The Post-Storm Communication Plan: The First 72 Hours, the First 90 Days, and What Never Goes in Writing

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Published September 26, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: Condominiums · HOAs · Cooperatives

After a hurricane the association loses control of the narrative in about six hours. Owners are out of state, phones do not work, the manager is in a shelter, and a vacuum is filled by a Facebook group and a contractor with a magnet sign. What follows is not a public relations problem. Nearly every post-storm dispute that reaches a lawyer began as a communication: a number given too early, a promise nobody could keep, or a silence that let owners conclude the board had stopped functioning.

The first 72 hours

The first communication should go out before anyone has answers, and it should say so. Its job is to establish that the association is operating, that there is one place to get information, and that the next message has a scheduled time. Everything else can wait.

1. Confirm the channel. Name it: the association email list, the portal, a posted notice at the gate, a recorded phone line. Give the exact address and say that nothing else is official.
2. Report condition, not conclusion. The building is standing, the east stair is blocked, there is water intrusion on floors three through seven, power is out, the elevator is out. Facts you observed, with a timestamp.
3. State the access status and who set it. If a building official, engineer or fire marshal has restricted entry, say who issued the restriction and what it covers. Do not characterize it further.
4. Give the next contact time. A specific day and time. A board that publishes a schedule and keeps it buys weeks of patience.
5. Tell owners what to do now. Report damage to their own insurer, photograph before mitigation, do not sign anything at the gate, do not enter restricted areas, update their contact information with the association.

Notice during a declared emergency is easier than boards expect. Under § 718.1265(1)(a), § 719.128(1)(a) and § 720.316(1)(a), the board may conduct meetings and give notice as is practicable, by publication, radio, United States mail, the Internet, electronic transmission, public service announcements, conspicuous property posting or any other reasonable means, and may communicate its decisions the same way. That authority runs from the declared emergency, so capture the executive order or county proclamation in the file on day one. Our guide to emergency board decisions covers what has to be true before those powers switch on.

One channel, one voice

The association speaks through one designated person, usually the manager, with the president as backup. The reason is not decorum. It is that five directors speaking produce five versions, and the owner who repeats the most optimistic version to an adjuster has created an admission the association has to live with.

Put the rule in a board resolution in advance, while nobody is upset:

• One spokesperson, named by office rather than by person, so the rule survives a turnover.
• No director answers a question about coverage, timing, cost or fault. The answer is the channel: it will be addressed in the next update.
• Nothing goes out to owners without passing through the designated writer, including committee messages and friendly clarifications from a director who used to be in construction.
• No director posts about the loss on social media, including in personal capacity. A director's personal post is read as the association's position.
• Press inquiries go to counsel. So do calls from a lawyer representing an owner, and so does anything from the insurer's counsel.

Owner email addresses are not a loose asset. In a condominium, an owner's e-mail address is generally protected from records inspection under § 718.111(12)(c)5., but addresses provided to the association to fulfill its notice requirements are carved out of that protection. Keep the notice list clean and separate, and do not merge it with a personal contact list assembled from sign-in sheets. Our article on communicating with owners covers the standing rules that this plan sits on top of.

What the statutes actually require you to tell owners

Less than most boards think, and it is worth knowing the difference between a legal obligation and a good practice, because the two get confused at exactly the wrong moment.

Nothing in any of the three chapters requires the board to publish a damage assessment, a claim status, a repair schedule or a cost estimate. What the chapters do is make every document the board creates an official record, and make the minutes the place where the board's decisions are proved. That asymmetry is the whole design problem: you are not obliged to say much, and everything you do say is permanent.

The one Chapter 720 difference worth marking is the special assessment notice. The condominium provision at § 718.112(2)(c)1. carries the word nonemergency, which is what lets a condominium board levy an emergency assessment outside the 14-day notice requirement. Section 720.303(2)(c)2. does not contain that qualifier. An HOA board planning to assess quickly should read its own subsection rather than the condominium one, and our guide to post-storm special assessments takes that apart.

Language that costs you the claim

The insurer's file will eventually contain your owner communications. Owners forward them, public adjusters attach them, and opposing counsel requests them. Four categories of sentence cause most of the damage.

• Coverage conclusions. This is covered. This will not be covered. The deductible is X. Only the carrier decides coverage, and a board that guesses either way has either created an expectation or waived an argument.
• Causation shorthand. The roof failed because it was old. This was flood, not wind. Cause is the entire fight in a Florida windstorm claim. Describe observed conditions and let the engineer and the adjuster characterize them.
• Timelines with dates. Owners can return October 15. Restoration will be finished by spring. Give sequence and dependency instead: entry resumes when the building official releases the building, which follows the structural report, which is scheduled for this date.
• Numbers before the basis exists. An early per-unit figure repeated at a meeting becomes the number owners budgeted against, and the number they cite when the real assessment is larger.

Replace all four with the same structure: what we know, how we know it, what happens next, when we will speak again. Facts and sources, not conclusions. And keep the privileged material out of the newsletter. Counsel's coverage analysis, the engineer's draft report commissioned through counsel and the board's discussion of litigation strategy do not belong in an owner update, and circulating them can waive the protection entirely. Our note on confidentiality and privilege explains what a director may and may not repeat.

Contractors and public adjusters working your owner list

Within days, owners will be approached individually. Some of the approaches are lawful and some are not, and boards that can describe the rules give owners something more useful than a warning to be careful.

Public adjuster solicitation is regulated. Under § 626.854(5), a public adjuster may not solicit an insured or claimant except Monday through Saturday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. A contract to adjust a claim may be cancelled without penalty within 10 days after execution, and where the contract was entered into based on events that are the subject of a declaration of a state of emergency by the Governor, within 30 days after the date of loss or 10 days after execution, whichever is longer, § 626.854(7). Compensation is capped at 10 percent of claim payments for claims based on events that are the subject of a declared state of emergency, against 20 percent otherwise, § 626.854(11)(b).

Roofing and restoration solicitation is regulated separately. Section 489.147(2)(b) prohibits a contractor from offering a rebate, gift, gift card, cash, coupon or waiver of any insurance deductible in exchange for a roof inspection or an insurance claim. Section 489.147(2)(d) prohibits a contractor from adjusting a claim or advising an insured on coverage or policy provisions without a public adjuster license. Section 489.147(7) requires specified notice language in the contract, and § 489.147(3) exposes a violator to discipline and fines.

Put that in a single owner notice, with the citations, and add three association-level rules: no vendor solicits on the common elements without written board permission; no owner should assume a vendor at the gate was retained by the association; and any contract the association signs goes through counsel first. Our guidance on restoration contracts covers the terms that matter when the association is the one signing.

Deciding and documenting when normal meetings are impossible

Decisions still have to be made by the board, and the record of how they were made is what protects the directors later. The emergency powers relax notice; they do not convert the president into a sole decision maker.

Practical method when the community is scattered:

1. Notice the meeting by whatever means is practicable and record what means you used and when.
2. Hold it by telephone or video. Keep an attendance record showing who participated and how.
3. Keep minutes that show the facts before the board, the professional advice relied on, the alternatives considered, the motion and the vote by name. Minutes are an official record under § 718.111(12)(a)6.
4. For an item not on the notice taken up on an emergency basis in a condominium or cooperative, record the majority-plus-one vote and calendar the ratification at the next regular board meeting.
5. Publish the decision to owners in the next scheduled update, in the same plain terms the minutes use.

Two cautions. First, a chain of emails among directors reaching a consensus is not a board meeting, it produces no minutes, and it will be read later as a decision made outside the sunshine requirements. Second, a written consent in lieu of a meeting is not available to these boards for most operational decisions. If the board decided something, hold a meeting and minute it, however short.

The records that get requested later

Between six and eighteen months after the storm, someone will ask for the file. It will be an owner unhappy about an assessment, a buyer's attorney, a lender, the carrier, or a lawyer for an owner whose unit was gutted by a mitigation crew. Condominium records must be made available within 10 working days after a written request, § 718.111(12)(b). HOA records run on 10 business days under § 720.303(5).

Assemble it as you go, in one place:

• The declaration of emergency, with its date and the geography covered.
• Dated photographs and video, moisture readings, and the manager's contemporaneous log.
• Every owner communication sent, with its date, its channel and its recipient list.
• Minutes of every meeting, including emergency meetings, and the ratification entries.
• All engineer, contractor and adjuster reports, with the date each was received.
• Contracts and change orders, with the board action authorizing each.
• The claim file: notice of claim, correspondence with the carrier, proofs of loss, payments received and how they were allocated.
• Invoices and payment records for mitigation, security, debris removal and temporary measures.

The moment a claim, demand or suit becomes reasonably foreseeable, the ordinary retention schedule stops governing and a litigation hold applies, which covers text messages and personal email accounts used for association business. Our article on litigation holds and record preservation sets out what that requires and when the obligation attaches, and insurance claim documentation covers the claim file specifically.

Owners who want to go back into an unsafe building

This is the hardest message the board will send, and it is the one most often sent badly. The residents asking are frequently elderly, out of money, out of patience, and being told by their own insurer that additional living expense has run out.

Get the authority right first. Under § 718.1265(1)(i), § 719.128(1)(h) and § 720.316(1)(h), the board may determine whether the property can be safely inhabited, accessed or occupied, and under § 718.1265(1)(g), § 719.128(1)(g) and § 720.316(1)(g) it may determine portions of the property unavailable for entry or occupancy, based upon advice of emergency management officials or licensed professionals retained by the board. Those determinations rest on professional advice, so obtain it in writing and name it when you announce the restriction.

Then get the limits right. The condominium statute contains an access protection at § 718.1265(3): even during a state of emergency declared by the Governor, the association may not prohibit unit owners, tenants, guests, agents or invitees from accessing the unit and the associated limited common elements for the purposes of ingress to and egress from the unit, including where access is necessary in connection with a sale, lease or transfer of title, or for the health and safety of the person unless a governmental order or public health directive prohibits it. Read that subsection before any blanket lockout, and read your own chapter rather than assuming the condominium rule applies to an HOA.

Say it in plain terms: who made the determination, what professional advice it rests on, what specifically is unsafe, what has to happen before it changes, and what limited access is available in the meantime for retrieving belongings or meeting an adjuster. Then say when you will speak again. The chapter-specific treatment is in our articles on post-hurricane board duties and hurricane recovery in cooperatives.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes works with condominium, cooperative and homeowners association boards across Southwest Florida in the days after a storm, on emergency meeting procedure, owner communications that will not damage the claim, contractor and restoration agreements, and the record the association will need when the questions arrive. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Disaster Recovery page.