2026 season brings, we’ll be staged, equipped, and on the road within hours of the all-clear. Call us at (941) 379-8669 any time, day or night, for water damage, structural drying, mold remediation, fire and smoke cleanup, board-up, or full reconstruction.

Stay safe, Southwest Florida. We’re in this season together.