Hurricane Survival Kit | 17 Essentials

Jimmy Royce9 hours ago

0 501 6 minutes read

Hurricanes pose a large threat to those who live near the coast. Between the high wind and massive amounts of rain, they can cause various types of damage that can exceed $150 billion each year.

I’ve lived through several hurricanes of all categories and dealt with flooding, wind damage, power outages, and more. In North Carolina, we don’t have it quite as bad as Florida, but less prepared communities can have even tougher times with large storms.

Many people around the world and in the US aren’t affected by hurricanes, so this list isn’t for everyone. But, if you live on the East Coast or the Gulf, you probably have already noted the increasing frequency and higher strength of the storms as years progress. Get a practical survival kit together to improve your mitigation and response when the next hurricane inevitably lands.

Contents (Jump to a Section)

We’ll update this guide periodically to keep it current. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Disclosure»

What is a Hurricane Survival Kit?

Hurricanes are massive storms that cause damage in a variety of ways. A hurricane survival kit is meant to mitigate this damage to your property and to help you survive the aftermath.

Whether it’s the high wind, massive amounts of water, or the many domino effects that follow, a few essential resources will have you well-positioned to weather the storm.

Hurricane Domino Effects

The swirling storms have many domino effects that include, but aren’t limited to:

Flooding (all types, including storm surge at the coast and pluvial flooding in urban areas).
Utility Disruption
Supply Chain Disruption
Power Outages
Tornadoes
House Fires
Civil Unrest (Home Invasions)

The range of these effects illustrates how important your general preparedness kit can be as a foundation to add hurricane-specific supplies.

Hurricane vs Home Survival Kit

Hurricane survival kits are designed specifically for hurricanes. That isn’t always the prudent way to prepare, so we approach hurricane kits as a way to augment your main survival kit or prioritize specific gear. It shares many supplies with a flood survival kit, but adds gear to address the many more threats a hurricane presents. For both, you’ll also need an evacuation plan in place.

A home survival kit addresses threats beyond regional natural disasters. You should be prepared for high-probability events, like house fires and home intrusions, as well. Low-probability but high-impact events, such as financial instability, should also be on your radar.

If you are looking for our top-level guide with all supplies related to in-place survival at home, check out our comprehensive home survival kit.

Hurricane-Specific Supplies

Rising water and strong winds increase the need for specific supplies in your survival kit. The supplies I list below are especially useful during hurricanes, and should be prioritized if you live in a hurricane-prone area.

Tools

You’ll need to know what you’re doing before you use these tools that excel in a hurricane. Whether you are redirecting water with a shovel and sandbags or patching a hole in your roof with a tarp, having experience with these supplies is important to get ahead of time.

Nav & Comms

Staying informed of the storms’ progress is critical. Hurricanes can stall, change direction, or have varied effects on an area. Knowing what is happening can help your mitigation efforts, evacuation planning, and resond to the aftermath quickly.

Weather Radio/Light/Charger: NOAA CR1009 (Top pick from our best emergency weather radio review) – You can monitor flooding, flood levels, major road closures, and evacuation orders.
Evacuation Map: Plan your evacuation route well ahead of time with some free maps.
Ham Radio: Baofeng UV-5R (Top pick from our best ham radio review) – You’ll need a license to use, but ham radios have proven their worth in the aftermath of hurricanes.
Satellite Phone: BlueCosmo Inmarsat – While prohibitively expensive, satellite phones aren’t tethered to ground resources if you need to coordinate evacuation plans in an emergency.

Power & Energy

Power outages, other utility disruptions, and supply chain effects are all domino effects of hurricanes, meaning that having supplies focused on power generation and energy storage can help significantly.

Shelter (Clothing)

Whether you are redirecting water during a hurricane or cleaning up after, some clothes can help you stay dry and protected. According to the survival rule of threes, clothing fits under the ‘shelter’ category since it keeps you covered from the elements.

Food & Water

Food and water are important, but your stockpile could get ruined by roof damage or flooding. Water-tight storage can help prevent this, and the ability to purify water on the fly is always a survival priority.

Emergency food supplies organized on the floor.

Other Kits & Documents

This gear and list are meant to augment your large in-place home kit. You will need food and water storage capabilities, many tools, and mobility when it comes to hurricanes. Here are the kits you should already have built out:

You should also have your Emergency Plan around as a reference, and we suggest keeping your insurance documents updated. You can also print out a copy of this checklist below.

Hurricane Survival Kit Checklist

A perfect hurricane survival kit doesn’t exist- what is right for you depends on your situation and risk tolerance. That said, we have as close to perfect of a starting point for you: our complimentary checklist. It’s not complimentary as it’s free (it is free, though), but this list augments a full preparedness plan and standard survival kits.

Just to be clear: This checklist is meant to be added to our full home survival checklist if you are near the East Coast, Gulf of America, or other hurricane-prone areas.

Our checklist is available as both a PDF download and as a Google Sheets/Excel file where you can check off items yourself, and even add and subtract items from the checklist.

Printable PDF Checklist

If you are looking for the simplest way to print and use the checklist above, download our printable PDF version. It is one page long on 8.5″ x 11″ paper and makes creating a kit extremely easy. Once you open the hurricane survival kit PDF checklist in your browser, you can either print it directly or save it through your browser.

Excel / Google Sheets Checklist

If you are looking for a comprehensive way to track your hurricane survival kit contents, open our Excel / Google Sheets version. The sheet is shareable, and you just need to copy it to your own Google Sheets account or download it to Excel to edit it. We also keep the best-reviewed item for each category linked to simplify shopping for any equipment you may find yourself missing.

Evacuation Planning

You should always have an evacuation plan in place, even if it is just a last resort. Having the location picked out and a mobile survival kit ready to go is common sense for most emergencies, including hurricanes.

Because of the mass evacuation orders and limited time, you can expect road congestion. That is just one reason why acting quickly and executing a premade plan works much more effectively than being caught off guard.

You choose your best course of action, but all emergency agencies agree that prior evacuation is the best course whenever evacuation is suggested or mandatory.

Budget Hurricane Survival Kit

Many people can create survival kits using a small budget and existing supplies they already have. When it comes to preparing for a hurricane, most of the work is in the planning step, where you can tweak your personal plan to fit your budget.

For the various supplies, here is where you can cut corners and get the most bang for your buck:

Tarps – A tarp is an essential piece of gear, but for budget kits, you can get thinner tarps. They are less durable, but can still be effective brand new out of the plastic.
Weather Radio – While it’s an important communication tool you can’t replace, you can always go for the cheapest model.
Food – Canned goods are waterproof (for short periods) and the cheapest way to put emergency food in your pantry.
Water – Buy jugs of water from the grocery store when you pick up canned goods. They have to be rotated more frequently due to leeching, but they work for emergencies.
Extra Clothes – You can find rain gear, ponchos, rain suits, and more at thrift stores, like Goodwill.
Trash Bags – Versatile for sanitation use, water capture, makeshift ponchos, and more.

These simple supplies are the bare minimum of the essentials and can get you ready for a hurricane quickly and effectively with the lowest possible expense.

Premade Hurricane Kits

Most premade flood survival kits are simple disaster survival kits. They include most of the supplies we have in our full checklist, but often won’t be specialized as well as you could do yourself.

Some premade kits, like earthquake kits, distinguish between natural disasters, but most do not.

We’ve gone through premade survival kit reviews extensively, and although we prefer to build our survival kits, they do work well for those short on time.

The Next Step

Whether or not you’ve chosen to build a hurricane survival kit, our next step in this guide series stops off at EDC, or Everyday Carry. What you have on you when an unexpected disaster emerges can determine whether you can even make it to your flood survival kit.

Check out our Everyday Carry Guide here: