Emergency preparation & safety tips
Significant weather conditions and natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, floods and snow storms, can affect your ability to travel while causing property damage and power outages. In a worst case scenario, they can even put your safety at risk.
Whether we’re facing two inches or two feet of snow, heavy winds, fire, rain, or even earthquakes, Verizon’s networks are ready.
As bad weather approaches, Verizon engineers and technicians are busily preparing the network to ensure you can connect when you need to most.
Verizon’s operations teams closely monitor severe impacts during local, regional and national emergencies and will deploy our engineers to the hardest hit areas as needed.
At our network facilities, we have backup batteries and generators in place to keep power flowing and customers connected in case of prolonged commercial power outages. In addition, Verizon’s fleet of disaster response vehicles stands ready for deployment in case of emergency.
Tips for staying connected during extreme weather
Keep devices dry.
Store phones, tablets, batteries, chargers and other equipment in a dry, accessible location. Plastic zipper storage bags will shield devices, and there are weatherproof phones, phone cases and other protective accessories available.
Keep devices fully charged.
Plan ahead by keeping phone and tablet batteries fully charged in case local power is lost.
Review checklists.
Review the hurricane preparedness checklist, power outage checklist and other resources from the American Red Cross.
Get some backup.
Keep spare batteries charged up to provide backup power. And have car chargers on hand in case you need to evacuate.
Create a list.
Maintain a list of emergency numbers–police and fire departments; power and insurance companies; family, friends and co-workers; etc.–and program them into your wireless devices before an emergency arises.
Be prepared for loss.
Use your tablet to photograph and catalogue your valuables and other household belongings for possible insurance claims.
Download useful apps.
Hundreds of free weather-, news- and safety-related apps and services are available through your device’s app store. These include several apps from the American Red Cross for iOS and Android, mobile weather reports from the National Weather Service, and many, many more.
COVID-19 considerations:
In the event of an evacuation, bookmark your local emergency resources on your phone so you can research any special restrictions, limitations or instructions if you need emergency shelter, medical care or other support that may be impacted by COVID-19.
