Be Prepared: A Hurricane Preparedness Plan
for People and Pets

For the 2023 hurricane season, Petswelcome has initiated an integrated Hurricane Preparedness Plan for People and Pets to help keep your family and pets safe during a hurricane emergency. It utilizes three pillars of emergency preparedness—Communication, Knowledge and Resources. This includes contacting emergency professionals, both local and national, for their deep well of expertise, utilizing organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States for their advocacy and dedication to pet safety, and utilizing resources such as our Emergency Route Planner to facilitate your evacuation if necessary. We believe that the deep experience of emergency and pet advocacy professionals combined with our pet-friendly hotel database and route planner offers pet owners a practical and well-rounded preparedness plan that will help them find a safe harbor when a storm is on the horizon.

County Emergency Management Agencies

The big change to this year’s plan is to highlight County Emergency Management Agencies in all the coastline counties in the US from Texas to Florida on the Gulf coast, and from Florida to Massachusetts on the Atlantic coast. Who better to provide residents with local up-to-date emergency information on storm conditions, flood zones, road closures, evacuation routes, shelters and much more? Beyond providing up-to-the-minute emergency information on their websites, nearly every County Emergency Management Agency website has a sign-up page for local emergency alert systems such as CodeRED. These apps act like reverse 911 calls that contact locals with alerts and updates as an emergency unfolds. They are the best way for residents to stay on top of the constantly changing emergency conditions in their specific area.

HSUS Pet Preparedness Plan

Beyond linking up with Emergency Management Services, we’ve also connected to the Humane Society of the United States Pet Disaster Preparedness Plan. We feel this is one of the best plans, providing specific and detailed information on preparing your pets during an emergency. This includes microchipping your pets, keeping them current on vaccinations, making a disaster kit, evacuating early, and having a plan for what to do after the emergency—all critical considerations for pet owners when an emergency strikes.

Petswelcome Emergency Route Planner

Once you’ve connected to your local emergency management agency and put into place a pet preparedness plan, you should also create an emergency route so that you can leave immediately to find a pet-friendly hotel if the situation requires an evacuation. It is critical that all these steps are be taken well ahead of the emergency to ensure the safest outcome.

While many county emergency management services provide information on shelter openings, shelters should always be a last resort. That’s why our Pet Friendly Hotels Near You page and Emergency Route Planner are an important part of preparedness for pet owners. Using our Route Planner, you can create an escape route, see all the pet-friendly hotels on that route, and save it on your mobile device along with the hotels you’ve selected. Once your route is saved on your device, it will literally be in your pocket, making it easy to access the route and contact a hotel at the first sign of an impending storm or disaster.

If there is one saving grace of hurricanes, it is that they can be spotted and tracked days before they make landfall giving residents time to prepare. However, it is critical to have a detailed plan already in place before the storm appears, one that can be utilized calmly and confidently, increasing the odds that your whole family (including your pets) will emerge safe and sound after the storm passes through.