cHurricane season officially begins next month. For homeowners throughout Florida, hurricane preparedness is a literal life-or-death issue. Which is why we wanted to highlight an important update! Earlier this week, Hillsborough County updated its Hurricane Evacuation Zones map, expanding the map to include new evacuation zones and reassigning some older zones to a higher priority.
The story was featured on news outlets like News Channel 8 Today, among others that provide news coverage in the Hillsborough County area.
Let’s go over the changes to the map and what this means for homeowners in Hillsborough:
What Changed for the 2026 Hurricane Evacuation Zones?
If you take a side-by-side look at the 2025 and 2026 hurricane evacuation zone maps, it’s almost like a ‘spot the difference’ puzzle where you’re trying to figure out where the two images have some difference.
While many evacuation zones remain unchanged, the areas nearer the edges of the 2025 map are where you see the most changes in the 2026 map.
For example, sun city center has a zone that was previously rated as a Zone E area upgraded to being Zone D, and a newly-added evacuation zone just east of County Road 579 in the southernmost part of Hillsborough. Some zones in the Bloomingdale area got upgraded from Zone D to Zone C ratings.
Also, some areas actually got downgraded in priority. For example, some parts of New Tampa changed from Zone D to Zone E evacuation zones, though the size of the ‘E’ zone was increased.
As always, if you want to know if your home is in a hurricane evacuation zone, be sure to go to your county’s Evacuation Zone map tools to check your address! Here are the map links for Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco County:
How to Read a Hurricane Evacuation Zone Map
So, you’re looking at an evacuation zone map, and aren’t sure what the colors all mean. How can you interpret it? Each evacuation zone map should have map legend that tells you what each color means… though the specific colors used for each map may vary from one county to the next.
For example, Hillsborough County’s Evacuation Zone Lookup page sets the map with the following color scheme for its map legend:
- Red: Zone A
- Orange: Zone B
- Yellow: Zone C
- Green: Zone D
- Blue: Zone E
But, on the downloadable version of the map, instead of blue, they use a shade of purple to indicate Zone E areas.
Meanwhile, the Pasco map has:
- Darker Orange: Zone A
- Lighter Orange: Zone B
- Yellow: Zone C
- Green: Zone D
- Blue: Zone E
Largely similar, but for the color indicating the most dangerous zones that need to be evacuated first in a hurricane-related emergency where storm surge is expected to pose a significant hazard to human life.
How Are Hurricane Evacuation Zones Determined?
Okay, so you may be wondering why some areas are designated Zone A and other Zone E or even not assigned an evacuation zone rating at all.
The hurricane evacuation zones are made using storm surge data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is what led to the major changes in this year’s Evacuation Zone Map.
As noted by the NOAA, “Storm surge information is provided to federal, state, and local partners to assist in a range of planning processes, risk assessment studies, and operational decision-making.”
When the NOAA shared their data with officials in Hillsborough County, county officials made modifications to the Evacuation zones for 2026.
What Do the Different Evacuation Zones Mean?
The hurricane evacuation zones for the maps generally indicate how ‘at risk’ a given area is for flooding in the face of storm surge from a hurricane or tropical storm. The list is in descending order of risk from ‘A’ at the highest to ‘E’ or ‘F’ at the lowest.
- Zone A: The highest risk and typically the most likely to be evacuated for any major storm.
- Zone B: A step down from A, but still prone to flooding during a major hurricane or a prolonged tropical storm
- Zone C: A moderate risk zone which may experience flooding during an especially strong storm.
- Zone D: A zone that has some flood vulnerability which may experience flooding during a catastrophic hurricane.
- Zone E: A comparatively low-risk zone which may still experience some flooding if there’s a severe hurricane, though generally not as much as higher-risk zones.
FAQ: What Makes a Flood Zone and An Evacuation Zone Different?
You may be wondering what sets a flood zone apart from an evacuation zone. It should be noted that evacuation zones are based on storm surge data, not general flood zones. Flood zones are more likely to be used by insurers to determine risk when setting insurance premiums for a home in a region prone to flooding.
Not all hurricane evacuation zones are flood zones, and not all flood zones are hurricane evacuation zones. There are areas inland where flooding can happen along riverbanks or lower elevations that might not be included in hurricane evacuation zone maps, but are considered flood zones for insurance purposes.
Meanwhile, there are also areas where flooding risks are low due to elevation or other factors… when there aren’t high winds and extremely heavy rainfall bringing more water to the area than would happen normally and damaging flood-mitigating infrastructure.
Flood zones measure their risk in their year-round chances of experiencing flooding. For example, you might hear about an area being a “100-year flood zone.” This means that there’s a 1% chance of the area being flooded during a given year. Meanwhile, a 500-year flood zone would have a 0.2% chance of flooding, and a 20-year flood zone would have a 5% chance of flooding.
While FEMA typically measures 100-year or 500-year flood zones, insurers may use shorter periods to indicate particularly high-risk areas.
What Should I Do if There’s a Hurricane?
With hurricane season just around the corner, it’s important to start preparing for the worst case scenario. Before there’s a hurricane, be sure to:
- Check if your home is in a hurricane evacuation zone.
- Learn about hurricane evacuation routes in your area.
- Keep up to date with where hurricane shelters near your home are so you can navigate to them easily in an emergency.
- If you do not wish to go to a designated shelter, try finding an alternative location to stay for the duration of a hurricane, such as a family member’s home in a safe zone.
- Prepare a hurricane evacuation kit to take with you if you have to leave your home. This kit should include things like:
- Changes of clothes (at least three sets per person)
- Ready to eat, non-perishable food (3+ day supply)
- Bottled water (about a gallon per person per day)
- First aid kit
- Batteries for electronics
- Flashlight
- Cell phone
- Radio
- Tools (wrench, pliers, screwdrivers, etc.) needed to turn off utilities before you leave.
- Find out how to turn off the different utilities servicing your home: gas, electric, water, etc. so you can disable them before evacuating.
- Gather supplies to board up your windows in case of a major hurricane.
- Gather some sandbags or other items that can act as water barriers to place around your home’s major entryways.
When a hurricane approaches, be sure to follow all evacuation orders from your county officials. For example, if an evacuation warning is put out for Zone A, and you live in a Zone A area, be sure to promptly prepare your home and evacuate as quickly as possible. With hurricanes, it’s always better to be safe than sorry!
Are Pasco and Pinellas County Updating their Hurricane Evacuation Maps?
As of the time of this writing, there is no confirmation whether Pasco and Pinellas counties will follow Hillsborough’s example in adjusting their hurricane evacuation zone maps. However, as the NOAA continues to release new data regarding storm surge risks, there may be updates in the future.
Stay Safe and Prepare Your Home for Hurricanes!
One more thing you can do to help better prepare your home for hurricane season is to replace your existing windows and doors with new, impact-rated fenestration that is specially designed to withstand extreme impacts from hurricane-force winds and flying debris.
Impact windows and doors are built to take hits without completely shattering like non-impact windows, allowing them to keep protecting your home despite the worst storm strikes.
For example, impact windows have a protective laminate interlayer bonded to the glass. When the impact glass breaks, the laminate holds the pieces of glass together and flexes with the impact, maintaining a seal and preventing glass spall (the broken shards of glass that go flying when glass breaks) from getting into your home. This helps prevent the worst of the storm damage a hurricane can cause since the wind and rain stays on the outside of your home.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can protect your home from hurricane damage with impact windows and doors, reach out to the experts at Karoly!
