This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Debbie Elliott. As a national correspondent for NPR News, I've covered dozens of natural disasters, floods, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and lots of hurricanes.

And there's always talk about resilience in the wake of such disasters. But just what does resiliency actually look like?

Resilience is all about bouncing back, having the ability to be prepared before disaster strikes, and then recovering from it in the shortest amount of time possible.

That's Chonsea Willis in Tampa, Florida. She's been an emergency manager for over 20 years and is the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management.

Every natural disaster is different, but no matter where you are, emergency planners will tell you, if you want to bounce back later, you have to prepare now.

Waiting to the last minute or taking that it won't happen to me mindset could mean the difference between life and death. Willis remembers working during a hurricane and getting a frantic phone call.

She's been working from a family located in Tennessee and they wanted us to go check on their mom. And you know, the winds were above 40 miles per hour. It just wasn't happening because that would put the first responders in danger.

Willis says when you wait to evacuate, you run out of options. But still every hurricane season, Willis hears the same story time and time again.

Willis says I want to stay and protect my house or I don't want to pay to have to shelter my animals. So I'm going to stay here in the house with my animals.

So those are the ones that, you know, when you talk to them afterwards, they're saying, well, I should have left. I could have done this. I had options. I could have done something differently.

So I wouldn't be stuck in a situation where I almost died. Don't do that.

Willis approached the peak of what is already a record breaking Atlantic hurricane season. Willis says do what you can to be ready now.

We want to do most of your planning and preparedness in blue skies. Don't wait until the skies are gray. Begin to think about what to do to survive right now.

This episode of LifeKit emergency preparedness, what you need to know before the next hurricane to set yourself up to bounce back.

What is the first thing that people should think about should they be ordered to evacuate? How do you go about creating an evacuation plan?

You really understand what your evacuation level is. If you're in evacuation zone, if you're in a flood zone, you always need to have a better idea of where you are and what your own vulnerabilities are.

Some of the vulnerabilities might be having a health care issue, also not being able to have access to transportation.

It's something to think about and that's especially for the coastal areas where there's usually, like for example in Key West, there's one way in, one way out.

So you have to leave early. You can't wait. Things like that.

So timing is important. What about like who do you listen to? What are the resources that you should be pulling in as you go about making your decision?

When it comes to an evacuation, you have to pay attention to your local meteorologist. If they are saying that we believe that this is going to impact our area, then take that seriously.

Even if you're not asked to leave and you see that, there's a watch happening and then it moves into a warning and you know you're in a vulnerable situation.

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