Hurricane Season in Charlotte County: Three Things to Do Now

Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30, and Charlotte County takes it seriously for good reason. The county sits low and is surrounded by water. If you’re new here, or you haven’t updated your plan in a while, these are the three things Charlotte County Emergency Management asks every household to do.

1. Sign Up for Alert Charlotte

Alert Charlotte is the county’s emergency alert system. It sends time-sensitive messages about severe weather, unexpected road closures, missing persons and evacuations of buildings or neighborhoods. You choose where the alerts go: your home, mobile or work phone, email, text messages and more. As the county puts it, “If we can’t reach you, we can’t alert you.”

Sign up: charlottecountyfl.gov/alert-charlotte

2. Know Your Evacuation Zone

Charlotte County has five evacuation zones, each with its own color:

• Zone A: Red
• Zone B: Orange
• Zone C: Yellow
• Zone D: Green
• Zone E: Purple

Zones aren’t based on elevation alone. The county uses data from the National Hurricane Center along with elevation and evacuation routes. Storm surge also doesn’t line up neatly with a storm’s category. Emergency Management asks residents not to decide whether to stay based on the category alone, and to follow the county’s evacuation orders for their zone.

Find your zone: Know Your Zone map

3. Plan Where You’ll Go

Decide now where you would go if you had to leave, and plan to leave well before a storm arrives. Because Charlotte County is so low and surrounded by water, the county warns that it may not be possible to open any shelters inside the county, so your plan should include somewhere outside the area. Friends or family inland, or a hotel farther from the coast, are both good options to line up ahead of time.

The county also publishes a Disaster Planning Guide, linked from its Alert Charlotte and Know Your Zone pages.

After a Storm

• Check Storm & Recovery for cleanup and recovery information.
• Check the status of county community services facilities at charlottecountyfl.gov/activeagain.
• Look up any emergency orders at the county’s Emergency Orders page.