Alabama Local Risk Guide
Alabama local risk and household disruption guide.
How to know which warnings, seasons, and disruptions apply to your part of Alabama, and how to keep your household working through them, from the Tennessee Valley to Mobile Bay.
Last reviewed October 2026
By Dan Whelan, founder of New World Survival
Researched from government agencies, university extension services, and other published sources. See our sources
Why this page exists
One state, four forecast offices, and very different years.
A household in Huntsville and a household in Gulf Shores both live in Alabama, but they get their warnings from different forecast offices and their hardest weeks come at different times of year. Families in the north watch the spring and November storm seasons and the occasional ice storm. Families on the coast build their year around hurricane season and evacuation zones. Summer heat and flash flooding reach almost everyone.
This page helps you work out which of those patterns applies to your address. It shows which warning office and county agency serve you and which systems tend to fail together, then gives you a short list of preparations that cover several risks at once. It is about keeping a household running through a disruption. For land, water law, growing conditions, and checking a parcel before you buy, the main Alabama guide is the better starting point.
Related guide
Choosing land or comparing places in Alabama? The main Alabama land and self-reliance guide covers the statewide score, five land-search regions, water law, cottage food and right-to-farm rules, growing conditions, what raw land costs to make livable, a parcel checklist, and insurance at purchase. This Local Risk guide focuses on warning systems, household disruption, continuity, and recovery.
Start here
Find your county, your forecast office, and your county EMA.
Alabama has 67 counties, and each has its own emergency management agency (EMA). The county EMA runs local shelters, sirens, and alert enrollment, and on the coast it sets evacuation zones. Knowing your county, the National Weather Service (NWS) office that issues its warnings, and how to reach your county EMA is the first step for everything else on this page.
Border counties are easy to get wrong. Five counties in the southeast corner of the state get their warnings from the NWS office in Tallahassee, Florida, not from an Alabama office, and that office's forecasts and radar briefings use Eastern time.
Find your county EMA
Alabama EMA keeps a contact table for every county EMA, with a phone number and address for each. Call during a quiet week and ask which alert system covers your address and where the nearest public storm shelter is.
Alabama EMA county contactsCheck your flood and coastal maps
Look up your address on the FEMA flood map. In Mobile and Baldwin counties, also find your hurricane evacuation zone from your county EMA. It is a separate map from the flood map.
FEMA Flood Map Service CenterNWS offices serving Alabama, by county
Huntsville (HUN), 11 counties: Colbert, Cullman, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, Morgan.
Birmingham (BMX), 39 counties: Autauga, Barbour, Bibb, Blount, Bullock, Calhoun, Chambers, Cherokee, Chilton, Clay, Cleburne, Coosa, Dallas, Elmore, Etowah, Fayette, Greene, Hale, Jefferson, Lamar, Lee, Lowndes, Macon, Marengo, Marion, Montgomery, Perry, Pickens, Pike, Randolph, Russell, Shelby, St. Clair, Sumter, Talladega, Tallapoosa, Tuscaloosa, Walker, Winston.
Mobile (MOB), 12 counties: Baldwin, Butler, Choctaw, Clarke, Conecuh, Covington, Crenshaw, Escambia, Mobile, Monroe, Washington, Wilcox.
Tallahassee, FL (TAE), 5 counties: Coffee, Dale, Geneva, Henry, Houston.
County assignments from the National Weather Service zone data, checked October 2026. Offices occasionally adjust boundaries, so confirm by entering your address at weather.gov.
Statewide baseline
Ten preparations that cover several Alabama hazards at once.
These apply wherever you live in Alabama. Each one connects to a risk the state's 2023 hazard mitigation plan ranks as major or moderate, and each one keeps working whether the trigger is a tornado, a tropical storm, a summer thunderstorm, or an ice storm.
Two warning methods that do not depend on each other
Alabama EMA advises receiving warnings from at least two methods, not counting outdoor sirens. A NOAA Weather Radio with battery backup, programmed for your county, plus Wireless Emergency Alerts on a phone is a practical pair. Add ALalert, the statewide opt-in system, and your county's own system as a third and fourth.
A tornado shelter plan that works at 2 a.m.
Published research on warning reception finds the Southeast has more tornadoes between midnight and 4 a.m. than any other U.S. region. Choose the room you will use at home (basement, safe room, or an interior room on the lowest floor away from windows), keep shoes and a light there, and make sure the warning method you rely on overnight is loud enough to wake everyone.
A cooling plan for a summer outage
The state plan rates extreme heat as highly likely and statewide in extent. Thunderstorms and tropical systems cause outages in the hottest months, so the backup that matters most in much of Alabama is a way to stay cool, not warm. Know the nearest cooled public building and how you would get there, and who in your household is most at risk from heat.
Stored drinking water
Ready.gov recommends at least one gallon per person per day for several days, for drinking and sanitation, and more in hot weather. Households on a private well lose water the moment the pump loses power, which makes stored water the backstop for every outage-causing hazard on this page.
Lighting and phone charging without the grid
Battery lanterns and a charged power bank keep phones able to receive alerts through an outage. If you plan to run a generator, CDC guidance is to operate it outdoors more than 20 feet from windows, doors, and vents, never in a home or garage, and to keep a battery-powered or battery-backup carbon monoxide alarm inside.
A flood decision for every route you drive
Flooding shares the top risk ranking in the state plan. The NWS notes that 12 inches of rushing water can carry away most cars and that over half of flood drownings happen when a vehicle is driven into floodwater. Know which crossings on your commute, school run, and route to the grocery store go under first, and pick an alternate for each.
A reunification plan for a school or work day
Severe storms can arrive during the school and work day, and a hurricane evacuation can split a household across two cars. Agree on who collects whom, an out-of-area contact everyone texts, and where the household meets if home is unreachable.
Medication and medical-power continuity
Keep a current medication list and, where your prescriber and insurer allow, a refill cushion. If anyone uses refrigerated medication or powered equipment, plan how you would keep it working through a two- or three-day summer outage. See the guide to refrigerated medications.
Food you can keep or eat safely after an outage
CDC guidance: with the doors closed, a refrigerator keeps food safe for up to 4 hours, a full freezer for 48 hours, and a half-full freezer for 24 hours. Keep a few days of food that needs no refrigeration, and an appliance thermometer in the fridge so the keep-or-toss call is a reading, not a guess.
Records, photos, and a plan for pets
Photograph your home and belongings now, store copies of identification and insurance documents in a waterproof pouch and in cloud storage, and know whether the shelter you would use accepts pets. See preparing with pets.
Hazard profile
What can happen, where it matters, and your first decision.
Rows follow the risk rankings in the 2023 Alabama State Hazard Mitigation Plan, from its two major-risk hazards down to those it rates moderate or low. Each row connects a hazard to the household disruption it tends to cause and the planning decision it calls for. The Full guide column links to the national guide with detailed before, during, and after steps.
| Hazard | Where it matters | Higher-attention period | Warning character | Likely household disruption | First planning decision | Full guide |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tornadoes | Statewide; the state plan notes tornado-related disaster declarations are more common in the northern counties | March through May, with a second peak in November; possible in any month | Minutes, through an NWS tornado warning; overnight tornadoes are common in the Southeast | Structural damage, injury, power loss along the path, blocked roads, displacement | Which room do you use at home, and what wakes you if a warning comes at night? | Tornado guide → |
| Severe thunderstorms, hail, lightning | Statewide | Most frequent March through May; summer storms are common | Short notice, through NWS severe thunderstorm warnings | Straight-line wind outages, fallen trees, roof and vehicle damage, lightning injuries outdoors | Who checks on whom after a summer outage, and where do you cool off? | Severe storm guide → |
| Flash and river flooding | Statewide; flash flooding along creeks and low roads everywhere, longer river flooding in the major basins | Any month after heavy rain; tropical rainfall in late summer and fall | Flash floods: minutes to hours. River floods: hours to days, with river forecasts | Roads and bridges closed, vehicles swept off crossings, flooded homes, water-system advisories | Is your home in a mapped flood area, and which crossings on your routes go under first? | Flood guide → |
| Hurricanes and storm surge | Surge: Mobile and Baldwin counties. Wind, rain, and tornadoes from landfalling storms can reach far inland | June 1 through November 30; the Atlantic season peaks around September 10 | Days of forecast lead time; evacuation orders come from local elected officials | Evacuation, long outages in hot weather, road congestion, fuel demand, wind and water damage | What is your evacuation zone, and where will you go and by which route? | Hurricane guide → |
| Extreme heat | Statewide | Summer months | Days of notice; the NWS HeatRisk forecast covers the next seven days | Heat illness, especially for older adults and outdoor workers; danger rises sharply if power fails | If your air conditioning stops in August, where does each household member go? | Extreme heat guide → |
| Winter storms and ice | Mostly the northern counties, though a 1993 snowstorm brought a federal declaration for all 67 | December through February | Usually advance notice through NWS winter storm watches and warnings | Icy roads that empty store shelves and strand commuters, downed lines, heating loss in all-electric homes | If roads ice over at noon, who stays put and who picks up the children? | Ice storm guide → |
| Dam failure | Localized: homes and roads below dams and large ponds | Heaviest rainfall periods, including tropical rain | Depends on the owner and the county EMA; many private dams have no inspection requirement | Sudden downstream flooding, washed-out roads below the dam | Is there a dam or large pond upstream of your home or your road out? | Dam failure guide → |
| Sinkholes | Localized: limestone areas, most prone to sudden collapse in north Alabama | No season; changes in groundwater, including heavy pumping, can contribute | Collapse can be sudden in the north; the southern coastal plain tends toward broad, slow, shallow sinkholes | Foundation, driveway, septic, and utility-line damage | Do you know the signs, and who in your county takes a report? | State plan, sinkholes → |
| Earthquakes | Mostly the northeast and central counties; distant large quakes can be felt statewide | No season | No warning | Usually light damage such as cracked masonry and fallen items; rarely more | Are tall furniture and water heaters secured? | Earthquake guide → |
| Drought and wildfire | Statewide; well-dependent and wooded rural properties most affected | Dry periods in any season | Slow onset, tracked weekly by the U.S. Drought Monitor and monthly by state drought declarations | Falling well yields, outdoor burning restrictions, smoke, woods fires near homes | If your well slows, what is your supplemental water source? | Drought guide → |
Two localized concerns are outside this table. Households within 10 miles of the Browns Ferry or Farley nuclear plants have specific notification and route plans (see the regions below and the nuclear guide). Landslides concentrate in the northeastern hill country and along river bluffs (see the landslide guide).
Operational risk regions
What you prepare for depends on where in Alabama you live.
These six operational regions group counties by the forecast office that warns them, the hazards that shape their year, and the access and utility problems that follow. They are not the land-search regions in the main state guide, which are organized around soil, water, and buildable ground. Where a county sits near a boundary, use the checks for both regions.
Tennessee Valley and the northeast hills
The 11 Huntsville-office counties: Huntsville, Decatur, Florence, Athens, Cullman, Scottsboro, Fort Payne
This is the part of the state where the plan's disaster record points to tornadoes and ice storms together, so the household plan has to cover a spring night and a January morning. Limestone bedrock makes north Alabama one of the most developed karst areas in the country, and sinkholes here can open suddenly. Steep slopes in the northeast add landslide and road-washout risk during long rains. Homes within 10 miles of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Athens are inside its emergency planning zone.
Three things to verify locally:
- Your NOAA Weather Radio transmitter and county SAME code, using the NWS county list
- A heat source and water plan that work without the grid for an ice-storm outage
- Whether you are in the Browns Ferry planning zone, and your county's notification method
Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and the central uplands
Jefferson, Shelby, St. Clair, Tuscaloosa, Walker, Etowah, Calhoun, Talladega, and neighboring Birmingham-office counties
Dense neighborhoods, ridges, and narrow creek valleys mean tornado warnings, flash flooding on urban streams, and heavy commuter traffic often overlap. A rare snow or ice day can stop traffic entirely: in January 2014, according to the state plan, thousands of people in central Alabama were stranded in their vehicles for hours and many stayed overnight. Plans that assume you can drive home quickly fail first here. Shelby County holds the state's largest known sinkhole, and the ridge-and-valley terrain adds landslide risk on some roads after long rain.
Three things to verify locally:
- Tornado shelter access at your workplace, school, and apartment building
- Which creek crossings on your commute flood first, and a second route for each
- A stay-put kit in each car (water, snacks, phone charger, warm layer) for a stranded commute
West Alabama and the river counties
Sumter, Greene, Pickens, Hale, Marengo, Perry, Dallas, Lowndes, Wilcox, and neighboring rural counties along the Tombigbee, Black Warrior, and Alabama rivers
The deciding factor here is distance. Help, fuel, groceries, and hospitals can be a long drive away, and a single flooded or tree-blocked road can cut off a community. River flooding builds over days, so the river forecast is useful planning time. Tornadoes and summer heat arrive with little margin. Wilcox County falls under the Mobile office rather than Birmingham, so check which office covers you before programming a weather radio.
Three things to verify locally:
- The nearest public storm shelter and how long it takes to reach at night
- The river gauge closest to you on the national river forecast map, and the stage that closes your road
- Enough stored water, medication, and fuel to wait out several days on your own
Montgomery and the east-central counties
Montgomery, Autauga, Elmore, Lee, Macon, Russell, Chambers, Tallapoosa, Bullock, Pike, Barbour
These counties sit inland of the coast but in the path of landfalling tropical systems, which can bring damaging wind, flooding rain, and tornadoes. Inland households sometimes skip hurricane planning. The state's record of federal declarations shows otherwise: Hurricanes Ivan in 2004 and Irma in 2017 each brought declarations covering all 67 counties. Summer heat and long outages after storms are the main household strain.
Three things to verify locally:
- Your plan for a multi-day outage during a hot week after a tropical storm
- Whether you live below one of the region's lake dams, and what your county EMA says about it
- Whether you might host evacuating relatives from the coast, and the supplies that would need
The Wiregrass
Houston, Dale, Coffee, Geneva, Henry: Dothan, Enterprise, Ozark, Geneva, Abbeville
These five counties are warned by the NWS office in Tallahassee, Florida, so the local forecast discussion and radar briefings that matter come from a Florida office. Hurricanes that make landfall along the Florida Panhandle can bring strong wind and heavy rain here, so the Wiregrass needs a hurricane plan even though it has no coastline. Homes within 10 miles of the Farley Nuclear Plant in Houston County are inside its emergency planning zone, which also reaches into Henry County.
Three things to verify locally:
- That your weather radio and apps are set for your county under the Tallahassee office
- Whether you are in the Farley planning zone, and the reception center listed in its annual information packet
- Burn permit rules before clearing brush; the Forestry Commission requires a permit for a fire of a quarter acre or more
Mobile, Baldwin, and the southwest coastal plain
Mobile and Baldwin counties, with Washington, Escambia, Monroe, Clarke, and neighboring Mobile-office counties inland
This is the only part of Alabama where storm surge is a planning question, and the National Hurricane Center identifies surge as the leading cause of hurricane deaths. Baldwin County assigns evacuation zones by storm category. Its Zone 1 covers Pleasure Island and, countywide, residents of manufactured homes and low-lying flood-prone areas. The inland counties are where coastal residents evacuate to, so their roads, fuel, and lodging fill quickly when a storm approaches.
Three things to verify locally:
- Your hurricane evacuation zone from your county EMA, written down before June 1
- An inland destination and two routes, knowing ALDOT may reverse lanes on I-65
- Separate wind and flood coverage on your policy, confirmed before the season
Seasonal readiness
An Alabama household readiness calendar.
Alabama has two severe weather seasons, a long hurricane season, and a long hot summer. These are higher-attention periods, not safe windows. Severe storms can occur outside them, and heavy rain can flood a road at any time of year.
| Period | Higher-attention hazards | Household task |
|---|---|---|
| January – February | Winter storms and ice, mostly in the north; cold snaps statewide; winter tornadoes possible | Protect exposed pipes and well equipment. Keep a stay-put kit in each car. Confirm your backup heat is safe and tested if you rely on electric heat. |
| March | Spring severe weather season begins | Replace weather radio batteries and run its test. Walk every household member through the shelter plan. Enroll in ALalert and your county system if you have not. |
| April – May | Peak tornado and severe storm months; flash flooding | Watch the daily outlook on storm days and keep phones charged. Restock lights, batteries, and water. On the coast, start hurricane supplies before the season opens. |
| June – August | Extreme heat; afternoon thunderstorms and outages; hurricane season opens June 1 | Confirm your evacuation zone and destination. Check the cooling plan for older or medically fragile household members. Service the air conditioner before the first long hot stretch. |
| September – October | Peak of hurricane season; tropical rain inland; dry spells | Keep vehicle fuel above half when a storm is in the Gulf. Check burn permit rules and drought declarations before burning brush. Note well performance during dry weeks. |
| November – December | Second severe weather season; hurricane season ends November 30; first freezes | Treat November storm days like April ones. Re-test the overnight warning method, since darkness comes early. Begin winter pipe and heating checks. |
Cascading disruptions
How one failure leads to the next.
The hazard is usually only the first problem. These five sequences are the ones Alabama's record and geography make most likely. Each ends with the preparation that interrupts it.
Early storms that weaken the warning system
A first round of storms before dawn → power lines, cell sites, and weather radio transmitters damaged → repairs not finished before a second, stronger round that afternoon → some households lose television, internet, or radio warnings just when they matter most. This sequence is documented in the NWS assessment of April 27, 2011.
Preparation that reduces the consequence: A battery-powered weather radio, a charged phone, and a neighbor or relative who has agreed to call you during warnings. On a day with more than one round of storms, treat the morning damage as a reason for more attention in the afternoon, not less.
Hurricane approach and the road north
A storm in the Gulf → evacuation orders for coastal zones → heavy traffic on I-65 and other northbound routes, possibly with reversed lanes → fuel and lodging sell out inland → after landfall, long outages in hot weather where people evacuated to and in the homes they left.
Preparation that reduces the consequence: Know your zone before the season. Choose a destination and two routes in advance. Keep the tank above half once a storm forms in the Gulf. Leave early when your zone is called.
Summer outage and heat
A thunderstorm or tropical system knocks out power in July or August → air conditioning stops → indoor temperatures climb over a day or two → heat illness risk rises for older adults, infants, and people with medical conditions → refrigerated medications and food warm at the same time.
Preparation that reduces the consequence: A named cooled place to go and a way to get there, a cooler with ice packs for medication, a household check-in arrangement for anyone who lives alone, and a generator plan that follows CDC carbon monoxide guidance if you use one.
Ice in the north
Freezing rain in the Tennessee Valley or hill country → ice-loaded trees bring down lines → outages and icy roads at the same time → all-electric homes lose heat and well pumps stop → people turn to unsafe indoor heating or generators placed too close to the house.
Preparation that reduces the consequence: Stored water, warm bedding, a backup heat source rated for indoor use or a place to go, and a carbon monoxide alarm with battery backup. Groceries bought before the storm, since roads may stay icy for a day or more.
Long rain on saturated ground
Days of heavy rain, often from a tropical system → creeks flood low roads and crossings → ponds and small private dams fill past normal levels, many with no inspection record → a washed-out road or a failed embankment isolates homes downstream → travel for work, school, and medical care stops.
Preparation that reduces the consequence: Know what sits upstream of your home and your road out. Have a second route. Keep several days of supplies so waiting is an option. Never drive into water over the road.
Household situations
What changes for your household.
The same storm affects households differently. Each overlay below answers three questions: what changes, what to verify locally, and what the first practical improvement is. The linked guides have the full detail.
Manufactured-home residents
What changes: The NWS lists mobile homes among places that are not safe in a tornado, and Baldwin County places manufactured-home residents countywide in its first evacuation zone for hurricanes. Your plan has to involve leaving the home, in minutes for a tornado and in hours or days for a hurricane.
Verify locally: The nearest sturdy building or public storm shelter, whether it is open overnight, and how long it takes to reach. Ask your county EMA, since shelter availability varies by county.
First improvement: Time the trip to your shelter on a calm day, and decide on watch days whether to stay somewhere sturdier before warnings begin.
Rural households on private wells
What changes: When power fails, the pump stops, and with it drinking water, flushing, and water for animals. In a drought the well may slow or go dry with no outage at all.
Verify locally: Whether your pump can run from a generator through a safe transfer connection installed by an electrician, and what your well yields in a dry fall.
First improvement: Store enough water for people and animals for several days. See preparing in a rural area.
Renters and apartment residents
What changes: You may not control where the building's shelter area is, whether trees are trimmed, or what backup equipment is allowed. Upper floors make tornado sheltering harder, and standard renter's policies do not cover flood.
Verify locally: The building's designated shelter area or the lowest interior hallway, your lease rules on generators and grills, and what your renter's policy covers.
First improvement: Ask management in writing where tenants should shelter during a tornado warning. See preparing in an apartment.
Older adults and people living alone
What changes: Heat is the larger daily risk in much of Alabama, and an outage in summer can turn it serious within a day or two. Overnight tornado warnings are easier to miss when no one else is in the house.
Verify locally: Which public buildings in your town open as cooling places, and whether your county keeps a registry for residents who need help during an emergency.
First improvement: Arrange one person who will call you during warnings and check on you after outages. See older adults at home.
Medically dependent households
What changes: Oxygen concentrators, CPAP machines, home dialysis, and refrigerated medications all depend on power that storms interrupt. An evacuation adds the problem of bringing equipment and supplies with you.
Verify locally: Whether your electric provider has a medical-needs program, whether your county EMA keeps a special-needs list or shelter, and how long your batteries last under real use.
First improvement: Write down your devices, settings, and medications, and plan power for the most important one. See medical devices in a power outage and preparing with medical equipment.
Households without a vehicle
What changes: Reaching a tornado shelter, a cooling place, or an inland destination during an evacuation depends on someone else's car or a public service that may run on a fixed schedule.
Verify locally: Whether your county or city offers evacuation transportation or a pickup registry, and which neighbors or relatives could take you.
First improvement: Make a ride arrangement now, with a backup person, for both a tornado watch day and a hurricane evacuation. See preparing with mobility limitations.
Warning systems
How warnings reach your household.
Alabama's warning chain runs from national forecast centers to your local NWS office, then out through the state, your county, and the devices in your house. Knowing each link helps you choose two that will not fail together.
National forecast centers
The Storm Prediction Center issues severe weather outlooks and tornado and severe thunderstorm watches. The National Hurricane Center issues tropical forecasts and storm surge information for the Alabama coast. River forecasts appear on the National Water Prediction Service map.
Your NWS office: outlook, watch, warning
Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile, or Tallahassee issues the warnings for your county. An outlook means hazardous weather may develop in the coming days. A watch means conditions are favorable, often across several counties. A warning means the hazard is happening or imminent near you, and it is the signal to act.
State and county: ALalert and local systems
In August 2026 Alabama EMA activated ALalert, a statewide opt-in system that sends alerts to cell and landline phones. Text ALalert to 77295 for emergency alerts or ALinfo to 77295 for preparedness updates, or use the form on the Alabama EMA website. Many counties also run their own enrollment systems, and the county EMA is the source for local shelter openings.
Wireless Emergency Alerts
Tornado, flash flood, and other urgent warnings reach phones in the warned area without any sign-up. They depend on cell service and on the phone being charged and not silenced in a way that blocks alerts, so check your phone's emergency alert settings.
NOAA Weather Radio
According to NWS Birmingham, 20 transmitters serve Alabama's 67 counties. A receiver with Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) can be set to sound only for your county, which makes it practical to leave on overnight. The NWS Alabama weather radio page lists transmitters and county codes. Keep batteries in it, since a transmitter or your home's power can fail during a long event.
Outdoor warning sirens
Sirens are an outdoor system. Alabama EMA advises that sirens must not be depended upon to receive warnings. Count them as an extra, never as one of your two methods.
Evacuation orders, shelter instructions, and reentry
An evacuation order comes from local elected officials, usually by zone. A shelter instruction tells you to stay inside or go to a named public shelter. Reentry information tells you when officials consider it safe to return. All three come through your county EMA and local media, and they take precedence over anything on this page.
Roads, rivers, and power
ALDOT's ALGO Traffic shows closures, incidents, and cameras, and ALDOT posts its I-65 reverse-laning plan for hurricane evacuation. River stages are on the National Water Prediction Service. Alabama Power customers can follow the Alabama Power outage map. Cooperative and city utility customers should find their own provider's outage page before storm season.
Prepare, endure, recover
The three phases of household readiness.
Prepare
Actions you can finish before the next storm season, most of them within a month.
- Enroll in ALalert and your county's alert system. Program a weather radio for your county and test it.
- Pick your tornado shelter at home and confirm the one at work and school. Practice getting there in the dark.
- On the coast, look up your evacuation zone and choose an inland destination and two routes.
- Store water, lights, a power bank, and several days of food that needs no refrigeration.
- If you are adding a safe room or storm shelter at your primary residence, check Alabama's storm shelter tax credit first. For shelters installed on or after January 1, 2026 to current FEMA or ICC 500 standards, it is worth the lesser of $3,000 or half the cost, through the 2028 tax year, while the annual state cap lasts.
- Photograph your home and belongings. Put copies of IDs, policies, and prescriptions in a waterproof pouch and in cloud storage.
Endure
Decisions during the disruption. Official instructions from your NWS office and county EMA come first. These notes supplement the full steps in each hazard guide.
- Tornado warning: Go to your shelter right away, including during an overnight warning. NWS guidance is a basement, safe room, or interior room away from windows. A mobile home or vehicle is not a safe place to wait out a tornado.
- Flooded road: Turn around. The NWS notes that 6 inches of fast-moving water can knock over an adult and 2 feet can carry away SUVs and trucks.
- Hurricane evacuation order for your zone: Leave when called, by your planned route. The National Hurricane Center identifies storm surge as the leading cause of hurricane deaths.
- Summer outage: Move heat-vulnerable people to a cooled place early rather than late. Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed, and run any generator outdoors more than 20 feet from doors, windows, and vents.
- Earthquake: Drop, cover, and hold on until the shaking stops. Do not run outside.
Recover
First steps once the danger has passed.
- Wait for reentry information before returning to an evacuated or flooded area, and stay clear of downed lines.
- Photograph damage before cleanup, then contact your insurer. Keep receipts for temporary repairs and lodging.
- After a federal declaration, apply for individual assistance at DisasterAssistance.gov. Alabama EMA's website also carries the state's disaster assistance application information.
- Dial 2-1-1, call 888-421-1266, or text your ZIP code to 898-211 to reach 211 Connects Alabama for food, shelter, and other local help.
- Get more than one written estimate before hiring a contractor, check references, and avoid paying the full amount up front.
- When in doubt about refrigerated food after an outage, CDC's guidance is to throw it out.
Ten-action checklist
Ten high-value actions for Alabama households.
Each action has a clear finish line, covers more than one Alabama hazard where possible, and costs little or nothing. Work through them in order.
- Write down your county, its NWS office, and your county EMA's phone number, and keep them on the refrigerator. Use the county list in the Start Here section.
- Enroll in ALalert and in your county's alert system, and confirm a test message arrives. Text ALalert to 77295 for the state system.
- Program a battery-backed weather radio with your county's SAME code and place it where it will wake you. This gives you a warning path that does not depend on cell service.
- Name your tornado shelter at home, work, and school, and walk it once with every household member. If you live in a manufactured home, time the trip to the nearest sturdy shelter.
- Check your home and two ordinary routes on the FEMA flood map, and pick an alternate for any crossing that floods. This also tells you whether to ask about flood coverage.
- If you live in Mobile or Baldwin County, write down your evacuation zone, an inland destination, and two routes. Inland households can choose who they would host.
- Store at least one gallon of water per person per day for several days, more in summer. Well households should cover animals too.
- Choose the cooled place each household member will go during a summer outage, and how they will get there. Include anyone who lives alone and depends on you.
- Put a written medication and device list, copies of key documents, and a phone charger in one grab bag. Displacement after a storm can last days.
- Agree with one neighbor or relative that you will call each other during every tornado warning. After April 2011, the NWS found that warnings from family and friends helped move people to shelter.
Official resources
Alabama state and local resources by task.
Grouped by what you need to get done, with a note on what each link lets you do.
Receive warnings and alerts
- Alabama EMA alert sign-up: Enroll in ALalert or ALinfo by web form or text.
- NWS Alabama weather radio transmitters and county codes: Program a SAME weather radio for your county.
- National Weather Service: Enter your address for local forecasts and active warnings.
Find county emergency management
- Alabama EMA county contacts: Phone, address, and email for each county EMA.
- Alabama Emergency Management Agency: State declarations, preparedness information, and disaster assistance notices.
Check roads and evacuation routes
- ALGO Traffic: ALDOT's map of closures, incidents, and traffic cameras, also available as an app.
- ALDOT I-65 reverse laning: The contraflow map and checklists ALDOT uses for hurricane evacuations.
- Baldwin County evacuation zones: Zone map and which zones are called for each storm category. Mobile County residents should get their zone from Mobile County EMA through the county contacts list.
Check rivers, floods, and the coast
- National Water Prediction Service: Current and forecast river stages at gauges across the state.
- FEMA Flood Map Service Center: The flood zone for any address.
- National Hurricane Center: Tropical forecasts and storm surge information during the season.
Check heat, drought, fire, and ground conditions
- NWS HeatRisk: A seven-day forecast of heat danger for your area.
- U.S. Drought Monitor: Alabama: The weekly drought map for the state.
- ADECA drought management: State drought declarations and the Alabama Drought Management Plan.
- Alabama Forestry Commission burn permits: When a permit is required and how to get one.
- Geological Survey of Alabama: earthquakes: Alabama's earthquake history and seismic zones.
Nuclear plant planning zones
- Alabama Department of Public Health radiological emergency planning: Planning zone maps and materials for Browns Ferry and Farley.
- Plant Farley emergency information: Zone lookup, routes, reception centers, and the annual information packet.
Find shelter, food, housing, or recovery help
- 211 Connects Alabama: Free, confidential referrals to food, shelter, and other local services, 24 hours a day.
- DisasterAssistance.gov: Apply for federal individual assistance after a declaration.
- Alabama storm shelter tax credit: Requirements and documents for the credit on a home safe room or shelter.
Review the state and county hazard plans
- 2023 Alabama State Hazard Mitigation Plan: The state's ranking and analysis of every hazard on this page. FEMA approved it on August 17, 2023.
- County hazard mitigation plans: Your county's own hazard profile, often with local flood and dam detail.
What Alabama has learned
April 27, 2011: the morning storms took part of the warning system with them.
The tornadoes that struck Alabama that afternoon are well known. Less well known is what happened first. According to the National Weather Service service assessment, a round of storms before dawn produced more than two dozen tornadoes and knocked out power to homes and to several NOAA Weather Radio transmitters. In some areas power was not back by the time the stronger afternoon storms arrived. The assessment lists six transmitters in the Huntsville and Birmingham areas that went off the air that day, and more than 100 high-voltage transmission towers were destroyed, most of them in north Alabama.
The assessment found that people relied on many different sources and that outages affected all of them: television, internet, commercial radio, cell phones, and weather radio. It also found that warnings from family and friends helped move people to shelter.
The lesson for a household today is to plan for the warning system itself to be damaged. Keep two warning methods that fail in different ways, keep batteries in the radio, and arrange for a person you trust to call you. Statewide alert enrollment is now available through ALalert as one more independent path.
For the Tuscaloosa and Birmingham tornado itself, see the April 27, 2011 case study.
Limits and methodology
What this page can and cannot tell you.
Statewide information cannot determine property-level risk. Whether your address floods, sits over a sinkhole-prone formation, lies below a dam, or falls in an evacuation zone are property-specific questions. Your county EMA, the FEMA flood map, and your county's own hazard mitigation plan are the places to answer them.
Historical frequency is not a forecast. The seasons and patterns on this page show where attention pays off, not when the next event will happen or how severe it will be.
Maps and designations change. Flood maps, evacuation zones, NWS county assignments, and program rules such as the shelter tax credit are updated over time. Check the current version before any decision that depends on one.
Official instructions during an event come first. During a warning, an evacuation, or any emergency, follow your NWS office, county EMA, and local officials over anything written here.
Methodology and sources
Hazard selection and emphasis follow the 2023 Alabama State Hazard Mitigation Plan (FEMA approval August 17, 2023), whose risk-factor ranking scores flooding and high winds at 2.3 and sea level rise and coastal change at 2.0 (major), earthquake and extreme temperatures at 1.9, dam failure, lightning, and sinkholes at 1.7 (moderate), and drought, wildfire, winter storms, landslides, hail, and tsunamis below 1.5 (low). Tsunamis scored 0 and are not covered. The plan's description of where declarations cluster (hurricanes and coastal storms in the south, tornadoes and ice storms in the north) and its declaration history (Ivan 2004 and Irma 2017 each covering all 67 counties) informed the regions.
Operational regions group counties by NWS county warning area and shared hazard pattern. They differ from the land-search regions in the main Alabama guide.
NWS county assignments: National Weather Service county zone data for Alabama, retrieved October 2026. Weather radio transmitter count: NWS Birmingham.
Tornado seasons: NWS Huntsville severe weather awareness materials. Overnight tornadoes: Krocak and others, 2021, Weather and Forecasting 36(5), which finds the Southeast has the highest number of tornadoes between midnight and 4 a.m.
April 27, 2011: NWS Service Assessment, The Historic Tornadoes of April 2011. That assessment counted 234 deaths in Alabama. Later tallies from other agencies differ because of definitions and revisions, so this page does not rely on a single total.
Warning guidance on sirens and two warning methods: Alabama EMA retrospective on April 27, 2011, published 2021. ALalert: Office of the Governor, August 25, 2026.
Dam safety: the 2023 state plan describes Alabama as the only state without a dam safety program. SB378 (2026 Regular Session, enrolled) assigns the Alabama Dam Safety Program to Alabama EMA effective October 2026 and excludes privately owned dams unless the owner elects to participate.
Safety guidance: generator and carbon monoxide (CDC), refrigerated food after an outage (CDC), stored water (Ready.gov), floodwater depths and vehicle drownings (NWS), tornado sheltering and watch and warning definitions (NWS), storm surge (National Hurricane Center), earthquake protective action (Ready.gov). Storm shelter tax credit terms: Alabama EMA and Alabama Department of Revenue.
Facts and external links verified October 2026.
Common questions
Alabama local risk, answered.
Which hazards matter most for Alabama households?
The 2023 Alabama State Hazard Mitigation Plan ranks flooding and high winds (tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, and hurricanes) as the state's two highest risks, followed by sea level rise and coastal land change. Extreme heat and earthquakes rank next, then dam failure, lightning, and sinkholes. Which of these deserves your first attention depends on where you live: storm surge and evacuation decisions belong to Mobile and Baldwin counties, ice and sinkholes are mostly northern concerns, and tornadoes, flash flooding, and summer heat apply nearly everywhere.
Which National Weather Service office covers my Alabama county?
Four offices share the state. Birmingham covers 39 central counties, Huntsville covers the 11 northernmost counties, Mobile covers 12 southwest counties, and Tallahassee, Florida covers five Wiregrass counties: Coffee, Dale, Geneva, Henry, and Houston. The full county list for each office is in the Start Here section of this page.
How do I sign up for Alabama emergency alerts?
Alabama EMA activated a statewide opt-in notification system, ALalert, in August 2026. Text ALalert to 77295 for emergency alerts, or ALinfo to 77295 for preparedness updates, or use the sign-up form on the Alabama EMA website. Many counties also run their own alert systems, so ask your county EMA which one covers your address and enroll in both.
Are outdoor tornado sirens enough warning in Alabama?
No. Alabama EMA advises that outdoor warning sirens must not be depended upon to receive warning information, and recommends receiving watches and warnings from at least two methods that do not include sirens. A NOAA Weather Radio programmed for your county and Wireless Emergency Alerts on a phone are a practical pair, because the radio can wake you for an overnight warning.
Does Alabama inspect the dams above my home?
Only partly. Until 2026 Alabama was the only state without a dam safety program. A 2026 law assigns a dam safety program to Alabama EMA beginning in October 2026, but privately owned dams are included only if their owners choose to participate. If you live below a dam or a large pond, ask your county EMA whether an emergency action plan or inundation map exists for it.
Start now
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The first 72 hours guide walks you through the core preparations that matter no matter which Alabama hazard sets them off.
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