Hurricane season roadside rescue in Florida and Georgia

What to take away

Three phases, not one busy season

Hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30. Treating it as one long surge is how operators end up with the wrong trucks parked in the wrong county.

The season has three phases with different customers. Pre-storm work is evacuation support: clearing disabled vehicles off shoulders, pulling wrecks out of contraflow lanes, hauling county equipment. Landfall is dead time, with roads closed and crews on standby. Post-storm is recovery, and it lasts weeks.

Recovery carries the revenue. Flooded cars, submerged trucks and debris-blocked subdivision streets queue up faster than any fleet can clear them.

Georgia's version of this looks different from Florida's. Hurricane winds weaken inland, but rainfall flooding hits Atlanta, Savannah and the I-16 corridor. Much of the Georgia work is water recovery, not wind damage.

What the storm actually does to your call mix

Pre-storm calls are short and local. A dead battery on an evacuation route, a car that quit on the shoulder of I-75, a county trailer that needs moving before the bridges lock.

Landfall calls do not exist. Bridges close, and dispatchers sit on standby while fuel and payroll keep running. This is the most expensive quiet stretch of the year for a tow company.

Post-storm calls change shape. They are longer, heavier and further from the yard. A light-duty wheel-lift cannot pull a flooded box truck out of a retention pond, and the operators who discover that on day one lose the contract.

Match the fleet to the phase before the season starts. Light-duty units handle subdivision cars. Medium and heavy-duty units handle commercial vehicles and debris. Recovery work after a major storm skews heavy, and the trucks you own in June decide which jobs you can bid in September.

Price gouging rules in Florida and Georgia

Both states activate anti-gouging statutes when the governor declares a state of emergency. Florida's price gouging law is Section 501.160 of the Florida Statutes, enforced by the Florida Attorney General's Office. In Florida, towing has been treated as part of the emergency response chain, so the law reaches your rate sheet.

The violation is charging above your normal rate for the same service, not charging a high rate in general. Georgia's statute is O.C.G.A. § 10-1-393.4, part of the state's Fair Business Practices Act, and the Consumer Protection Division of the Georgia Attorney General's Office enforces it. Its test is similar: excessive increases on services storm victims need are prohibited.

Your pre-emergency price list is the evidence. Keep a dated copy, and if you raise rates for a storm, document the cost reason, not the demand reason.

Split your pricing into three categories before June:

Dispatchers should be able to quote the emergency rate without checking with anyone. If the person answering the phone has to guess, the company is exposed.

Insurance-funded tows run on a different track. When an insurer or motor club pays, the contract sets the rate, and surge rules usually do not apply to that transaction. Note which payer covers each call. Pricing discipline holds margin in a normal year too, and the same structure appears in general guidance on towing company pricing.

Staging your fleet before landfall

Staging means parking trucks at predetermined locations before the storm, so they are already inside the affected area when roads reopen.

Florida runs state logistics staging areas and county points of distribution. Operators under county or state contract may be assigned a position. Independent operators stage privately, usually on higher ground outside the surge zone.

Georgia stages along evacuation routes and at inland reception points. With a shorter coast, staging there tends to follow specific routes rather than broad zones.

Checklist for a staging site:

Pre-positioning costs money before it earns any. Fuel, lodging and idle crew time land on the books before the first recovery call. Operators who do it well treat it as a seasonal fixed cost.

Worked example: a six-truck fleet stages two trucks in a county lot under contract and four on private ground. The contract pays a standby rate for the two. The other four wait for recovery work.

If the storm misses, the company absorbs four days of standby. If it hits, those four trucks are working while competitors are still fueling up.

Getting on a Florida county list

The Florida Division of Emergency Management runs the state emergency operations center in Tallahassee. Tow operators do not usually call the division during a storm.

Coordination runs through counties. All 67 have an emergency management office, and each keeps its own resource list. In coastal counties like Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe and Hillsborough, that list is the one that decides who gets called after landfall. Getting on a county list before June is the most useful administrative step a Florida operator can take.

Registration typically asks for proof of insurance, an equipment list with capacities, a signed rate agreement and a 24-hour contact. Some counties also want a state vendor number.

The division publishes situation reports during activations. They show where resources are moving and which counties have unmet needs, and they are free to read even without a contract.

Fuel is the recurring failure point. State and county emergency fuel contracts cover government fleets first, so private operators should carry their own supply or hold a commercial fuel account that stays open during shortages.

Keep radio traffic short during an activation. County managers want trucks available, location and hours remaining. Long narratives waste the channel.

Getting on a Georgia county list

The Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency runs the state operations center and manages the state resource request system, so county needs route upward through it during large events.

The practical path is still county first. Chatham, Liberty, Glynn and Camden counties keep their own lists and their own staging expectations.

Inland counties matter too. When coastal residents evacuate west and north, breakdowns follow them, and operators in Macon, Valdosta and metro Atlanta pick up work with no connection to the coast.

The agency coordinates with the Georgia Department of Transportation on route closures and reentry timing. Reentry timing decides when recovery work can start, which is the detail operators watch closest.

Expect credentialing questions. Some Georgia counties issue reentry passes or placards to essential personnel. Without one, a tow truck waits at the checkpoint while a contracted competitor rolls through.

Fleets that work both states often build the year around coastal contracts rather than one state's rules. A towing company quote template that carries emergency rates, standby rates and recovery rates in one document saves renegotiating after every storm.

FEMA and SBA: which door opens for a tow company

FEMA assistance reaches tow operators through several doors, and most companies qualify for only some of them.

Public assistance funds emergency work and permanent repairs for state, local, tribal and territorial governments and for certain private nonprofits. A tow company working under contract to one of those entities may see its work funded through that route. Program details sit on FEMA's assistance for governments and private nonprofits page.

Individual assistance covers households after a declared disaster, and it is the program drivers and small owners meet personally. FEMA's get assistance after a disaster page explains what it covers.

Businesses have a separate path. FEMA's business assistance page covers programs aimed at companies recovering from a storm, including referral to other agencies.

In practice the Small Business Administration carries most of the weight. SBA disaster loans are low-interest, long-term loans for physical damage and for economic injury, open to small businesses including sole proprietors. The SBA disaster assistance pages list current declarations and application steps.

Economic injury disaster loans matter for a tow company that loses weeks of revenue without physical damage. A missed storm still means lost contracts and idle payroll.

Documentation decides outcomes. Photograph equipment before the season, keep fuel and lodging receipts, keep payroll records, keep the dated rate sheet. Claims built on records get paid faster than claims built on memory.

SBA filing windows close, and late applications are usually denied. Check declarations after every named storm that touches your county.

Insurance and liability in recovery work

Recovery work raises liability in ways routine towing does not. Flooded vehicles, unstable structures and debris fields create injury and damage exposure a standard policy may not cover.

Commercial auto, general liability and garagekeepers coverage each answer a different question. If you hook a vehicle and damage it, the answer depends on which policy applies and what the customer signed.

Subcontracted trucks are the biggest gap. When you hire another operator for overflow, that operator's insurance is primary, but your customer may still name you in a claim. Get a certificate of insurance before the truck rolls.

Verify limits per occurrence, not just the presence of a policy. Some operators hold certificates with limits written for light-duty work and dispatch them onto heavy recovery anyway.

County and state contracts usually require indemnification, specific limits and additional insured status. Read those clauses before the season, not during an activation. General guidance on towing company business insurance covers how the layers stack.

Workers' compensation exposure grows with crew fatigue. Long shifts after a storm produce injuries, and fatigue claims are hard to defend. Set shift limits and enforce them.

Fuel and oil from submerged vehicles can spill during removal, and cleanup responsibility may land on the operator. Check whether your policy excludes pollution before you take water recovery work.

Adding trucks after a good season changes your exposure, and the same planning logic shows up in towing company expansion discussions among operators who grow after a busy year. Where those trucks should sit relative to demand is the question behind markets for towing company planning in coastal states.

Common questions

Can I raise my tow rates during a hurricane in Florida?

Only within limits. Section 501.160 of the Florida Statutes applies during a declared state of emergency, and charging above your normal rate for the same service can be a violation. Document any cost-based increase and keep the dated rate sheet that proves your baseline.

Does Georgia have the same anti-gouging rules as Florida?

Georgia activates O.C.G.A. § 10-1-393.4 when the governor declares a state of emergency. The test is similar: excessive increases on services storm victims need are prohibited. Ask a Georgia attorney how the statute applies to your rate sheet before the season, not during it.

How do I get on a county tow list before the season?

Contact the county emergency management office, usually between March and May. Expect to submit insurance certificates, an equipment list with capacities, a rate agreement and a 24-hour contact. Some Florida counties also require a state vendor number.

Do tow operators qualify for FEMA assistance?

Usually not directly. Individual assistance covers households, and public assistance covers governments and certain nonprofits. Most tow businesses pursue SBA disaster loans for physical damage and lost revenue instead.