DeSantis Details 2026 Hurricane Plan as Florida Makes Disaster Supplies Tax-Free Year-Round

With the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season officially underway as of June 1, Gov. Ron DeSantis stepped before cameras in Orlando in early June to lay out Florida's preparedness plan and to deliver a familiar but urgent message: do not wait for a storm on the radar to get ready. The season, which runs from June 1 through November 30, once again puts every coastal and inland community in the state on notice that the next major hurricane could form with little warning.

"The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season just started, but Florida is dedicated to disaster preparedness all year round," DeSantis said, framing readiness as a continuous obligation rather than a seasonal scramble. He added that the state approaches each season with a worst-case mindset, saying, "We always plan for the worst that nature can throw at us, and we execute those plans to ensure effective response, recovery, and restoration."

The plan rests on a simple premise that emergency managers repeat every June: the most effective hurricane response begins long before a storm makes landfall, in the choices households make about supplies, fuel and evacuation. For a state that has absorbed repeated direct hits in recent years, the early-June briefing serves as both a practical checklist and a reminder of how quickly Florida's weather can turn dangerous.

The Core Message: Prepare Now

At the heart of the state's plan is the disaster supply kit, the collection of essentials that allows a household to weather a storm and its aftermath when power, water and stores may be unavailable for days. Officials urge residents to assemble nonperishable food, ample drinking water, prescription and over-the-counter medications, flashlights, extra batteries and supplies for pets. The kit is meant to sustain a family through the period when normal services are knocked offline and help may be slow to arrive.

The guidance reflects hard lessons from past storms, when residents discovered too late that store shelves empty quickly once a hurricane enters the forecast cone. By building a kit in advance, families avoid competing for the same last-minute supplies that disappear in the rush, and they reduce the strain on stores and distribution networks during the critical hours before landfall.

State officials emphasize that preparedness is not a one-time task. Medications expire, batteries lose charge and pet needs change, so a kit assembled months earlier should be checked and refreshed as the season progresses. The message from DeSantis and emergency managers is that readiness is a year-round discipline, not a box checked once each June.

For households with special circumstances, including those with infants, elderly relatives or people who depend on electric medical equipment, the plan calls for additional planning around backup power and accessible evacuation. Those vulnerabilities can turn a manageable storm into a life-threatening situation if they are not addressed before a hurricane approaches.

Emergency managers also encourage residents to think about the days after a storm passes, not just the hours of the storm itself. A kit sized for several days of self-sufficiency reflects the reality that flooded roads, downed trees and damaged power lines can delay the return of normal services well beyond the moment the winds subside, leaving households reliant on what they stocked in advance.

Lessons From Recent Seasons

Florida's emphasis on early preparation is rooted in the experience of consecutive active seasons that have battered the state. Repeated hurricanes have tested communities from the Panhandle to South Florida, exposing how quickly storm surge, flooding and prolonged power outages can overwhelm households that waited until the last moment to react. Those events have shaped the state's insistence that readiness cannot be left to chance.

Each major storm has reinforced specific lessons that now run through the state's guidance. The danger of storm surge, the difficulty of evacuating large populations quickly and the long timelines for restoring power in hard-hit areas have all become central to how Florida prepares. The result is a preparedness message refined by hard experience rather than abstract planning.

Officials also point to the human toll that preventable mistakes can carry. Deaths and injuries in past storms have often come not from the initial impact but from the aftermath, including from carbon monoxide poisoning tied to improperly used generators, a hazard the state's permanent tax exemption on carbon monoxide alarms is meant in part to address. Those lessons inform the practical details of the current plan.

The cumulative effect of recent seasons is a state that treats hurricane preparedness as a settled expectation rather than an occasional concern. DeSantis's framing of year-round readiness draws directly on that history, presenting the 2026 plan as a continuation of an approach forged through repeated encounters with destructive storms.

Keep the Tank Full

A second pillar of the state's guidance focuses on transportation, specifically the call for residents to keep their vehicles fueled ahead of any approaching storm. Gas shortages have repeatedly accompanied large-scale evacuations in Florida, as hundreds of thousands of drivers hit the road at once and fuel deliveries struggle to keep pace with demand along evacuation routes.

By topping off the tank early, before a storm enters the forecast and the rush begins, drivers can avoid the long lines and empty pumps that have stranded evacuees in past emergencies. Officials note that a full tank also provides a margin of safety for families who may need to drive farther than expected to reach safe shelter or to escape a rapidly intensifying storm.

The fuel guidance ties directly into the state's broader approach to evacuation. Emergency managers stress that residents should follow local guidance on whether and how far to evacuate, recognizing that not every storm requires leaving and that, when evacuation is ordered, the destination is often tens of miles inland rather than hundreds. The phrase officials have used for years, urging people to run from the water and hide from the wind, captures the idea that most residents do not need to flee the state, only to get away from storm surge and into a sturdy structure.

Coordinating fuel, vehicles and evacuation timing is meant to prevent the gridlock and panic that can accompany a poorly planned departure. A household that has fueled up early, mapped a route and identified a destination is far better positioned to leave calmly and quickly when local officials issue an order.

A Permanent Shift in Tax-Free Supplies

The most significant change for 2026 is not in the storm forecast but in the way Floridians shop for the supplies the plan recommends. For years, the state offered temporary disaster-preparedness sales tax holidays, limited windows during which shoppers could buy certain emergency items free of sales tax. Those temporary holidays are gone this year, and their absence is a sign of progress rather than a rollback.

Legislation DeSantis signed in 2025 made many disaster-supply sales tax exemptions permanent, meaning there is no need for a temporary tax-free holiday in 2026. Commonly used emergency supplies are now tax-free year-round, including batteries, certain generators, smoke detectors, carbon monoxide alarms and many pet items. The change converts what had been a brief annual sale into a standing benefit available whenever residents choose to shop.

The practical effect is to reward early, deliberate preparation rather than concentrating purchases into a narrow tax-free window. Because the exemptions apply all year, a family can build or replenish a kit in the calm months of winter or spring without paying more in taxes than they would during a holiday weekend in June. That removes a quiet incentive to procrastinate until a designated sale arrived.

Officials frame the permanent exemptions as a structural improvement to the state's preparedness culture. By lowering the cost of readiness at all times, the policy aims to spread the burden of stocking up across the calendar, easing the late-season surge in demand and helping ensure that more households actually have the supplies the state recommends when a storm finally threatens.

Florida's Emergency Management Posture

Behind the public messaging sits the machinery of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the agency responsible for coordinating the state's response when a hurricane strikes. The division works with county emergency operations centers, utilities, the Florida National Guard and federal partners to pre-position resources, stage supplies and prepare for the search, rescue and restoration work that follows a major storm.

DeSantis's emphasis on planning for the worst reflects the state's operating philosophy, which treats every season as a potential repeat of the most destructive storms in Florida history. That posture drives decisions about where to stage fuel, generators, water and personnel before a storm arrives, so that crews can move into affected areas as soon as conditions allow rather than waiting for resources to be assembled after the fact.

Power restoration is a particular focus, given how central electricity is to recovery in Florida's heat. Utilities coordinate mutual-aid agreements that bring crews from other states, and the state works to clear roads quickly so that line workers can reach damaged infrastructure. The goal officials describe is a response in which the gap between landfall and the return of essential services is as short as the storm's damage allows.

The state's experience with consecutive active seasons has reinforced the value of readiness on both the household and government sides. Emergency managers note that a population that has prepared in advance, with kits stocked and evacuation plans in place, dramatically reduces the strain on first responders and shelters, allowing the state's resources to focus on the people and places hit hardest.

What Floridians Should Do Now

With nearly six months of hurricane season ahead, the state's guidance for June points residents toward a handful of concrete steps. Building or refreshing a disaster supply kit tops the list, followed by confirming evacuation zones and routes, identifying a destination for a potential evacuation, and taking advantage of the now-permanent tax exemptions to buy batteries, alarms, pet supplies and other essentials without added cost.

Residents are also encouraged to make a family communication plan, ensuring that household members know how to reach one another and where to meet if a storm separates them. Important documents, insurance information and a supply of cash can prove vital when power outages disable card readers and electronic records become inaccessible in the aftermath of a hurricane.

For the state, the early-June briefing marks the start of a months-long stretch of vigilance, during which forecasters will track every disturbance that emerges off the African coast or in the warm waters of the Gulf and Caribbean. DeSantis's message ties the household checklist to the larger state effort, casting individual preparation as the foundation on which Florida's broader response is built.

The 2026 season's ultimate severity remains unknown, but the state's posture does not depend on the forecast. With supplies permanently tax-free, a clear preparedness checklist and an emergency management apparatus geared toward planning for the worst, Florida enters the season urging residents to act now, while the skies are still clear, so they are ready whenever the next storm forms.