{"id":171072,"date":"2026-02-27T05:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171072\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T05:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:05:11","slug":"free-disaster-kits-handed-out-to-tampa-residents-ahead-of-2026-hurricane-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171072\/","title":{"rendered":"Free disaster kits handed out to Tampa residents ahead of 2026 hurricane season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Preparing <\/p>\n

TAMPA, Fla – It\u2019s early to be thinking about disaster preparedness<\/a>, but many communities are still rebuilding after Milton and Helene in 2024. A nonprofit helped make sure Tampa residents jumpstart their readiness with free kits.<\/p>\n

Volunteers bagged up 500 disaster kits stuffed with flashlights, fireproof bags, solar-powered battery packs, dry bags and more. They handed them out for free to residents in Tampa on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“It gives us more things that we don\u2019t have to go out and look for and have already in our stockpile of things,” said Ken Escobio, a Lake Magdalene resident who received a kit.<\/p>\n

READ: Hurricane-ravaged Humphris Park remains closed as Venice leaders look to repair and reopen it<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Why you should care:<\/p>\n

It is really early to think about hurricane preparedness, but that was the point for the nonprofit Rebuilding Together Greater Florida. The scars from Milton and Helene in 2024 run deep. The nonprofit partnered with Verizon and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to host the drive-thru event at the AdventHealth Training Center.<\/p>\n

“You can never be too prepared, I think. If you\u2019ve been here for a while, the week before a hurricane, there\u2019s nothing on the shelves,” said Anna Deeds, a Belleair resident and volunteer at the event. “Having a bag that you can put in your closet and that you know that it\u2019s always there, it kind of takes the stress out of it when you\u2019re getting the warnings and the hurricanes actually coming.”<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

What they’re saying:<\/p>\n

The disaster kits can help when you don\u2019t have family to depend on or the money to build your own. Preparedness can be expensive, but starting early can also save you when disaster strikes.<\/p>\n

“My parents\u2019 home flooded so they moved in with my husband and I, which was awesome that we could do that. A lot of people didn\u2019t have a place to go,” said Kim Mirabella, the president of Verizon Frontline.<\/p>\n

Organizers said the free, prepared bags have a value around $65, and it\u2019s still not everything a person needs.<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s why you need to prepare ahead of time and buy it when it\u2019s on sale,” said Escobio.<\/p>\n

The head start offers peace for the mind and wallet. Tampa resident Lucy White said the kit will save her money.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“Yes, because I looked at the list, and I\u2019m like, yes, I could use all of those,” said White. “I had to leave my house for the first time for the last storm, and I\u2019ve been in that house for 30 years. So, that was very scary.”<\/p>\n

Officials recommend slowly building up what you need in a disaster kit, so the cost doesn\u2019t hit you all at once when hurricane season starts this summer.<\/p>\n

READ: Shore Acres to get $32M flood relief project; residents question if it\u2019s enough<\/a><\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

CERT volunteers also helped to hand out the disaster kits. CERT stands for “Community Emergency Response Team” and many communities offer the training program for residents to be able to help during an emergency. South Tampa resident Dana Gordon finished up six months ago.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“To be able to sit down and learn what to do in an emergency, how to do a search and rescue operation, how to have disaster psychology, it was all really good stuff that I can use in other parts of my life because you never know when an emergency is going to happen,” said Gordon, a CERT volunteer. “You know there\u2019s only so many Fire and Rescue, so many emergency vehicles out there. So, when there is some sort of natural disaster, the more people that can be trained to help out, the better.”<\/p>\n

The city of Tampa will start the next round of CERT training on March 4.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The Source: The information in this story came from interviews with volunteers, Verizon Frontline, the city of Tampa and nonprofit Rebuilding Together Greater Florida. It was gathered and reported by FOX 13\u2019s Briona Arradondo.<\/p>\n

Tampa<\/a>Hurricane Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla – It\u2019s early to be thinking about disaster preparedness, but many communities are still rebuilding after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47,629,7770,115,135,137,136,628,221],"class_list":{"0":"post-171072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-fl","9":"tag-hillsborough","10":"tag-hurricane-safety","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-tampa","13":"tag-tampa-headlines","14":"tag-tampa-news","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}