A hurricane season checklist, from the electrical side

1. Know what your generator setup actually covers

If you have a generator, do you know for certain whether it's wired for whole-home or just a few critical circuits? A lot of people find out the hard way, mid-outage, that the fridge isn't on the covered list. Worth checking now, not during the storm.

2. If you don't have a generator, decide before hurricane season, not during it

Installers get slammed the week a storm is in the forecast, and equipment can be back-ordered. If you've been thinking about it, spring is a better time to call than June.

3. Check your surge protection

Power flickering on and off during a storm, or coming back after an outage, is exactly when surge damage happens. A whole-home surge protector at the panel is a lot cheaper than replacing a fried AC unit or refrigerator control board.

4. Know where your main disconnect is

If water gets into your electrical system, you need to be able to kill power fast without waiting for us to arrive. Find it now, make sure it's accessible, and don't let anything get stacked in front of it.

5. If your panel floods, don't just flip it back on once it dries

This is the one we can't stress enough. A panel that's been submerged needs to be inspected before it's re-energized, even if it looks fine once it dries out. Corrosion inside the panel isn't always visible from outside.