PEARL, Miss. (WJTV) – Officials with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) are encouraging neighbors to start preparing for hurricane season.

MEMA officials said 2024 may be one of the most active seasons on record.

“Get a Go Kit. In that Go Kit, make sure that you have all of your important documents that you may need some extra food, some batteries, things like that, just to keep you going if you needed it. And I know in central Mississippi, we don’t actually get that surge of water from that hurricane, but we can get things like speed up tornadoes and power outages and definitely an influx of people from the coast that need somewhere to stay that will impact our area, as well,” said Allie Jasper, public information officer for MEMA.

The 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season will begin on Saturday, June 1 and last through November.

David Browning, deputy director for the Mississippi Insurance Department, encouraged residents to review and update their homeowners insurance.

“You just want to make sure that you understand there’s typically a separate deductible from your standard homeowners policy, which standards? Homeowners policy usually has a dollar amount deductible, but when when a night, when a storm is named, you know, it’s usually a percentage of adoptable and that’s separate from your standard homeowners deductible,” explained Browning.

Officials said 55% of direct hurricane fatalities are due to flooding.