Harris County urges residents to prepare now for hurricane season

Harris County wants families to think past the next forecast and prepare for the next disruption. The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1, and NOAA’s May 21 outlook was not a landfall forecast; the agency said it only takes one hurricane or tropical storm to cause a disaster.

That warning carries extra weight in a county where flooding, severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and winter weather can all hit in the same year. Harris County Flood Control District says a major flood occurs somewhere in the county about every two years, and Hurricane Harvey still hangs over local planning because it stalled near the Texas coast for four days and dumped more than 60 inches of rain in southeastern Texas.

County emergency officials are urging households to build supplies now, not when shelves are already bare. Harris County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management recommends enough food, water, medicine and pet supplies for seven to 10 days, along with first-aid supplies, flashlights, batteries, chargers, backup power banks, cash and waterproof copies of important documents. Residents are also being told to top off vehicle fuel and add a few emergency items each time they shop, instead of trying to buy everything in one panic run.

Preparedness also means knowing where to go if the weather turns. Harris County guidance says residents should review evacuation zones and primary routes, decide whether they live in a hurricane evacuation zone and identify an out-of-area contact. In the Houston-Galveston region, evacuation orders can be issued by zip-code zone, which makes it especially important for Harris County families to know their route before an order is issued.

The county’s own 2025 annual report shows why officials are pressing the point. The emergency operations center was activated several times last year for January winter weather, October drought conditions and EF1 and EF2 tornadoes in northwest Harris County during Thanksgiving week. The same report says Harris County’s updated Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan was approved by FEMA and includes more than 850 projects, with 42 signatory jurisdictions, the highest participation in the plan’s history.

For many families, Harvey remains the benchmark disaster. It damaged more than 120,000 homes and buildings in Harris County, according to the Disaster Equity Data Portal, and that history is part of why Ready Harris keeps pushing residents to treat hurricane prep as a year-round habit. This week is the time to check prescriptions, buy extra water and pet food, charge backup power banks and confirm evacuation routes before the first serious storm makes the decision for them.