A hurricane plan for your dog in Palm Beach County: the 72-hour checklist

September 10 is the statistical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, and by the time a storm has a name you have roughly three days of usable time in Palm Beach County. The gas lines at Glades and the Turnpike form on day one. The dog plan takes one quiet evening, which means the only good time to make it is a week when nothing is coming.

Here is that evening, laid out.

72 hours out: the bag that already exists

Build the kit now and it simply waits in a closet. Everything fits in one tote:

• Food for seven days, in a container that closes. If your dog eats kibble, rotate the stash every couple of months so it stays fresh.
• Water for seven days. A big dog in Florida heat drinks about a gallon a day. Count your dog in when you buy people water, because everyone forgets to.
• Medications and a photo of the records. Snap your vaccine certificates with your phone tonight and email them to yourself. County pet-friendly shelters ask for proof of vaccination at intake, and the paper copy is always in the drawer you cannot reach.
• A crate that latches. Shelters and most hotels require one. If your dog has not been in a crate since puppyhood, feed dinner in it a few times this month. The middle of a hurricane is a bad first lesson.
• Leash, harness, poop bags, a towel, one toy that smells like home.
• A photo of you together with your dog. If you get separated, that photo is how you prove the dog is yours.

Check the microchip while you are at it. Call the registry or scan the paperwork: chips move with owners who forget to update the phone number, and a chip that rings a landline you disconnected in 2019 protects nobody.

Know your zone before the map turns red

Evacuation in Palm Beach County runs by zone, not by feeling. Look your address up on the county's Know Your Zone map today, because on the day the map is on television the website is slow.

The rough geography, if you live in Boca Raton: the barrier island and the blocks east of Federal Highway in 33432 and up through 33487 are the first to hear about storm surge. West of the Turnpike, in 33428 and 33496, surge is not the story: canal and lake flooding after two days of rain is, and that decides where your dog can relieve himself for a week. The mid-city ZIPs, 33431, 33433, 33434 and 33486, mostly shelter in place through anything short of a major storm, and the dog question becomes wind, noise and a locked-down routine rather than leaving.

None of that replaces the lookup. It just tells you which question to ask.

Three ways the storm day goes

You stay home. Most storms, most households. Pick the interior room now, put the crate in it, and clip the leash by the door you would actually use: dogs bolt through opened doors in wind, and a bolting dog in a debris street is the accident that fills shelters after every storm. Walk the dog long and early before the outer bands arrive, then accept a day of indoor boredom as the cheapest problem you will have.

You evacuate with the dog. Pet-friendly hotel rooms inland are the first rooms gone, so the booking call happens when the storm is still a cone, not an arrival time. Palm Beach County also runs a pet-friendly shelter option for people in evacuation zones: the county announces the location and the rules each season, and the rules include vaccination proof and a crate. Read the current requirements on the county emergency management page before you need them, not in the car.

You cannot get to the dog. Storms do not check work schedules. Flights get cancelled, bridges lock down, and someone is always caught on the wrong coast. This is where a sitter you already know matters: a drop-in visit before the weather closes in, or in-home sitting through the loud hours, is only possible if the meet and greet happened back in the sunny week. Book the introduction before the season peaks, and the phone call from the airport becomes a solved problem.

One thing that is not an option: leaving a dog tied up outside to ride it out. Florida made restraining a dog outdoors during a declared natural disaster a felony in 2025, and beyond the law, a chained animal in hurricane wind has no chance at all.

After the all-clear, the neighborhood is new

The storm ends and the yard your dog has sniffed a thousand times is a different place. Walk the first days on a short leash and treat the ground as unfamiliar, because it is:

• Standing water hides sharp debris and runs with whatever washed out of garages. It is also where bufo toads gather, and we have written a separate guide on the bufo emergency worth reading before, not after.
• Displaced wildlife. High water moves alligators into swales and retention ponds where they were not last week. The rules from our alligator walking guide apply double after a flood.
• Downed lines and generators. A puddle near a downed line is not a puddle. Generator exhaust pools in garages where a dog might nap.

Parks reopen on their own schedule. Spanish River Park and South Inlet Park close for cleanup after wind events, and the county posts reopenings; Lake Ida Dog Park in Delray Beach floods along the lake edge and dries slowly. Check before you drive.

The one-evening version

Tonight: build the tote, photograph the records, check the chip, look up your zone. This month: crate dinners, one hotel search saved to your phone, and a meet and greet with whoever would hold your keys. That is the whole plan. Storms give three days of warning, and a household with a dog needs all three for people things, because the dog things were done in September.