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How to Make a Flood Emergency Plan and Evacuation Checklist

Plan for a flood before it happens: check local guidance, choose how your household will communicate and evacuate, and keep essential supplies ready.
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Make your flood emergency plan before water is rising: learn your local risks, decide how your household will get alerts and reconnect if separated, and choose destinations and routes using local emergency guidance. Keep an evacuation checklist ready, but follow current instructions from local officials if a flood threatens; their orders and designated routes take priority over a plan made in advance.

Build the plan before a flood warning

Find out what local flooding could affect

Use FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center to check mapped flood risk, then consult your local emergency management agency for community-specific hazards and preparedness instructions. A map can help you plan, but it does not tell you whether an evacuation is currently ordered.

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Choose destinations and routes

Agree where household members will go if officials call for an evacuation. Identify routes using local emergency guidance, and decide on a backup destination or route where local plans make one appropriate. Do not assume a route or shelter listed for another community applies to yours. Learn and practice the route and shelter arrangements in advance.

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Plan for separation and communication

Flooding may begin when household members are in different places. Choose how you will reconnect, keep emergency contact details accessible, and agree how everyone will receive official updates. Ready.gov offers a family communication plan form you can use to record the arrangements.

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Account for every person and pet

List the medicines, medical equipment, mobility aids, communication support, care arrangements, and other essentials each person needs. Include children’s food and comfort items, allergy needs, and pet supplies and transport arrangements. Make sure the plan accounts for anyone who may need help leaving promptly.

Practice the sequence

Walk through how each person will hear an alert, gather the ready-to-go supplies, leave, and reconnect. Practice the route and shelter plan, and update contact details or arrangements when household needs change.

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Prepare an evacuation checklist

Keep the checklist somewhere household members can find it quickly. Adapt it to your local officials’ recommendations and the needs of the people and pets in your care.

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  • Alerts and contacts: the local official alert source, emergency contacts, and your household communication and reunion plan.
  • Destination and travel: your locally appropriate destination, planned routes, and any backup arrangements. During an emergency, follow current official routing.
  • Health and first aid: essential medicines, medical or access-related supplies, and a first-aid kit.
  • Food and water: water and non-perishable food for likely needs, including children’s food requirements and allergy-safe options. Plan for several days if services are disrupted.
  • Phone and power: a phone and a charging method, such as a backup battery.
  • Documents and money: cash and essential identification, insurance, and medical documents in a waterproof container. Keep password-protected digital copies as well.
  • Children and pets: pet supplies and arrangements, plus the comfort items children rely on.
  • Official information: a way to keep receiving alerts, such as a locally recommended weather radio. FEMA lists a portable battery-operated radio and extra batteries; Ready.gov identifies NOAA Weather Radio as an information channel.

A waterproof document pouch or folder can help protect essential papers. A battery-powered weather radio is another possible way to receive information, but it does not replace signing up for local alerts or following official orders. Check that the radio can receive relevant broadcasts in your area and consider how it will be powered.

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When a flood warning arrives

  1. Check official information. Monitor local alerting systems, the Emergency Alert System (EAS), or NOAA Weather Radio for current instructions.
  2. Follow the direction for your area. Evacuate immediately when told to do so, using routes designated by local authorities. If officials direct you to shelter rather than evacuate, follow that instruction.
  3. Leave without unnecessary delay. Take essential supplies that are ready to go; do not postpone a required evacuation to collect optional belongings or protect possessions.
  4. Stay out of floodwater. Do not walk or drive through it, and never go around barricades. Follow local emergency directions.

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