7 Questions to Strengthen Your Hurricane Communication Plan

Make sure your agency has a current list of people authorized to create, approve, and send emergency notifications, along with backups if primary staff are unavailable.

Your team should know:

• Who can approve and send an alert
• Who serves as backup
• How responsibilities change after hours
• Where current procedures and credentials are kept

A storm should not be the first time someone has to determine who is allowed to send a message. 

Review internal contact lists regularly, including staff, response teams, leadership, and other groups you may need to activate.

Community reach also deserves attention before hurricane season. Promote public enrollment, remind residents and businesses to keep their information current, and look for areas or populations that may be underrepresented in your contact database.

Finding those gaps early gives your agency time to improve outreach before an emergency.

People do not all receive information the same way. Some will see a text first, while others may rely on a phone call, email, mobile app, social media, or a Wireless Emergency Alert.

Plan to use the channels appropriate for the situation, which may include:

• SMS/text
• Voice
• Email
• Mobile app notifications
• IPAWS
• Social media
• Other local warning channels

Using multiple methods gives important information more ways to reach the people who need it.

Every alert should quickly answer the same basic questions: Who is sending it? What is happening? Where? What should people do? When does it apply?

Using a consistent structure makes messages easier to create and helps reduce the chance that important information is missed.

The amount of detail can still change by channel. A text should be short and direct, while an email may provide additional context. A voice message should be easy to understand when heard once. 

Identify the languages commonly spoken in your community and make sure your team understands how translated alerts will be handled.

Review translated content across the channels you plan to use. A message that fits easily in English may be longer in another language, particularly in SMS. The location, timing, and protective action still need to remain clear.

Language planning is easier to address before an event than while an urgent message is being prepared. 

A hurricane rarely requires just one message. Evacuation areas may change, shelters may open, roads may flood, utilities may be disrupted, and recovery instructions will continue after the immediate threat passes.

Decide in advance:

• Who is responsible for follow-up messages
• Which information belongs in an alert versus a website or social post
• How updated or corrected information will be communicated
• When an alert should be updated, canceled, or followed by an all-clear

Residents should be able to tell which instructions are current without having to piece together information from several sources.

Run a realistic scenario before hurricane season and walk through the communication process from start to finish. The goal is not simply to prove that a test alert can be sent. It is to see whether your overall process works.

Can your team:

• Select the right audience and geographic area?
• Choose the appropriate communication channels?
• Create clear messages for each channel?
• Address language needs?
• Coordinate approvals efficiently?
• Send updates as conditions change?
• Transition to a backup sender if needed?

Afterward, identify what caused delays, what information was difficult to obtain, and what should be updated before the next exercise. 

No plan can account for every situation a hurricane may create. The goal is to handle the decisions you can make in advance: who sends, who receives, which channels to use, what every message should include, how language needs are addressed, and how updates will be managed.

That gives your team more time to focus on the conditions and decisions that cannot be predicted. 

The CodeRED Hurricane Preparedness Kit brings together practical tools to help agencies prepare for hurricane communications, including readiness checklists, resident education resources, customizable social media materials, hurricane intelligence, and more. 

Get the Hurricane Preparedness Kit