Hurricane Preparedness Checklist for North Florida Homeowners: The Power Edition

A hurricane preparedness checklist for your home’s power covers four jobs: service and test your generator before a storm forms, stock fuel and cords, run the generator safely once the weather hits, and protect your electronics from surges when the grid comes back. Below is the full checklist we walk through with North Florida homeowners every season.

If you’re working out how to prepare for a hurricane, the big lists from the state and the Red Cross cover the supply-kit side well. This checklist covers the electrical side: the generator that has to start, the hookup that has to be safe, and what to do about the surge that rides in when the grid comes back. Generators and home electrical are the work we handle for homeowners across North Florida.

Why Does Hurricane Prep Need a Power Edition?

Two calls repeat every June. The first is a homeowner whose generator sat untouched since October and won’t start with a storm two days out. The second is someone who plugged a portable unit into a dryer outlet and wants to know why that is dangerous. (It’s very dangerous. More on backfeeding below.)

After a major storm, power can stay out for days. Your refrigerator, your well pump, your AC, and in some households a family member’s medical equipment all ride on how well you planned. The National Weather Service’s hurricane planning guidance is blunt about getting ready before a storm ever threatens, and for your home’s power that means May and June, not the day a cone shows up on the news.

What Should Go in the Basic Supply Kit?

Keep this part simple: the state already wrote the definitive list. Florida’s Disaster Supply Kit Checklist covers water, food, medications, important documents, cash, and pet supplies in detail, and it is worth printing. Our additions are the power-related items that tend to get missed:

• Flashlights for every bedroom, plus spare batteries
• Power banks, fully charged before the weather arrives
• A battery-powered weather radio
• Battery-backup carbon monoxide alarms (test them now)
• Heavy-duty, outdoor-rated extension cords, not the thin indoor kind

The rest of the checklist deals with your home’s power: the generator, the hookup, and surge protection.

How Do I Prepare My Home’s Power for a Hurricane?

Do this section before a storm ever forms, because almost nothing on it can be done well once the wind starts.

If you have a standby generator

• Get it serviced before the season peaks. Oil, filters, battery, coolant, and a load test. Our generator maintenance checklist walks through what a proper service visit includes, and our generator maintenance and service page covers how we handle one. Book in late spring if you can, because service calendars fill fast once a system is in the forecast.
• Confirm the weekly self-test is actually running. Most standby units exercise themselves on a schedule. If you haven’t heard yours lately, find out why.
• Check your fuel source. Top off the propane tank or confirm the natural gas connection is sound.
• Clear the area around the unit. Trim back vegetation and move anything the wind could throw into it.

If you are using a portable generator

• Install a transfer switch or interlock kit now. It’s the only safe way to connect a portable unit to your home’s panel. Never connect through a wall outlet.
• Size it honestly. A unit that starts your fridge may stall when the well pump kicks on. If you’re shopping for a hurricane generator, figure out what size you need before you buy, not after. Our guide to whole house generator cost installed in Florida lays out how sizing drives the total.
• Test-start it this week, not at landfall. Stale fuel and dead batteries announce themselves at the worst time.
• Stock fuel safely. Approved containers, fuel stabilizer, stored outside living spaces and away from ignition sources.
• Plan its spot in advance. At least 20 feet from the house, exhaust pointed away from windows and doors, on a dry surface with an open, canopy-like cover made for generator use.

For every home

• Consider a whole-home surge protector at the panel. It is one of the least expensive ways to protect everything plugged in downstream.
• Label your breaker panel so anyone in the house can kill a circuit in the dark. If your panel is full, original to the house, or already tripping under normal load, our electrical panel upgrade cost guide covers what a replacement involves.
• Know your main breaker. If flooding threatens the house, you may need to shut power off entirely.
• Charge everything the day the watch is issued: phones, power banks, tool batteries, medical devices.
• Look up at your service drop. If tree limbs are resting on the line to your house, call the utility. Never trim near it yourself.

Is It Safe to Run a Generator During a Hurricane?

It depends on which kind you own. Standby and portable units call for different generator safety tips.

A whole-house standby generator is built to run through the storm. It sits outside on a pad, permanently installed and enclosed against the weather, connected through an automatic transfer switch, and it starts itself when the grid drops. If yours was installed and serviced properly, let it do its job.

A portable generator follows different rules. Water on an energized portable unit can electrocute you or ruin the machine, so it should not run in rain unless it sits on a dry surface under an open, canopy-like cover made for generator use. In practice, that often means waiting until the worst wind and rain pass, then starting it.

Wherever a portable unit runs, the location rules are non-negotiable, per the American Red Cross: outdoors only, at least 20 feet from the house, exhaust pointed away from windows, doors, and vents. Never in a garage, even with the door open, and never on a porch or in a carport. Carbon monoxide is what kills people after hurricanes. It’s odorless, and a closed-up house holds it.

During the storm:

• Keep battery-backup CO alarms running on every level of the house
• Use grounded, outdoor-rated cords sized for the load they carry
• Shut the generator down and let it cool before refueling, because gasoline on a hot engine can ignite
• Never touch the unit with wet hands or while standing in water
• If conditions make safe operation impossible, go without power until they improve. Food in a closed freezer buys you time.

What Should You Not Plug Into a Generator?

Never connect any of these:

• Your house, through a wall outlet. Plugging a generator into a dryer or range receptacle backfeeds electricity onto the utility lines and can electrocute the crews out repairing them. A transfer switch or interlock is the only safe connection.
• Hardwired systems without a transfer switch. Central AC, well pumps, and water heaters can’t run on extension cords. They need a proper panel connection.
• More load than the nameplate rating. Motors pull several times their running wattage at startup, and an overloaded generator trips, stalls, or cooks itself.
• Sensitive electronics on a basic portable unit. The power from a non-inverter portable can be rough. Plug computers and TVs into a quality surge protector or UPS, or leave them off until you are back on utility power.
• Daisy-chained light-duty cords. Undersized cords heat up, drop voltage, and start fires. One heavy cord per load.

What Happens When the Power Comes Back On?

Power restoration carries its own electrical risk. When the grid re-energizes, voltage can spike before it settles, and electronics and HVAC control boards can fail at that moment rather than during the storm itself. A whole-home surge protective device at the panel is your first line of defense, and it also covers the brief blips that come with a generator transfer.

After the storm:

• During the outage, unplug TVs, computers, and appliance electronics. Leave one lamp switched on so you know the moment power returns.
• Portable users: transfer loads back to the utility first, then shut the generator down and let it cool completely before storing or refueling it.
• Standby owners: your unit retransfers on its own. After a long run, note the engine hours and schedule a service check.
• Treat every downed line as live. Stay far away and report it to the utility.
• If water reached your outlets, panel, or meter, leave the main off. Have a licensed electrician inspect before anything gets re-energized. Flood-damaged wiring can fail long after it dries out.
• Deal with leftover gasoline. Run the tank dry or add stabilizer so the fuel doesn’t gum up the carburetor before the next storm.

Frequently Asked Questions

Get Your Power Storm-Ready Before the Season Peaks

Work through this checklist during a calm week in May if you can, and today if the season is already underway. Our family-owned team is based in Lake City and serves Columbia County and the surrounding North Florida area, including Live Oak, Macclenny, and Gainesville. We are licensed in Florida and Georgia, and we install and service multiple generator brands, including Generac, Kohler, Cummins, Briggs & Stratton, and Honeywell, so our recommendation follows your house, not a quota.