Getting Your Car Ready for Hurricane Season

When a storm turns toward South Florida, the vehicle becomes infrastructure — the evacuation option, the way to reach supplies, and sometimes the only place with air conditioning. That is a poor time to discover the battery is marginal.

Before the season, not before the storm

The work that matters gets done in the spring. Once a system is in the Gulf, every shop is booked and every parts store is picked over.

**Test the battery under load.** Not just voltage — a proper load test. South Florida heat kills batteries, and a battery that starts the car in your driveway may not after sitting through an outage in a hot parking lot.

**Check the tires, including the spare.** Tread depth, pressure, and age from the DOT code. Evacuation routes and post-storm debris are not where you want to discover a bald spare.

**Verify you can change a tire.** Jack, lug wrench, and the wheel lock key if you have locking lugs. That key goes missing constantly.

**Service the cooling system.** Sitting in evacuation traffic in August, idling with the A/C on, is the hardest thing you can ask of a cooling system.

**Fix deferred repairs.** Whatever you have been putting off, do it now.

As a storm approaches

• **Fill the tank early.** Stations run dry and lose power. Half a tank is a good standing rule in season.
• **Park on high ground**, away from trees and power lines, and out of the flood-prone spots you already know about in your neighborhood.
• **Photograph the vehicle** from all angles for insurance, before anything happens.
• **Clear the yard** of anything that becomes a projectile, including things near where the car is parked.
• **Charge everything**, and have a way to charge from the car.

What to keep in the car

• Water and non-perishable food
• A phone charger and a power bank
• A flashlight with fresh batteries
• A basic first aid kit
• Jumper cables or a jump pack
• A tire inflator or sealant
• Paper maps, because navigation depends on cell service that may not exist
• Cash, because card readers need power
• Copies of registration, insurance and identification

The one rule during and after

**Never drive through standing water.** It takes surprisingly little to float a vehicle or reach the air intake, and you cannot see whether the road under it has washed out. Broward intersections flood fast and the depth is not readable from the driver's seat.

If water reaches the intake, the engine hydrolocks and is destroyed. If the vehicle floats, you are in a far worse situation than being late.

Afterward

**If the car was in flood water, do not start it.** Cranking an engine that has water in the intake destroys it. Disconnect the battery, photograph everything for insurance, and get it assessed before anything else.

Otherwise, check for debris damage, look at tires for punctures from storm debris, check under the hood for anything blown in, and watch for warning lights. Debris in the road after a storm causes a lot of tire and undercarriage damage.

The insurance side

Know what your policy covers regarding flood and storm damage before you need it — comprehensive coverage generally covers flood, liability alone does not. And photograph the vehicle before the storm, because after-the-fact photos of damage are stronger when there is a before.

We do pre-season inspections and post-storm assessment in driveways across Fort Lauderdale and Broward County. Call (754) 236-1714.