Hurricane season is just two weeks away, and Hidalgo County wants residents to have the tools to weather any storm.

Sonia Melendez was one of about 150 people who attended a hurricane preparedness conference in Edinburg. She lives in McAllen and was affected by the thunderstorm a few weeks ago.

"It caught us by surprise a lot of things happened, you know we had power outages and so people were without electricity to cook," Melendez said.

Dr. Andrea Valdez is from the Texas A&M Agri-life Extension in Hidalgo County. She says if people plan now, they can be prepared later.

"Use your pantry items. You can buy those way ahead of time and leave them there and then a few days before if you're tracking storms, and you know it's going to rain buy those fresh vegetables ahead of time," Dr. Valdez said.

If you do lose power, keep your fridge closed, so it can stay cold longer, and when in doubt dump it out.

"Look for signs of spoiling, funny odor," Dr. Valdez said.

For residents, like Melendez, who have diabetes, it was a helpful lesson on both healthy and simple meal ideas. 

Creating an emergency meal plan can be equally important as making an evacuation plan.

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