The Hurricane HVAC Guide,
Written 20 Miles from the Coast
Gulf storms are part of the deal in Acadiana. F & R has been in Abbeville since 1956, through Audrey, Lili, Rita, and the 2020 season, and this page is what those years taught us: how to protect your AC before landfall, what a generator can and can't run, and how to start back up safely. Updated August 2026.
The Three-Sentence Playbook
Cool the house a few degrees below your normal setting while grid power is still steady; that banked chill is what keeps your family comfortable through the first hours of an outage. Before the wind arrives, shut the system down at the thermostat and turn off its breakers (the outdoor unit and the indoor unit each have one), because the flickers and surges of storm power kill more air conditioners than wind does. And if floodwater reaches any part of the system, leave the power off until it has been professionally inspected, no matter how dry it looks a day later.
That's the whole thing in three sentences, and it hasn't changed much since we opened in 1956. The rest of this page is the working detail: the prep that matters in the last day or two, why generators and central air get along so poorly, and the one mistake after a flood that turns salvageable equipment into scrap.
Before the Storm
Start while the forecast cone is still wobbling. Run the AC a few degrees cooler than usual in the day or two before landfall, when grid power is at its most dependable. A house that's been chilled down and buttoned up, blinds closed on the sun side, doors kept shut, will hold its comfort for hours after the power drops. You're banking cool the way you bank ice.
Then walk the yard. Patio chairs, potted plants, limbs, anything loose becomes a projectile at hurricane wind speeds, and the thin aluminum fins on your condenser lose that fight every time. A bent fin field chokes the airflow the system breathes through; a flying chair can crack the fan guard or the blade behind it. While you're out there, put a hand on the unit and make sure it sits firm and level on its pad. A condenser rocking on a washed-out pad puts strain on its refrigerant lines once the ground saturates.
A surge protector on the outdoor unit is cheap insurance for the electronics inside it, the control board and contactor that storm power loves to cook. We install them as a system add-on, so if yours doesn't have one, ask us before the season gets busy. And take two minutes to photograph your equipment, data plates included. If you end up filing a claim, you'll start from proof instead of memory.
Last step, and the one people skip: when the outer bands arrive and the lights start to flicker, shut the system off at the thermostat, then flip off both of its breakers, outdoor unit and indoor unit alike. Power almost never dies cleanly in a hurricane. It stutters, browns out, and surges back, and every one of those swings lands on your compressor and control boards. Equipment that's disconnected can't be hurt by any of it, and your house will coast on the cool you banked.
Running HVAC on a Generator
Here's the split that surprises people. A gas furnace asks very little of a generator: its blower and controls run fine on a modest portable unit, which is why gas heat is easy to keep alive through a winter outage. Central air conditioning is a different animal. The compressor draws a heavy jolt of starting current, several times its running load, and portable generators generally can't supply it. The generator bogs, the compressor stalls, and you risk damaging both machines trying.
Running whole-house cooling through an outage takes a properly sized standby generator with a transfer switch, installed by an electrician. That's a real project, not a weekend purchase, but for an August outage in Louisiana it's the only route to central air. Window units and some mini splits sit in between: their smaller compressors fall within reach of larger portable generators, which is how plenty of Acadiana families ride out the days after a storm. One cooled bedroom beats none.
Two rules aren't negotiable, whatever you're powering. A generator runs outdoors only, at least 20 feet from the house with the exhaust pointed away from windows and doors, because carbon monoxide kills quietly, and it takes lives in Louisiana after nearly every major storm. And never backfeed a generator into a wall outlet. Backfeeding energizes the lines crews are working on, which can kill a lineman, and when grid power snaps back it can fry the generator and everything connected to it.
If Your System Flooded
Rita put parts of Erath and Delcambre under water. Surge and flash flooding come with living this close to the Gulf, so we'll be blunt about the one rule that matters most.
Do not turn the power back on. If floodwater reached your outdoor unit, air handler, or furnace, leave the breaker off until the system has been professionally inspected. Floodwater isn't rain: it's contaminated, conductive, and corrosive, and it soaks into windings, control boards, wiring insulation, and safety controls. Re-energizing wet equipment can destroy components that would have survived, and it can start a fire.
Be wary of anyone who offers to just turn it back on and see what happens. What happens is sometimes nothing, for a while, and then a corroded contactor or a shorted board takes the system down mid-recovery, when every repair crew in the parish is already booked solid.
The honest picture: equipment that took shallow water for a short time is often repairable once it's cleaned, dried, and tested. Equipment that sat deeply submerged usually isn't worth saving, because corrosion keeps working long after the water is gone. A proper inspection tells you which one you have, in writing, and if the answer lands in the gray zone, our repair-or-replace calculator helps you make the call with math instead of nerves.
After the All-Clear
Once the weather is truly done, go look at the condenser before you touch the thermostat. Pull off the leaves, twigs, and whatever else the storm wrapped around it, then rinse the coil gently with a garden hose. Never a pressure washer: those aluminum fins fold flat under pressure, and flattened fins block the very airflow you're trying to restore.
Look the unit over while you're there. Dents in the cabinet, a fan blade that's visibly bent, a unit that has shifted or now sits tilted on its pad: any one of those is a reason to call before restoring power. If everything is dry, level, and undamaged, flip the breakers back on, then give the system a few hours before asking it to cool. Many compressors have a small heater that needs that time to drive refrigerant out of the oil after days without power, and the patience is cheap compared to what it protects.
If it won't start, starts but hums, or trips the breaker the moment it kicks on, stop right there. Resetting the breaker over and over to see if the third try takes only pushes more current through whatever's wrong. That's the moment to call, and it's exactly what our after-hours emergency service exists for.
Living With Salt Air
Hurricanes are the dramatic threat. Salt is the patient one. Abbeville sits about 20 miles from Vermilion Bay, and the closer you live to the water, down toward Delcambre, Erath, and Avery Island, the more salt rides the air onto your condenser coil. It never announces itself. It corrodes the fins a little at a time, and a corroded coil sheds heat poorly, so the system runs longer, costs more to operate, and gives up years earlier than it should.
The counters are simple. Rinse the coil with a garden hose through the cooling season, with the power off at the outdoor disconnect, to wash the salt film off before it etches in. Have the coil professionally cleaned and inspected on a schedule, which is exactly what a maintenance plan handles, and coastal homes get more out of that schedule than anyone. And when replacement time comes, ask about coil construction: some equipment lines, including the Lennox systems we install, use corrosion-resistant aluminum fin construction that holds up better in salt air than standard coils do.
Hurricane Questions, Answered Straight
Should I turn my AC off during a hurricane?
Can I run my AC on a portable generator?
My AC was under water. Is it ruined?
Does homeowners insurance cover a flooded AC?
How do I protect the outdoor unit from flying debris?
How often should coastal homes rinse the condenser?
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Storm Trouble? Start with a Straight Answer
Whether your system took a hit or just won't start now that the power's back, we'll tell you what it needs and what it doesn't. Call (337) 893-5646 or schedule a visit.