Where to Find Official Windstorm Preparedness Guidance
Preparedness guidance for windstorms is a subject where the official sources are good and current, and summaries of them go stale. This page does not restate their instructions; it maps who publishes what, so you can go straight to the right document and bookmark the originals.
National Weather Service — the hazard and the alerts
The NWS wind safety page is the reference for the hazard itself: the types of high-wind events, the watch and warning products the NWS issues for them, and its safety guidance for before and during high wind. It is the source to check when you want to know what a particular alert means — a watch versus a warning, and which product covers which conditions. Understanding the alert vocabulary before a storm season starts is the low-effort, high-value piece of preparedness reading.
Ready.gov — plans, kits, and alerts
Ready.gov's severe weather section is FEMA's preparedness hub. Its territory is the planning layer: how to build a family emergency plan, what belongs in an emergency supply kit, and how to receive emergency alerts. Its checklists are maintained by the agency whose job this is, which is exactly why this site links them rather than paraphrasing them — a paraphrase is one revision behind the moment it is written.
American Red Cross — evacuation, sheltering, recovery
The Red Cross hurricane preparedness page covers the ground closest to hurricane events on the Texas coast: evacuation planning, sheltering, and returning home afterward. Its recovery-side material — what to think about when going back to a damaged property — is a piece the forecast-oriented sources cover less.
How the three fit together
- Understanding alerts and the hazard → National Weather Service
- Household planning, kits, and alert setup → Ready.gov
- Evacuation, shelter, and recovery → American Red Cross
All three are free, and none requires an account or purchase.
The paperwork layer
One preparedness item sits closer to this site's usual subject: knowing what your insurance documents say before a storm season. That means knowing which policy covers wind at your address, what your windstorm deductible percentage translates to in dollars — the calculator does that arithmetic — and where your declarations page is. The what-is-windstorm-insurance guide and the deductible guide cover the reading part. For anything beyond reading — coverage decisions, or what to do in an actual emergency — the professionals and the official sources above are the right stop, not a reference site.