Hurricane Preparedness Checklist for Venice & Sarasota Homeowners

Living on the Gulf side of Florida means every June through November you're one NOAA advisory away from scrambling. This is the checklist we walk our Venice, Sarasota, North Port, and Englewood customers through every year — the outside-in version we actually use on our own trucks.

Bookmark it, print it, and start at the top of the season, not the day the cone drops on you.

Two weeks out: the "off-season" list you should have already done

If a named storm is already in the Gulf, skip to the next section. This block is for June 1 through mid-July, before anything is spinning.

• Trim trees and palms back from the roofline, gutters, and power drop. Sarasota County will not pick up storm debris that came off your tree if it's blocking the road after the fact.
• Clean every gutter and downspout. A clogged gutter in a 4-inch-per-hour rain band is how water gets behind your fascia and into the soffit. If you're not comfortable on a ladder, this is the single most valuable [gutter cleaning](/gutter-cleaning-venice) call you'll make all year.
• Reseal exterior caulking around windows, doors, hose bibbs, and lanai posts. Florida sun cracks silicone in about three years. See our [caulking & recaulking](/caulking-recaulking-venice) walkthrough for the surfaces that matter most.
• Walk your roof (or have someone walk it) for lifted shingles, loose ridge caps, and popped nails. A 90 mph gust finds every one of them.
• Test your generator under load — not just a pull-start. Change the oil, run it 30 minutes, and stabilize the gas in your storage cans.
• Photograph every room and every exterior elevation for insurance. Store the photos in the cloud, not just on the phone that might not survive the week.

Five to seven days out (cone of uncertainty includes Sarasota County)

Now you're on the clock. Sarasota County typically calls voluntary evacuations for Zones A and B about 72 hours out — don't wait for that call to start.

• Fill propane tanks and gas cans. Every station within 30 miles will be out 24 hours before landfall.
• Refill prescriptions, pull cash, and top off both vehicles.
• Charge every battery bank, tool battery, and headlamp you own.
• Freeze water bottles flat in the deep freezer — they hold cold for 48+ hours after power loss and become drinking water after.
• Confirm your evacuation zone at scgov.net if you're on a barrier island (Venice Island, Casey Key, Manasota Key, Siesta Key, Longboat Key). Zone A almost always evacuates for a Cat 2+.

Three days out: the "outside" pass

This is the pass that makes or breaks whether your home is livable on day 3.

Lanai and pool cage

The screen enclosure is designed to fail before the aluminum frame does — but only if you help it. Two Floridian rules of thumb: remove the screens if you have time, or cut them intentionally if you don't. A fully-screened cage in 100 mph wind acts like a sail and takes the whole frame off the deck footing.

• If time allows, we can pull the screen panels off a standard 20x40 cage in about half a day. We reinstall after the storm with new spline and (usually) new screen. See [lanai screen repair](/lanai-screen-repair-venice) for what a post-storm rebuild typically involves.
• If time doesn't allow, cut 6-inch relief slits at the top of every panel. Ugly, but it saves the frame.
• Remove and store all pool furniture, planters, and grills. A cushion becomes a projectile at 90 mph.
• Drop the pool water level 12 inches to make room for rain, but don't drain it — an empty in-ground pool can float out of the ground in saturated Florida soil.

Gutters and drainage

• Do one more sweep of gutters and downspouts. A single palm frond in a downspout during a rain band means water pouring over the eave onto your foundation.
• Confirm downspout extensions are pointing away from the slab.
• Clear the exterior AC condensate drain line.

Shutters, windows, and doors

• Deploy accordion or roll-down shutters on all openings, including the sliding lanai doors. Test them earlier in the season — the day a storm is coming is not when you want to discover a jammed track.
• If you have plywood shutters, pre-drill and label them in the off-season. Trying to cut and hang 5/8" plywood in a 30 mph outer band is genuinely dangerous.
• Reinforce your garage door with a bracing kit if it's older than about 2005 and not rated for high wind. A garage door failing pressurizes the whole house and lifts the roof off the trusses — this is the single most common catastrophic failure in Florida homes.

Loose exterior items — the "walk-around"

Anything not bolted down goes inside the garage or gets tied to something that is:

• Grills, trash cans, recycling bins
• Bikes, kayaks, paddleboards
• Kids' toys, pool floats, hoses on reels
• Patio umbrellas (always collapse and lay them flat — many umbrellas have gone through neighbors' windows)
• Solar landscape lights, decorative flags, hanging plants
• Mailbox flags and any loose mailbox parts — if your mailbox itself is already leaning, that's a call for our [mailbox installation & repair](/mailbox-installation-venice) crew before the season.

24 hours out: the "inside" pass

• Move electronics and valuables away from windows and off the floor. Wrap them in trash bags.
• Move important documents to a sealed plastic bin on the highest shelf of an interior closet.
• Fill bathtubs and every large pot with water — for flushing toilets, not drinking.
• Turn the fridge and freezer to their coldest settings 24 hours before landfall.
• Charge phones and tablets to 100%. Charge external battery packs.
• Lower AC to 68°F the hour before the storm hits. If you lose power, you've banked several hours of cool air.
• Unplug non-essential electronics to protect from surge on the way back up.

After the storm: the first 72 hours

Once the wind drops below tropical storm force and daylight is back, do a slow, calm walk-around before you touch anything.

1. Look up before you step out. Downed lines are the #1 post-storm injury in Sarasota County.
2. Photograph everything damaged, before you clean anything up. Insurance adjusters need the "before" shot.
3. Tarp any roof breach immediately — even blue-tarp-plus-2x4 is enough to prevent 90% of secondary water damage. If you can't get up there safely, get on a list *the same day*; roofers and handymen fill up fast after landfall.
4. Check the soffit and fascia for lifted or torn sections. This is where blown-in water shows up 48 hours later as a ceiling stain.
5. Inspect the pool cage. Even if the screens are intact, check every kickplate, corner bracket, and post footing.
6. Fence panels down? Corner and gate posts fail first in Florida because sandy soil doesn't hold a hurried set. See our [fence & gate repair](/fence-gate-repairs-venice) page for what an actual proper post-set looks like.
7. Wood rot check. Any water intrusion becomes wood rot within 30 days in Florida humidity. See [wood rot repair](/wood-rot-repair-venice) if you spot soft trim or fascia.

Where a handyman fits in — before, during, and after

Roofers and general contractors are usually booked 4–8 weeks out after any named storm. Most of what actually damages your daily life — soffit sections, screen enclosures, fence panels, gutters, garage-door reinforcement, cabinet doors sprung by pressure changes, drywall stains from a small leak — is handyman work, not roofing work.

We handle the pre-storm prep list (screen removal, hurricane hardware install, gutter clearing, tree-limb trimming, shutter track service) before the season, and the post-storm punch list (tarp, screen rebuild, fence, drywall, wood rot, caulking, repaint) after. If you're on our maintenance list, you're already ahead of both queues.

Storm season doesn't care whether you're ready. But an hour with this checklist in June saves a week of scrambling in September. Save it, share it with your neighbors, and give us a call if you want any part of it handled — pre-storm, mid-storm, or the morning after.