JEA Prepared for 2026 Hurricane Season, Urges Customers to Get Ready

With Hurricane Season approaching on June 1, JEA encourages its customers to prepare now and know the utility is ready to respond to serve the community during severe weather.

“We may have had a quieter storm season last year, but our teams remained actively preparing year-round for severe weather. Our crews stand ready to keep our customers safe during this storm season,” JEA Managing Director and CEO Vickie Cavey said.

JEA works throughout the year to provide for the community’s safety before, during and after severe weather. JEA continually invests in utility upgrades, including electric and water infrastructure and vegetation management.  In the past year, the utility: 

• Pruned 1,383 miles of trees to reduce outages throughout our service territory 

• Replaced 3,300 utility poles  

• Installed 5,983 transformers  

• Replaced or rehabilitated 183 pumps at wastewater lift stations  

• Rehabilitated or replaced 250 manholes. 

JEA reduces the risk of downed trees and broken branches causing outages by pruning trees in rights-of-way year-round. Customers can help build Jacksonville’s urban tree canopy's resilience by properly maintaining and planting trees on their property. Dead and declining branches, structural defects, and other tree hazards should be addressed in advance of a storm’s approach. JEA also recommends keeping branches trimmed away from weatherheads to reduce outages after a storm.

JEA also minimizes sanitary sewer overflows with an advanced manhole-level monitoring system installed at over 125 locations in our service area. By remotely monitoring rising levels in the sewer collection system during inclement weather, JEA can proactively respond by dispatching crews ahead of time.

What Customers Can Do

JEA encourages residential and business customers to take the following actions to prepare for possible storm-related impacts during hurricane season: 

• Gather supplies for a Hurricane Kit. Don’t forget pets and essential medications.
• Write or review your plan for your family and/or business. 
• Decide where you will go if you need to evacuate and how you’ll communicate with family. Be sure to have a plan for family members with special medical needs. 
• Identify where the nearest shelter is located and the routes to get there. 
• Trim trees to remove dead or weak branches and those close to power lines and weatherheads.
• Make sure addresses are visible on homes or businesses. 
• If you have a generator, review safety tips and register it with JEA to ensure safety of JEA employees working on power lines after a storm.
• Ensure your contact information is up to date on jea.com and register for power restoration alerts at JEA.com/storm.  
• Download JEA’s app, My JEA and follow JEA on social media. 
• Find more tips at jea.com/storm