Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, and every Tampa Bay business owner already has a plan for shutters, inventory, and payroll. Fewer have a plan for the parts of the business customers see online. When a storm is coming, and in the days after, your website, your Google Business Profile, and your phone line are how people find out whether you're open, closed, or reachable at all.
Helene and Milton in 2024 made the point for a lot of Tampa Bay businesses: the day before landfall is a bad time to discover that a password lives only on an office computer. This checklist is meant to close those gaps. Most business website hurricane preparedness happens in the quiet months, so the before-season section is the longest.
One ground rule throughout: your website is not a safety resource. When customers need evacuation or shelter information, point them to your county emergency management office (Pinellas and Hillsborough each run one) and the National Hurricane Center. Your job online is to tell people the status of your business, clearly and honestly.
Before the season
Know where your website lives
Find out where your site is hosted and confirm it's in a professional data center, not on a server or computer in your building. Most modern hosts are, which means your site stays up when your office loses power. If your site does run on hardware you own, moving it should be at the top of this list.
Bookmark your host's status page and support contact. If something does break during a storm, you'll want to know whether the problem is yours or theirs.
Backups you can actually restore
Automatic backups should run on a schedule, be stored somewhere other than the server they're backing up, and be restorable by someone other than you. Ask whoever manages your site to walk you through a restore once. A backup nobody has tested is a guess.
Domain, DNS, and registrar logins
Your domain registrar account controls your website address and usually your email routing. If it expires or you can't log in, nothing else on this list matters.
- Confirm who owns the registrar account, and that it's in the business's name, not a former employee's or a past web designer's.
- Turn on auto-renew, and check that the card on file won't expire mid-season.
- Use an authenticator app for two-factor sign-in rather than text messages alone, since cell service can be unreliable after a storm. Store the backup codes in a password manager.
- Do the same review for your DNS provider and email provider if they're separate.
Who can edit the site
At least two people should be able to log in and make a change, and ideally one of them is not likely to be in the same evacuation zone as you. That can be a staff member, a partner, or your web team. Write down who they are and how to reach them.
An emergency banner, built and switched off
The most useful thing you can prepare is a site-wide alert banner that can be turned on from a phone in under a minute. Build it now, test how it looks on mobile, and leave it off.
Write three versions of the text in advance, so nobody is drafting copy during an evacuation:
- Closing: "We're closed [dates] for the approaching storm. We'll post an update here by [time/day]."
- Limited service: "We're open with limited hours: [hours]. Calls may be slower than usual; email or the contact form is the fastest way to reach us."
- Reopening: "We're back. Normal hours resume [date]. Thank you for your patience while we catch up."
Contact methods that work if the office phone doesn't
If your phones run through a landline or an office system, set up call forwarding to a cell phone and practice turning it on. A cloud phone system with a mobile app works better. Make sure contact form notifications go to at least two inboxes, and that your email is hosted with a provider, not on a computer in your office.
Google Business Profile: access and settings
Confirm you can sign in to your profile from your phone, and add a second owner or manager. Then find two settings before you need them:
- Special hours, which let you set different hours for specific dates without changing your regular schedule.
- Temporary closure, which marks the business as temporarily closed until you switch it back.
Google moves these menus occasionally, so look for them in the hours and business information sections of the profile editor.
Social profiles
The same logic applies: two people with admin access, logins in the password manager, and an idea of where you'll post status updates.
Put it all in one place
Write a one-page plan with every account, who has access, where the logins are stored, and your web team's contact information. Keep it somewhere you can reach from a phone, not only on an office computer.
When a storm is forecast
Once the National Hurricane Center has the Tampa Bay area in a forecast cone, make these changes. With the prep above done, none of them takes long.
- Turn on the banner. Use the prepared text, fill in the dates, and say when you'll update next. Then update when you said you would.
- Set special hours on Google. Add closed or shortened hours for the affected dates. For a short closure, special hours are usually the right tool. If you don't know when you'll reopen, temporary closure is more accurate.
- Post a short update on your Google Business Profile and social accounts: what's changing, and how to reach you.
- Pause or adjust paid ads. There's no reason to pay for clicks from customers you can't serve this week. Pause campaigns in Google Ads and Meta, or narrow their schedules. If you're a business that customers need after a storm (roofing, tree work, restoration), the opposite may apply, but only advertise the capacity you actually have. Ads can take time to clear review, so it's worth writing post-storm ads before the season and leaving them paused.
- Set expectations on response times. Add an email autoresponder, update the form's confirmation message, and change your voicemail greeting so customers know when to expect a reply.
- Pause scheduled content. A "perfect beach weekend" email that goes out automatically the morning before landfall reads badly. Check your email platform and social scheduler.
After the storm
When it's safe to think about business again, the online cleanup is quick, and it's easy to forget a piece.
- Post a reopening update. Switch the banner to the reopening text, and post on your profile and social accounts.
- Remove outdated alerts. An emergency banner still showing three weeks later makes a site look abandoned. If your banner supports an end date, use it.
- Undo temporary closure. Special hours lapse on their own after the dates pass, but a temporary closure stays on until you remove it. Check your profile and confirm it shows as open.
- Check that forms and email still deliver. Submit your own contact form, send an email to your business address from an outside account, and confirm both arrive. Make sure the site loads and the security certificate is valid.
- Reverse phone forwarding once the office lines are back.
- Restore normal hours everywhere: your website, Google, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp, and social profiles.
- Resume ads gradually. Review budgets and location targeting before switching everything back on, since some areas may still be hard to reach.
- Respond to reviews. After a storm, some reviews will mention delays or closures. Reply to each one calmly and specifically. Wait until things are back to normal before asking customers for new reviews.
- Note what went wrong. Spend ten minutes writing down what didn't work, and update your one-page plan while you remember.
The checklist at a glance
| When | Website | Google Business Profile | Ads, email, and social |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before June 1 | Hosting checked, backups tested, banner built, two editors | Two managers, settings located | Two admins, logins stored, post-storm ads drafted |
| Storm forecast | Banner on, form and voicemail messages updated | Special hours or temporary closure, short post | Ads paused or narrowed, scheduled content paused |
| After | Reopening banner, then removed; forms and email tested | Closure removed, hours confirmed, reviews answered | Ads resumed gradually, normal hours posted |
Frequently asked questions
Should I mark my business temporarily closed on Google during a hurricane?
For a closure of a day or two with known dates, special hours are usually enough and need no cleanup. If you don't know when you'll reopen, marking the business temporarily closed is more accurate. Just remember to switch it back, because it doesn't expire on its own.
Will my website go down if my office loses power?
Not if it's hosted with a provider in a professional data center, which most sites are. It can go down if it runs on a server or computer in your building. The same is true of email, so check where yours is hosted.
What should an emergency banner say?
Your status, the dates affected, the fastest way to reach you, and when you'll post the next update. Keep it to one or two sentences, and leave safety guidance to official sources.
Getting your site storm-ready
Most of this list is an afternoon of work once you have the right access. A few items, like a switchable banner, two people who can edit, and a registrar account in the business's name, are easier to build into a site from the start than to add in a hurry. If your current site makes any of this hard, that's worth fixing before next June. See how we approach web design, including for St. Petersburg, Tampa, and Clearwater businesses, and Google Business Profile and local search, or send us a note or call (727) 490-9380 and we'll go through your setup with you.