By State › Florida

Florida: Overview

Download all of Florida as PDF Print

Everything in the main manual and the skill guides applies in Florida exactly as written. What’s different here is the specific hazard profile and the state, local, and legal context around it. This page is the starting point; the other three pages under Florida go deeper on laws, local resources, and the data behind the risks named here.

The most hurricane-exposed state in the country

Of the 292 hurricanes that have made landfall in the United States since 1851, roughly 120, more than 41%, have hit Florida, more than double the next closest state. Hurricane Ian, which struck southwest Florida in September 2022, is the reference case for this manual: a Category 4 landfall whose storm surge, not its wind, caused the large majority of direct deaths, and whose $112 billion damage total made it the costliest hurricane in Florida history. See the Risks page for the full data, including why different sources report meaningfully different death tolls for the same storm.

A slower-moving risk: sea level rise along a coastline most Floridians live on

Sea level around Miami has risen roughly 6 inches over the 1985-2016 period and is projected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ high scenario to rise another 6 inches in half that time, by the early 2040s. NOAA’s own national projection puts 10-12 inches of coastal sea level rise by 2050. Unlike a hurricane, this isn’t a single event with a before-and-after; it’s a standing condition that raises the baseline for every future storm surge and high-tide flood on top of it, and it affects the state’s most densely populated coastal counties continuously, not episodically.

What this means for how you use the rest of this manual

The manual’s Tier structure and the skill guides apply without modification. What’s different in Florida: hurricane season planning, an evacuation plan, a way to secure the home, a plan for extended power loss, needs to be a standing part of Tier 1-2 preparation for essentially the entire state, not a regional concern, and households in low-lying coastal areas should treat storm surge risk as distinct from, and often more dangerous than, wind risk when deciding whether to evacuate.

Sources