Make a list of what needs electricity
If your parents have home medical devices like a home oxygen concentrator or a CPAP, they need a plan for keeping those devices powered during a power outage. Walk through their house and write down each device, the watts on its label, and how many hours a day it runs. A home oxygen concentrator generally pulls somewhere in the range of 300 to 600 watts and runs continuously. A CPAP is more like 30 to 90, depending on whether the heated humidifier is on — and turning the humidifier off in an outage roughly doubles how long the battery lasts. A power wheelchair, a hospital bed, a nebulizer, a stair lift, an electric medical alert base station: all of them go on the list.
Then multiply. Watts times hours gives you watt-hours, and watt-hours are how backup power is sold. A 1,000 watt-hour portable power station runs that CPAP for the better part of a week of nights. It runs the oxygen concentrator for about three hours. Those two facts point at completely different solutions, and until you have done the arithmetic you cannot tell which problem your parents have.
- A CPAP or a few small devices. A portable power station, charged and sitting in a closet. No fuel, no fumes, works indoors. Inspect it, test it, and recharge it according to the manufacturer's instructions.
- Oxygen, home dialysis, or other essential powered medical equipment. Do not rely on a generic battery estimate. Ask the equipment supplier and clinician for a written outage plan. For oxygen, ask whether backup cylinders are available, how to use them, and how long they will last at the prescribed flow rate. If the plan cannot safely cover the outage, treat leaving early as the primary plan rather than the fallback.
- Refrigeration. Your parents may have medications that need to stay cool. This can be done in a dedicated cooler but you’ll need to have quite a lot of ice and infrequent access for that cooling to last for multiple days.
- A whole-house standby generator. A real answer and a real project. Costs, timelines, and how to hire for it are on the Home Safety Upgrades ↗ page. Generators must be exercised, checked annually, and fueled. They are not batteries.
If a portable gas generator is part of the plan, say this out loud to your parents every time: outside only, at least twenty feet from the house, exhaust pointed away, and doors, windows, and vents closed in the exhaust path. Keep working carbon-monoxide alarms on every level of the home and near sleeping areas. Portable generators kill roughly 85 people a year in this country through carbon monoxide. Those deaths happen in garages and on porches and next to open windows, and they happen to people who survived the storm just fine.
One piece of good news while you are inventorying, with a condition attached. FDA says ↗ insulin in a manufacturer's original vial or cartridge, opened or unopened, may remain unrefrigerated for up to 28 days and continue to work, but only between 59 and 86 degrees. Read that ceiling carefully, because it is the same outage that makes the house 90 degrees. Keep insulin as cool as possible and away from direct heat and sunlight. If you use a cooler, keep the insulin from touching ice directly; insulin that freezes should not be used. Replace insulin exposed to extreme temperatures as soon as properly stored insulin becomes available, and call the manufacturer or pharmacist with product-specific questions.
The registry that doesn't do what you think it does
Nearly every utility keeps a list of customers who depend on electricity for medical reasons. Sign your parents up for it. Then read what it actually promises, because most families get this exactly backwards.
Florida Power & Light's own description of its medically essential service is representative: enrollment "does not provide priority restoration after a storm, nor does it guarantee uninterrupted service." What these programs typically provide is advance notice before planned shutoffs, extra warning before disconnection for nonpayment, and a referral or two. They are a courtesy list, not a priority queue. A family that registers and stops planning has traded a real plan for a false one.
Register anyway, but understand that utility registration and the federal HHS emPOWER Program are separate systems. HHS emPOWER uses Medicare claims data to identify more than 4.6 million beneficiaries who rely on electricity-dependent equipment or certain essential health care services. Its public tools show de-identified totals by location; a restricted individual-level dataset may be provided to authorized public health authorities during an emergency. Families cannot enroll themselves in emPOWER, and local utility registration is not what places someone in its data.
While you are at it: sign up for county emergency alerts, and ask the county emergency management office about a special-needs or medical shelter. Those almost always require pre-registration, sometimes weeks in advance, and the form is not something anyone fills out during an evacuation order.
Medications
Aim for a 30-day cushion, and understand that getting there takes a conversation rather than a decision.
Ask the pharmacist to align all of your parents' refill dates to the same day of the month — this alone makes every other part of the plan easier, and most pharmacies will do it without being asked twice. Then ask about building a small buffer. Most Part D plans and most states allow early refills during a declared emergency, but that is a rule that helps you during the disaster, not before one, and a buffer built in advance is worth more.
Keep a written list of prescriptions, doses, allergies, doctors, and pharmacy somewhere that does not require a charged phone. A printed page in the go-bag and a photo on your phone covers both cases.
Decide now whether they leave
Older adults evacuate less often than everyone else, and they die for it. The reasons are understandable, it is harder because of their pets, the stairs, the certainty that this one will be like the last one, and the sense that leaving is the beginning of never coming back. None of those reasons get better in the middle of a storm, which is why the decision should not be made in the middle of a storm.
Agree on a trigger now, in plain words, when nobody is frightened: if the county issues a mandatory evacuation for your zone, you go, and here is where. A trigger someone agreed to in calm weather is much harder to argue with later.
Then answer the two questions that actually stop people from leaving. Where, a relative's house, a hotel outside the affected area, a community shelter, or a medical or special-needs shelter, depending on what support your parents need. Check shelter registration and accommodation requirements in advance. And who drives, if your parents do not drive at night, or at all, "we'll go if it gets bad" is not a plan, it is a hope. Ask the county about evacuation transportation for people who need it, and ask before hurricane season, not during.
Whatever the plan is, assistive devices go too: the walker, the spare glasses, the hearing aid batteries, the cane. A parent evacuated without their walker is a parent who cannot get to a bathroom.
Heat and cold
These two kill more older people than any dramatic version of a disaster, and both plans are the same: decide in advance where they go and decide what number sends them there.
Aging bodies regulate temperature poorly and often do not feel the danger coming. A parent can be dangerously overheated and describe themselves as fine. Agree with their doctor on a heat plan that accounts for medical conditions and medications, and follow local HeatRisk and emergency guidance. If the home cannot stay safely cool, move early to an air-conditioned library, mall, cooling center, shelter, or family home. CDC advises ↗ using fans only when the indoor temperature is below 90 degrees; above that, a fan can increase body temperature.
For cold, do not wait until the house reaches 60 degrees. The National Institute on Aging ↗ recommends keeping a home at least 68 degrees and warns that indoor temperatures from 60 to 65 degrees can lead to hypothermia in older adults. If the home cannot stay near 68 degrees, move early to somewhere warm rather than relying on a space heater through the night.
Both of these are worth writing down as a sentence your parents have read, not a plan that lives only in your head.
The people, not the kit
Every list like this one leads with supplies. Supplies are the easy part.
- Two people with keys. Not one. Neighbors, ideally, or anyone within twenty minutes. Both should know where the medications and the flashlight live, and how any lifesaving equipment works.
- An out-of-area contact. During a regional emergency, local phone networks jam while long distance often still works. One relative several states away who everybody checks in with is a simple and old piece of advice that still functions.
- A check-in rhythm you both agree to. Decide what "I'm fine" looks like and how often, so silence means something rather than nothing.
- A charged phone and a way to charge it. A battery pack in the drawer, kept charged, is an inexpensive, high-value addition to the plan.
Copies of the important documents belong in this plan too, but those overlap heavily with what your parents should already have organized, see the Legal ↗ section rather than building a second pile.
If your parent has dementia
Everything above gets harder, and a few things change outright.
Disruption itself is a hazard: an unfamiliar place, broken routine, and strangers can produce confusion and agitation that outlast the emergency by weeks. That argues for sheltering with family over a public shelter whenever it is safe to do so, and for bringing familiar objects, not just necessary ones.
Wandering risk goes up sharply in a new environment. Your parent needs Identification on them at all times, an ID or a bracelet. You also need a recent photo of them on your phone in case you need help finding them.
Tell whoever is helping, plainly and early, that your parent has dementia. Responders and shelter staff can tailor their support when they know. Share the information needed to keep your parent safe while preserving as much privacy as the situation allows.
Trusted resources
Next step
Call your parents' county emergency management office this week and ask two questions: how to register for the medical or special-needs shelter, and what transportation exists for people who cannot drive themselves out. Both answers take longer to arrange than you would expect, and neither can be arranged once the warning comes.