“A Legacy of Readiness – Forty Years of Progress and Partnership”

On Labor Day weekend in 1985, Hurricane Elena threatened the west coast of Florida causing massive evacuations in the Tampa Bay area, before eventually turning and making landfall as a category 3 hurricane along the Mississippi coast. There were many lessons learned by emergency managers across the state, but at the time there was no statewide forum to share best practices, network, and build capabilities for the next tropical threat.

After discussions with sponsoring agencies, planning for the first annual conference began, and in May of 1987, attendees met in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. The inaugural program included a General Session and 19 workshops on hurricane preparedness, response, and recovery. While locations have changed over the years to include Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and West Palm Beach, the conference’s consistency and focus on providing a positive educational experience at a low cost have remained the same.

Since the Governor’s Hurricane Conference (GHC) began 40 years ago, Florida has experienced more than 40 landfalling tropical storms and hurricanes and several near misses, all leaving real and lasting impacts on residents and visitors – lives lost, homes and businesses damaged or destroyed, and livelihoods uprooted and disrupted. Historic storms like Hurricanes Andrew, Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Katrina, Wilma, Michael, Irma, Ian, Helene, and Milton stretched the capabilities of the Florida emergency management system and led to improvements and innovation that saved lives in storms that followed. The vision of the leaders who spearheaded the development of the first GHC in 1987 was to convene practitioners around the state to network, coordinate, and share best practices that could raise all tides and ultimately strengthen our collective ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from tropical events throughout Florida.

As we prepare to meet in West Palm Beach again in May of 2026, the conference has turned into so much more than originally anticipated. The 2025 meeting brought together almost 2,500 onsite participants from not just Florida, but 37 different states and 7 countries. Attendees come from a growing range of backgrounds – emergency management, meteorology, first responders, healthcare professionals, private-sector, non-profit, and non-governmental organizations. Our exhibit hall included more than 160 companies, 200 booth spaces, and over 20 showcased emergency vehicles.

While we acknowledge our history and those pioneers who laid the foundation, the 2026 conference will prioritize new and emerging concepts, current issues in a time of evolution in emergency management, and an opportunity for attendees to bring real lessons learned back to their organizations and agencies. The Program Committee is proud to offer a curriculum of 34 Training Sessions, 58 Workshops, and an informative General Session with expert speakers ready to engage across a variety of important and timely topics.

We are excited to collaborate and network with you in May 2026! See you in West Palm Beach as we celebrate “A Legacy of Readiness – Forty Years of Progress and Partnership.”

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