The Most Common Infections You Can Get in an Emergency or Disaster

By the Jase Medical Team

When most people picture getting an infection after a hurricane or flood, they imagine contaminated floodwater, a cut on the leg, and some unusual bacteria they’ve been warned about on the news.

But oftentimes, it’s the invisible outbreaks that happen when communities are displaced.

It’s a gym floor lined with 200 cots and a stomach bug moving through the room in 48 hours.

When you look at documented outbreaks after real U.S. disasters, the infections people actually encounter are almost the reverse of how they’re often presented in preparedness content.

The most common threats aren’t necessarily rare bacteria lurking in floodwater. They’re the same highly contagious viruses that spread anywhere people are suddenly living close together.

And for those infections, soap, distance, screening, and good sanitation can matter more than anything in your medicine cabinet.

#1: Stomach Bugs Like Norovirus

If you evacuate to a crowded shelter, one of the biggest infectious-disease concerns is gastrointestinal illness—particularly norovirus.

Norovirus spreads extremely easily through contaminated hands, surfaces, food, and close contact. A shelter gives it plenty of opportunities: shared bathrooms, communal meals, frequently touched surfaces, and hundreds of people living in close quarters.

We’ve seen this play out repeatedly.

During the 2025 Eaton Fire response in Pasadena, shelter surveillance identified 104 cases of norovirus. During the 2018 Camp Fire, an outbreak across eight shelters involved 292 cases, with an estimated attack rate of about 27%. The median age of patients in that outbreak was 63.

What brought these outbreaks under control?

Not antibiotics.

Public-health teams screened people for symptoms, separated those who were sick, intensified cleaning and disinfection, and emphasized handwashing and infection-control measures.

That’s an important preparedness lesson: sometimes the best tool for preventing an infection isn’t a medication.

If you’re staying in a shelter, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water, pay attention to sanitation around shared spaces, and follow shelter instructions if you develop vomiting or diarrhea. If you’re sick, limiting contact with others helps protect the people around you too.

#2: Respiratory Viruses

Crowded shelters also create ideal conditions for respiratory illnesses to spread.

During the Eaton Fire shelter response, surveillance identified 56 cases of COVID-19, 29 cases of influenza, and another 30 cases of other respiratory illness.

Again, these were viral illnesses—not bacterial infections that could be solved with an antibiotic.

The same basic principles that reduce respiratory transmission elsewhere still matter during an evacuation: give sick people space when possible, wash your hands, cover coughs and sneezes, improve ventilation when circumstances allow, and follow public-health guidance in the shelter.

If you develop significant symptoms or you’re concerned about your individual risk, seek medical guidance. Depending on the illness and the person, a clinician may recommend testing or specific treatment.

But reaching automatically for an antibiotic isn’t the answer to a viral respiratory infection.

#3: Skin and Wound Infections

This is where the more familiar post-hurricane picture starts to become relevant.

Floodwater can contain sewage, debris, microorganisms, and other contaminants. At the same time, cleanup work creates plenty of opportunities for cuts, punctures, scrapes, and other injuries.

That combination can lead to skin and wound infections.

Prevention starts before infection does: avoid floodwater when possible, cover existing wounds, wear protective footwear and gloves during cleanup, and clean new wounds appropriately.

Then pay attention to what happens afterward.

Increasing redness, warmth, swelling, drainage, worsening pain, fever, or redness that appears to be spreading away from a wound deserves medical attention.

This is also one of the narrower situations where a prescribed oral antibiotic may have a role when an ordinary wound infection develops and begins spreading.

But “I was exposed to floodwater” doesn’t automatically equal “I need antibiotics.” The wound, symptoms, exposure, and severity all matter.

What About the Scary Floodwater Infections?

There are bacterial infections associated with floodwater that deserve to be taken seriously. They simply shouldn’t be presented as though they’re more common than norovirus or respiratory viruses.

Leptospirosis is one example. The bacteria can spread through water or soil contaminated by the urine of infected animals. Following Hurricane Fiona, Puerto Rico recorded 156 leptospirosis cases over a 15-week period, and 72% of those patients were hospitalized.

Certain Vibrio infections are another serious concern, particularly when a wound is exposed to coastal or brackish water.

These infections can become severe quickly.

And that’s precisely why they don’t belong in the category of “keep some antibiotics around and treat it yourself.”

A severe Vibrio wound infection, for example, can require urgent antibiotics, hospital care, and surgical removal of infected or dead tissue. A pill sitting in a medicine cabinet cannot provide that care.

Rare invasive fungal infections can also occur after major disasters and traumatic injuries. They’re serious, but they’re rare—and giving them equal weight with the viral illnesses that routinely spread through crowded shelters distorts what you’re actually most likely to encounter.

The Most Serious Infections Are Often “Get to Care” Problems

This distinction matters when you’re building a medical emergency plan.

There’s a tendency in preparedness conversations to reduce infection planning to one question:

What antibiotics should I have?

But that’s the wrong starting point.

Some of the infections you’re most likely to encounter after a disaster are viral, meaning antibiotics won’t treat them at all.

Some bacterial infections may require prescription treatment after evaluation.

And some of the most dangerous post-disaster infections need capabilities you simply cannot reproduce at home: diagnostic testing, IV medication, wound management, surgery, or hospital-level monitoring.

Appropriate medical preparation means knowing the difference.

A prescription can be incredibly valuable when it’s the right tool. But being prepared also means recognizing when the right response is to get to medical care.

Where Does a JaseCase Fit?

There is a narrower space where having appropriately prescribed contingency medication can matter.

Imagine you’re cleaning up after a hurricane and sustain a cut. Despite cleaning and monitoring it, several days later you develop signs of a routine bacterial skin infection with spreading cellulitis—and local healthcare access is genuinely disrupted.

That’s very different from taking an antibiotic because you stepped in floodwater or developed diarrhea at a shelter.

JaseCase provides physician-prescribed contingency medications for certain common acute illnesses when normal healthcare access isn’t available. Every request is reviewed by a licensed medical provider, who determines whether the medications are appropriate and writes the prescriptions for the individual.

If you become ill during an emergency, you should still try to reach an appropriate healthcare provider first. Your JaseCase is a contingency layer for when that normal access has broken down—not a replacement for clinical care and certainly not a substitute for emergency treatment when symptoms are severe.

Prepare for What Actually Happens

If you’re preparing for a hurricane, wildfire, flood, or evacuation, start with the risks that repeatedly show up in real disasters.

In a crowded shelter: think handwashing, sanitation, respiratory illness, and avoiding close contact when someone is sick.

During cleanup: think gloves, sturdy footwear, wound protection, clean water, and prompt wound care.

If you become sick: know which symptoms can be managed with routine guidance and which ones mean you need to find medical care.

And when medications do have a role, use them for the problems they’re actually designed to treat.

That’s what we mean by appropriate medical preparation. We’re a family team of medical doctors, PAs, and pharmacists, and we’d rather help you understand where the clinical line is than sell past it.

When Communities Need More Than Personal Preparedness

There is another side of disaster medicine that doesn’t fit inside an individual’s emergency kit.

When hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and other disasters disrupt healthcare across an entire community, people may lose access not only to a pharmacy but to clinics, medical supplies, and the healthcare professionals they normally depend on.

That’s where Jase Response, our nonprofit disaster-response organization, comes in.

Jase Response delivers essential medical services to help build resilient communities in times of crisis. Working alongside trusted response partners, the team helps mobilize medications, medical supplies, and medical providers into communities where normal healthcare access has been disrupted.

Because preparedness and response are two sides of resilience.

At home, preparation helps you care for yourself and the people you love. In a disaster zone, response helps make sure communities aren’t left to recover alone.

Support Jase Response today: https://givebutter.com/aQ8pUO

The Jase Medical Team is a family team of medical doctors, PAs, and pharmacists focused on appropriate medical preparation: clinically grounded readiness that complements, rather than replaces, primary care and the healthcare professionals you already trust.

This article was prepared by the Jase Medical content team for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Prescription requirements, emergency dispensing rules, insurance coverage, and controlled-substance regulations vary by medication, jurisdiction, and individual circumstances. Consult a licensed healthcare provider or pharmacist regarding your specific medications.

Medication Management During a Hurricane or Flood Evacuation

By the Jase Medical Team

The storm track shifts west, and suddenly you have an hour to load the car.

Clothes are easy. Chargers, important documents, water…you know where those go.

Then you get to the medicine cabinet.

There’s half a bottle of your blood pressure medication. An insulin pen in the refrigerator. Your thyroid medication. Three other prescriptions between you and your spouse. And somewhere in the rush is the assumption that if you need anything else, a pharmacy wherever you evacuate will sort it out.

Maybe. But filling a prescription away from home during a disaster isn’t always as straightforward as walking into the nearest pharmacy.

That’s why one of the most useful things you can take with you isn’t another piece of emergency gear.

It’s a current, written medication list.

Before You Leave: Your Medications Go in the Car With You

If you’re evacuating, take your current medications with you rather than assuming you’ll be able to replace them at your destination.

Keep medications in their original labeled containers when possible, and make sure temperature-sensitive medications are transported according to their specific storage requirements. Keep essential medications with you rather than somewhere difficult to access during the trip.

Then take your medication list.

For each prescription, write down:

• Medication name
• Strength and dose
• Prescriber’s name and contact information
• Regular pharmacy and phone number
• Relevant allergies

If you take several prescriptions—or manage medications for your spouse or another family member—this simple document can become extremely valuable once you’re away from home.

Your pill bottles tell someone what you have. Your medication list helps a healthcare professional understand your treatment when what you have isn’t enough.

Can You Refill a Prescription in Another State During a Hurricane?

This is where evacuation can get complicated.

It’s easy to assume that once a state declares an emergency, pharmacies everywhere automatically gain the same authority to provide emergency medication. That’s not how the system works.

Pharmacy rules generally depend on the state where the pharmacy you’re standing in is located. States can have different emergency dispensing rules, triggers, quantity limits, and restrictions on certain medications.

That means you could evacuate from an area under an emergency declaration, drive several states away, and discover that the rules at your destination are different.

Federal programs add another layer. Medicare Part D disaster-related flexibility may depend on federal emergency declarations, while programs such as the Emergency Prescription Assistance Program (EPAP), when activated, apply to eligible uninsured people in designated disaster areas.

In other words, don’t assume your evacuation automatically guarantees an emergency refill wherever you land.

If You’re Away From Home and Need Medication, Start With Your List

If you realize during an evacuation that you may not have enough of a maintenance medication, contact a pharmacy and explain the situation.

This is where that written list earns its place in your evacuation bag.

Give the pharmacist the exact medication, dose, prescriber, and regular pharmacy. If you have the original prescription bottle, keep that available too. Depending on the medication, prescription, state rules, insurance coverage, and circumstances, the pharmacist may be able to help determine what options are available or what they need from your prescriber.

If your regular healthcare provider is reachable, involve them. If your regular pharmacy is still operating, it may also be able to help another pharmacy verify prescription information.

The important thing is not to wait until you’ve taken your last dose to begin asking questions.

And don’t change, stretch, ration, or substitute a medication on your own because you’re trying to make it through the evacuation. If access becomes a problem, ask a pharmacist or licensed healthcare provider what to do for your specific medication.

What About an “Early Refill” Before a Hurricane?

There’s no single nationwide rule that guarantees you can refill every prescription early because a hurricane is approaching.

What your pharmacy can dispense may depend on your prescription, medication, insurance plan, location, emergency declarations, and applicable state rules.

So rather than assuming an early refill will—or won’t—be possible, talk directly with your pharmacist about your current prescriptions and circumstances.

That’s another reason preparedness starts with information, not accumulation.

Know what you take. Know what you currently have. Know how to reach your prescriber and pharmacy. And have that information ready to travel with you.

Coming Home: If Your Medicine Got Wet in a Flood, Don’t Assume It’s Safe

The evacuation isn’t the only point when medication decisions matter.

You may return home after a flood and find the bathroom cabinet wet, a prescription bottle sitting in standing water, or medications inside a bag or drawer that was exposed to contaminated floodwater.

This is not the time to judge a medication by whether the pills look dry.

FDA guidance generally recommends discarding medications that have come into contact with floodwater. That includes medications stored in containers with screw caps, snap lids, or other closures that may not reliably keep contaminated water out.

There are narrow emergency considerations for certain lifesaving medications when no replacement is available, but that’s a situation to discuss immediately with a pharmacist or healthcare professional—not a reason to assume a wet bottle is safe to keep using.

If you’re unsure whether a medication was exposed, call your pharmacist before taking it.

Floodwater isn’t clean water. Medication contamination can be invisible.

Your Regular Prescriptions Aren’t the Only Medical Issue a Flood Can Create

Your maintenance medications are the first layer of evacuation planning because they manage conditions you already know you have.

A hurricane or flood can create a second kind of medical problem.

Cleanup can mean cuts and wounds exposed to contaminated water. Disrupted sanitation and unsafe water can contribute to gastrointestinal illness. Normal access to clinics and pharmacies may also be interrupted just when an acute medical issue appears.

That’s where contingency medication is different from your everyday prescriptions.

JaseCase is designed as an emergency medication layer for certain acute illnesses when normal healthcare access is disrupted. Every request is reviewed by a licensed medical provider, who determines whether the medications are appropriate and writes the prescriptions for the individual.

It doesn’t replace your maintenance medications, your primary care provider, or your regular pharmacy. And if you become sick during an emergency, you should still try to reach an appropriate healthcare provider whenever possible.

It’s a separate layer of medical preparation for a separate problem.

One List That Works Before, During, and After the Storm

Hurricane preparedness can become complicated quickly. Your medication plan doesn’t have to be.

Before you leave, your list tells you what needs to come with you.

If you’re standing at a pharmacy three states from home, your list gives the pharmacist and healthcare provider the information they need to pick up the thread.

And when you return, your list helps you identify exactly what may need to be replaced if medications were lost, damaged, or exposed to floodwater.

At Jase Medical, we’re a family team of medical doctors, PAs, and pharmacists focused on appropriate medical preparation: clinically grounded steps that help you navigate interruptions in normal healthcare access while complementing the doctors and pharmacists you already trust.

So when the storm track changes and it’s time to load the car, don’t leave your healthcare plan sitting in the medicine cabinet.

Take your medications. Take your medication list. And take the information that helps your healthcare team keep caring for you wherever you land.

The Jase Medical Team is a family team of medical doctors, PAs, and pharmacists focused on appropriate medical preparation: clinically grounded readiness that complements, rather than replaces, primary care and the healthcare professionals you already trust.

This article was prepared by the Jase Medical content team for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Prescription requirements, emergency dispensing rules, insurance coverage, and controlled-substance regulations vary by medication, jurisdiction, and individual circumstances. Consult a licensed healthcare provider or pharmacist regarding your specific medications.

Controlled Substances in a Disaster: Why the Schedule on Your Prescription Changes Everything

By the Jase Medical Team

ou evacuated with four days of medication in your bag.

Now you’re two states from home, the pharmacy holding your prescription is closed, and you’re trying to fill it somewhere you’ve never been before.

The pharmacist tells you they can’t help.

It can feel arbitrary. Why can one prescription be transferred while another can’t? Why can your spouse get a medication filled, but yours requires another call to the prescriber?

Often, the answer comes down to a number most patients have little reason to think about:

the schedule of the controlled substance they take.

And during a disaster, that number can significantly change your options.

Before we go further, three things are important.

We are not telling anyone to get extra opioids, stimulants, or other controlled substances in preparation for an emergency. We never will.

We’re writing about this because controlled substances become complicated very quickly when normal healthcare access is disrupted—and avoiding the subject doesn’t make that problem disappear for the people who legitimately depend on these medications.

And Jase Medical sells no controlled substances. Not in JaseCase, not as an add-on, and not anywhere else in our medication offerings.

This is simply a part of appropriate medical preparation that deserves to be understood.

First: Find Out What Schedule Your Medication Is

Controlled substances are classified under federal law into schedules based on factors that include their accepted medical use and potential for misuse and dependence.

For everyday medication planning, the important point isn’t memorizing the entire Controlled Substances Act.

It’s knowing which schedule applies to the medication you actually take.

Schedule II includes medications such as certain prescription stimulants used for ADHD, as well as opioid medications including oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and methadone.

Schedules III through V include other controlled medications, including buprenorphine, many benzodiazepines, tramadol, and pregabalin.

That distinction matters because the rules governing prescriptions, refills, and transfers aren’t the same.

If you aren’t sure which schedule your medication falls under, ask your pharmacist or prescriber. Then write it down with the rest of your medication information.

Why Schedule II Is Different

Schedule II prescriptions are subject to particularly strict federal requirements.

Most importantly for emergency planning, Schedule II prescriptions cannot be refilled under federal law.

That’s fundamentally different from looking at a bottle with ordinary refills remaining and assuming another pharmacy can simply pick up where your regular pharmacy left off.

There is a federal emergency pathway that can allow a pharmacist to dispense a Schedule II medication based on oral authorization from a prescribing practitioner when specific emergency requirements are met.

But notice what that pathway depends on:

The pharmacist has to be able to reach an appropriate prescriber.

During an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, that may be manageable.

During a hurricane evacuation, wildfire, widespread power outage, or other disaster—when offices may be closed, phone systems may be disrupted, and you may be hundreds of miles from home—that connection can become much harder to make.

That’s why the best time to understand the plan isn’t when you’re standing at an unfamiliar pharmacy.

It’s before the disruption happens.

Schedule III–V Prescriptions Have Different Rules

Other controlled substances operate under a different federal framework.

Schedule III through V prescriptions can, when authorized, have refills. Federal law also permits certain transfers between pharmacies, subject to applicable requirements and state law.

That doesn’t mean every pharmacist can automatically fill every controlled prescription during an emergency.

The medication, prescription status, pharmacy systems, federal requirements, state law, and individual circumstances can all affect what happens next.

But it does mean two medications sitting next to each other in your medicine cabinet may have very different options during exactly the same evacuation.

That’s the part worth knowing ahead of time.

Can You Transfer an Unfilled Controlled-Substance Prescription?

This is another area where the rules have changed.

Since August 2023, federal regulations have allowed an electronic prescription for a controlled substance in Schedules II–V to be transferred between DEA-registered retail pharmacies for initial filling, at the patient’s request, when specific requirements are met.

Generally, the prescription can be transferred only once, must remain electronic, and the transfer must be allowed under applicable state law.

That can be useful if your prescription was sent electronically to one pharmacy but you need it filled at another.

But it’s not the same as an ordinary refill, and it doesn’t guarantee that the pharmacy you’re standing in will be able to complete the transfer.

If you need to explore that option, tell the pharmacist that you have an unfilled electronic controlled-substance prescription at another pharmacy and ask whether it can be transferred to that specific location under the rules that apply.

Let the pharmacists determine what’s possible rather than trying to navigate the regulations yourself.

Why Disaster Planning Gets Complicated So Quickly

For many medications, emergency planning can start with fairly straightforward information: What do I take? Who prescribed it? Which pharmacy fills it?

Controlled substances add another layer.

What schedule is it? Does the prescription have legally permitted refills? Has the prescription already been filled? Was it prescribed electronically? Can it be transferred? What does the state where you’re currently located allow? Can the pharmacist reach your prescriber?

That is exactly why we’re writing about controlled substances rather than leaving them out of the preparedness conversation.

People take these medications for legitimate medical conditions. Someone managing chronic pain or ADHD shouldn’t discover during an evacuation that their prescription follows a completely different set of rules than the other medications in their bag.

And none of that requires accumulating additional medication.

It requires knowing the plan.

The One Conversation to Have Before an Emergency

If you take a controlled substance, start by finding out its schedule.

Then, at your next appropriate conversation with your prescriber, ask:

“If I couldn’t fill this medication for a week because of an evacuation, pharmacy closure, or another emergency, what would you want me to do?”

Then write down the answer.

Don’t create your own plan for skipping doses, stretching medication, changing doses, stopping treatment, or restarting it later. Depending on the medication and your individual treatment, those decisions can carry their own risks.

Your prescriber knows why you’re taking the medication and can tell you what they want you to do if access is interrupted.

That written plan belongs with the rest of your medication information: medication name, dose, prescriber, pharmacy, and now—when relevant—controlled-substance schedule and your prescriber’s instructions for an access disruption.

Appropriate Preparation Doesn’t Mean Having More

At Jase Medical, we talk about appropriate medical preparation: clinically grounded planning for disruptions in normal healthcare access.

With controlled substances, that distinction is especially important.

We’re not suggesting that you obtain additional opioids or stimulants. We don’t sell controlled substances. And we’re not giving you a workaround for the rules governing them.

We’re telling you to understand the rules that affect a medication you already legitimately take—and have the clinical conversation before a disaster makes that conversation harder to have.

Because if you evacuate with four days of medication and discover two states later that your pharmacy is closed, the middle of the emergency is a terrible time to learn that this prescription works differently from every other bottle in your bag.

Know the schedule.

Ask your prescriber for the plan.

Write it down.

That’s the preparation.

The Jase Medical Team is a family team of medical doctors, PAs, and pharmacists focused on appropriate medical preparation: clinically grounded readiness that complements, rather than replaces, primary care and the healthcare professionals you already trust.

This article was prepared by the Jase Medical content team for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Prescription requirements, emergency dispensing rules, insurance coverage, and controlled-substance regulations vary by medication, jurisdiction, and individual circumstances. Consult a licensed healthcare provider or pharmacist regarding your specific medications.