USA TODAY spoke with Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan. These five safety tips will help protect you when the Atlantic season begins June 1st.
America’s top forecaster issues urgent message as hurricane season begins
USA TODAY spoke with Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan. These five safety tips will help protect you as the Atlantic season starts to heat up.
Hurricane season begins June 1, and National Hurricane Center staff face one major task in the coming months.
What is their mission? Convince people to take action when the storm hits by providing consistent, accurate information that stands out among the flood of conflicting and confusing social media messages.
Michael Brennan, director of the center at the National Weather Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and his colleagues are keenly aware of their challenges. They have new forecast maps and are launching a series of new or updated products for this season.
As Brennan prepares for his fourth season as center director, he told USA TODAY five important things he hopes the tens of millions of people at risk from hurricanes will do in the coming weeks. Brennan has sharpened his message over the years, but it remains consistent. This season, he’s putting even more emphasis on preparing for extended power outages and other deadly situations after storms, and preventing communications failures that could make an already bad situation worse.
“No matter what the seasonal forecast is, whether it’s El Niño or La Niña, the risk from hurricane impacts exists every year,” Brennan said. “Even though we’ve had a busy recent hurricane season, most people haven’t experienced the worst of it where they live. Even if a major hurricane doesn’t make landfall, there are significant impacts.”
“You don’t want people to think the risk has decreased, because the risk certainly hasn’t decreased, especially after a year like 2025, which was the first year in a decade without a major hurricane making landfall in the United States.”
“There’s a lot to think about,” he said. The good news is that “many of the things we do to prepare for a hurricane are also useful for other types of disasters.”
Know the risks and make a plan
“It starts with knowing if you live in a storm surge or hurricane evacuation zone,” Brennan says. “This is really the foundation of your hurricane plan, because if you are asked to leave your home, you need to be prepared, and now is the time to be prepared.”
“Over the past decade, the number one cause of fatalities in tropical storms and hurricanes in the United States has remained flooding caused by rainfall, with significant variation, whether it is a hurricane or a Category 4 or 5 tropical cyclone. It has little to do with the strength of the storm from a wind standpoint, but how long it rains and how hard it rains. It could be a tropical cyclone, a remnant of a tropical cyclone, or a tropical cyclone that hasn’t formed yet.
“Know the risks from inland flooding. It’s not just a coastal issue, it can happen anywhere, even hundreds of miles inland, as we saw with Helen and other storms. So know if you live in a flood-prone area, just like you know if you live in a high tide zone.”
Prepare the necessary items
“We have to have emergency supply kits,” including non-perishable food and water, he said. “You don’t have to go buy everything at once. You can buy several things a week.” This includes medicines and batteries.
“People underestimate how dependent we are (on cell phones),” he said, waving his phone. They are used for communication, navigation, and even monitoring health and medical equipment, he added, and when a phone goes out, it can be a life-or-death situation. “So make sure you have power and a way to charge your devices.”
create a communication plan
“How will my family get in touch if my cell phone doesn’t work?” Brennan said. “This is a really, really interesting question for a lot of people because that’s the only way a lot of people communicate.”
“Do you have a family emergency plan? If you can’t reach everyone, do you have a place to gather everyone? Prepare now.”
“Think about people with special needs, disabilities, or other difficult circumstances that prevent them from communicating effectively during a disaster,” he said. “How are you going to take care of them and keep them safe?”
∎ How to plan by location.
Prepare for extended power outages and post-storm environments
“Another thing to think about is post-storm safety,” Brennan said. “If you’re asked to evacuate to an area, that probably means there won’t be many services in that area in the aftermath of the storm. … There may not be first responders there. You may not be able to get medical care if you have an emergency.”
“In Florida in particular, we have a very high number of post-storm or indirect fatalities, especially after major hurricane landfalls,” he said. He said power outages expose people to intense heat and leave them vulnerable in a dangerous environment where incidents related to cleaning and generator safety occur. “If you’re asked to leave, it’s to get out of the storm surge zone, but it’s also to get you out of the extremely dangerous post-storm environment.”
rely on reliable sources
“The current information environment is complex,” Brennan said. “More information is reaching people than ever before, but it is often difficult to sort through and distinguish between reliable and untrustworthy sources.”
“Know who your local emergency management officials are in your county or city. They are the people in your community who can tell you what you need to do to keep you safe. Local government officials…your local National Weather Service. Hurricanes.gov, Hurricane Center.”
“Find those sources. Follow them on social media. When there is a threat of a storm, a lot of information floods your social media feeds, much of it takes time to sort through, and some people post model forecasts that may or may not match the official forecast.”
Contributed by graphic journalist Jennifer Boresen, USA TODAY.
Dinah Boyles Pulver, national correspondent for USA TODAY, covers hurricanes, severe weather, climate change, the environment and other news. Contact dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or dinahvp.77 on X or Signal.
