Hurricane Season Is Here. What Should Actually Be in Your Family’s Medication Go-Bag?

By Cayla McGrath

If you’ve lived through hurricane season before, you know the feeling. The forecast starts getting more serious. The spaghetti models begin circulating on social media. The local grocery store suddenly runs out of bottled water. Gas stations develop long lines. Everyone starts making lists and checking supplies.

For a few days, preparation becomes the focus.

Most families know what to do when it comes to food, water, batteries, and flashlights. But one of the most important parts of hurricane preparedness often gets overlooked until it’s too late: medications. Not because people don’t care. Because most preparedness advice doesn’t get specific enough.

“HAVE A 7-DAY MEDICATION KIT” sounds helpful. Until you’re standing in your kitchen trying to figure out what that actually means for your family.

Does it mean your child’s asthma inhaler?
Your spouse’s anxiety medication?
Grandpa’s heart medication?
What happens if the pharmacy closes for a week? What happens if you evacuate and realize everyone’s prescriptions are tied to a pharmacy that’s now underwater?

These are the questions families face every hurricane season. The good news is that hurricanes give us something many emergencies don’t:
Time to prepare.

Hurricanes Don’t Just Disrupt One Day

When people think about hurricanes, they often think about landfall. In reality, the bigger challenge is often what happens afterward.

The power may be out for days or even weeks. Roads can remain flooded long after the storm passes. Pharmacies may close. Medical offices may be operating on limited schedules. Supply chains can slow down just when people need medications the most.

The challenge isn’t usually the storm itself. It’s everything the storm interrupts.

That’s why we encourage families to think about medical preparedness in two layers.

Layer One: The Medications Your Family Already Depends On

The first layer is simple, but it’s also the most important. Before thinking about emergency antibiotics, first aid supplies, or contingency medications, start with the medications your family already takes.

If someone in your household relies on medication to manage a chronic condition, hurricane season is a good time to ask a simple question: “If our pharmacy was inaccessible for the next month, would we be okay?”

For most families, a good goal is maintaining at least a 30-day supply of essential medications. If possible, a 90-day supply provides even more flexibility during hurricane season.

This may include medications for:

• Heart conditions
• Blood pressure management
• Diabetes
• Asthma
• Mental health conditions
• Thyroid disorders
• Other chronic health needs

Just as important as the medications themselves is maintaining a written medication list.

Write down every prescription, including:

• Medication name
• Dosage
• Prescribing provider
• Pharmacy information

This may seem like a small detail, but it can make an enormous difference during an evacuation.

A pharmacist hundreds of miles from home may not know you, but they can often help you much more quickly when you have accurate information in hand.

The Insurance Problem Nobody Talks About

This is usually where families hit their first roadblock. Many people assume they can’t build a larger medication supply because insurance won’t allow it.

Sometimes that’s true.

But often there are more options than people realize. If your medication isn’t a controlled substance and you have refills available, ask your healthcare provider about a 90-day prescription. Even when insurance won’t cover an early refill, paying cash for a larger quantity or using a prescription discount card may cost far less than people expect. In many cases, the price is comparable to a standard copay.

The key is exploring those options before hurricane season reaches its peak.

Layer Two: Preparing for the Problems Hurricanes Create

Once your family’s everyday medications are covered, the second layer focuses on the health challenges that hurricanes commonly bring.

Anyone who has helped clean up after a storm knows the reality. Floodwater gets everywhere. Minor cuts and scrapes happen while clearing debris. Mold begins growing surprisingly fast in damp homes. Mosquito populations explode. Gastrointestinal illness becomes more common when water systems are disrupted.

These aren’t unusual scenarios. They’re predictable ones.

That’s why many families choose to build a contingency layer into their preparedness plan. This may include medications and supplies that help address common post-storm concerns, including wound care, dehydration, respiratory irritation, allergy flare-ups, fungal infections, and certain types of infection that become more common after flooding events.

For many families, this is where the conversation starts feeling unfamiliar.

“Can I Even Ask My Doctor About This?”

The honest answer is yes.

Many healthcare providers were trained to prescribe medications when an illness is actively happening—not necessarily for a future scenario that hasn’t occurred yet. That’s not because you’re asking the wrong question. It’s because preparedness exists in a space healthcare hasn’t traditionally addressed very well.

At Jase, we call this Appropriate Medical Preparation.

It’s the idea that families can thoughtfully prepare for predictable healthcare disruptions before they happen, while still respecting the role of primary care, pharmacists, and evidence-based medicine. The goal isn’t to replace your doctor. The goal is to avoid being caught completely off guard when access to healthcare becomes difficult.

Preparedness Is One of the Few Things You Can Control

Every hurricane season comes with uncertainty. No one knows exactly where a storm will turn. No one knows which communities will be impacted most severely. No one can predict how long power outages or disruptions will last. But there are a few things that remain entirely within your control.

You can know what medications your family takes.
You can keep a written medication list.
You can talk to your provider before the forecast becomes urgent.
You can make sure your child’s inhaler, your spouse’s medication, or your parent’s heart prescription isn’t down to the last few doses when a storm enters the Gulf.

Preparedness won’t stop a hurricane. But it can help protect the people you love from turning a weather emergency into a medical emergency.

The Best Time to Prepare Is Before You Need To

At Jase, we’ve spent years helping families think through these questions. Through Jase Medical, we help individuals prepare for disruptions before they happen. Through Jase Response, our nonprofit disaster response organization, we’ve seen firsthand how quickly access to healthcare can change when communities are affected by disasters.

When hurricanes strike, responders mobilize. Communities come together. Recovery begins. But the families who navigate those difficult weeks most successfully are rarely the ones scrambling after landfall. They’re the ones who prepared beforehand.

As hurricane season begins, take a few minutes to review your family’s medications, update your prescription list, and make a plan. Future you will be grateful you did.

Interested in taking your preparedness one step further? Explore solutions like JaseCase and Bunker in a Box, and follow Jase Response to learn how communities prepare, respond, and recover when disasters strike. Your support helps us continue mobilizing medical aid and resources when they’re needed most.