Community preparedness — Florida
From UF/IFAS Extension offices in all 67 counties to CERT teams that train year-round for the next storm, Florida's preparedness network is forged by experience. Seven NWS offices, 80+ ham radio clubs, and a population that knows what a Category 4 feels like. Here's how to plug in.
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CERT trainings, canning workshops, ham radio exams, garden workdays, first aid classes. Events from local organizations that build community resilience.
67
County extension offices
7
NWS forecast offices
80+
Amateur radio clubs
4
Red Cross regions
Where to plug in
Florida faces hurricanes, flooding, extreme heat, and wildfire. The organizations below operate at the county level because that's where the work happens. A CERT volunteer in Lee County trains for storm surge. A Master Gardener in Alachua County teaches food production that survives the summer heat. Start with the county you're standing in.
The University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) Extension operates offices in all 67 Florida counties. Programs cover the full range of practical skills: Florida-friendly landscaping, vegetable gardening adapted to subtropical conditions, food preservation, hurricane preparedness, water conservation, 4-H youth development, and financial literacy. Florida A&M University also operates cooperative extension programs in partnership with IFAS.
The Florida Master Gardener Volunteer program trains residents through county-level cohorts, then deploys them as educators at plant clinics, school gardens, and community workshops. The Master Naturalist program teaches Florida ecology and conservation. Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Orange, and Duval counties run some of the state's largest extension programs, but smaller counties like Suwannee, Jackson, and Hendry deliver programming tailored to rural communities. Your county extension office is the single best starting point for practical skills training.
The Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) coordinates the state's emergency preparedness, response, and recovery operations. Florida's emergency management system is among the most battle-tested in the country, refined through decades of hurricane response. FDEM works through county emergency management offices in all 67 counties and maintains the FloridaDisaster.org preparedness portal for residents.
CERT programs in Florida are exceptionally active because the threat is constant. Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, Orange, Duval, Lee, and Palm Beach counties all run large CERT programs with regular training cohorts. After Hurricane Ian devastated Fort Myers Beach and Lee County in 2022, CERT teams from neighboring counties deployed to assist with search operations and shelter management. Training is free and typically runs 8 sessions covering disaster preparedness, fire safety, light search and rescue, and medical operations.
Multiple Red Cross regions serve Florida, including the South Florida Region (Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Monroe), Central Florida Region (Orlando metro and surrounding counties), North Florida Region (Jacksonville and the First Coast), and the Central & North Florida Region covering the Panhandle and Big Bend. All offer first aid, CPR, AED, lifeguarding, and water safety classes year-round.
Florida's Red Cross chapters are among the most active in the nation because hurricane response is not a hypothetical here. During Hurricane Ian in September 2022, Red Cross sheltered over 14,000 people across Florida, deployed thousands of trained disaster workers, and served millions of meals and snacks in the weeks following landfall. The volunteer pipeline is always open: shelter operations, disaster assessment, feeding operations, and blood drives are the most common entry points.
Florida has over 80 amateur radio clubs across three ARRL sections: Northern Florida, Southern Florida, and West Central Florida, all within the Southeastern Division. Florida's ARES network is activated every hurricane season. During Ian, ARES operators in Lee and Charlotte counties provided the only communications link for neighborhoods where cell towers were destroyed, relaying welfare messages and coordinating supply distribution for isolated communities on barrier islands.
Getting licensed costs $15 for the exam and $35 for a basic handheld radio. Study at hamstudy.org, then find a local exam session. Clubs in Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota, and Tallahassee host exams monthly. The Orlando HamCation, held each February, is one of the three largest ham radio conventions in the country and draws operators from across the Southeast.
Seven NWS forecast offices serve Florida: Jacksonville (northeast), Tallahassee (Big Bend and eastern Panhandle), Mobile/Pensacola (western Panhandle, shared with Alabama), Tampa Bay/Ruskin (west central), Melbourne (east central and the Space Coast), Miami (southeast and the Keys), and Key West (Monroe County and adjacent waters). Each office runs SKYWARN spotter training, typically before the June 1 start of hurricane season.
In a state where afternoon thunderstorms produce more lightning strikes per square mile than anywhere else in the country, trained spotters provide critical ground-truth for severe weather warnings. Florida also leads the nation in waterspout reports, and spotter observations help the NWS track these and other coastal hazards. Training is free, runs about 2 hours, and is offered both in-person and online through your local forecast office.
Florida has over 500 public library locations overseen by the Florida Department of State, Division of Library and Information Services. County library systems like Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, and Orange County host extensive community programming: seed exchanges, hurricane preparedness workshops, financial literacy classes, and digital skills training. Many Florida libraries serve as cooling centers during extreme heat events and as information hubs during storm season.
The Florida College System includes 28 state colleges (formerly community colleges) serving every region. Institutions like Miami Dade College, Broward College, Valencia College (Orlando), Hillsborough Community College, and Florida State College at Jacksonville offer affordable continuing education in first aid, EMT certification, welding, HVAC, electrical work, and other practical trades. Florida's state colleges are consistently among the most affordable in the country.
Why this matters
On September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian made landfall near Cayo Costa as a high-end Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds and a storm surge that reached 18 feet in parts of Lee County. Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel Island, and Pine Island were devastated. Roads were destroyed. Bridges were impassable. Thousands of residents were stranded on barrier islands with no power, no water, and no way out.
The first responders who reached those islands weren't all professionals. CERT-trained volunteers from Lee and neighboring Collier County deployed by boat to conduct welfare checks on Pine Island before the Sanibel causeway was repaired. Ham radio operators established emergency nets when cell service was wiped out across the coast, relaying messages for stranded families and coordinating supply drops. The Red Cross opened shelters across Southwest Florida and deployed thousands of trained disaster workers, eventually serving millions of meals in the weeks that followed.
The Cajun Navy and other volunteer boat rescue teams, many of whose members had trained through community organizations in Louisiana and Texas, arrived within 48 hours. Extension agents helped organize donated food distribution in rural areas of Lee and Charlotte counties. Churches that had run shelter drills opened their doors within hours of the storm passing.
Ian proved what every hurricane proves: when the storm surge recedes, the first people on the ground are the ones who trained before the storm. That training is free. The organizations are still here. And in Florida, the next storm is never far away.
The foundation
Community resilience begins with a household that can take care of itself. Cover the first 72 hours, then extend outward to your street, your neighborhood, your town.
Start with the first 72 hours