You do not wait until a hurricane is coming to put a seatbelt on. An AirTag in a family member's shoe works the same way — it should be there every single day, long before any emergency. Because you never know when you'll need it, and the moment you need it, it's too late to install one.
This is not hurricane prep. This is life prep. If you have a child, a spouse, an elderly parent, a grandparent with Alzheimer's, or a pet — there is an AirTag that belongs in their shoe right now. Not when a storm is coming. Today. Because you never know when you are going to need to know where someone is, and the moment you need it is not the moment to be ordering one online and waiting for delivery.
A child who wanders away at a theme park. A husband who has a medical event while out for a walk. A wife who gets into a car accident and is disoriented. A grandmother with Alzheimer's who walked out the back door while you were in the kitchen. A hurricane that separates your family in the chaos of evacuation. The AirTag doesn't know the difference between these emergencies. It just tells you where the person is. And that information, in any of those moments, is everything.
AirTags cost $29. A four-pack is $80. Put one in every shoe in the family. Every single day. That is the message.
In late 2025, a five-year-old black Labrador mix named Sadie slipped out of a San Diego vacation rental while her family was watching football. Her owners discovered she was gone and immediately pulled up the AirTag signal from her collar. It showed her location moving toward Ocean Beach — but by the time they reached the area, Sadie had been caught in a rip current and swept through the Mission Bay channel into open water.
A surfer spotted a dog struggling offshore and called the San Diego Fire Department. Lifeguards launched jet skis. The U.S. Coast Guard joined the search. For nearly an hour, there was no visual confirmation Sadie was still alive. The AirTag showed her location — but that location was in the ocean. Rescuers were about to call off the search when a lifeguard spotted her half a mile offshore, treading water, still fighting.
They pulled her into a rescue boat. She was brought back to shore and reunited with her family, who had been waiting at the lifeguard station. The tears in that reunion were real.
The AirTag didn't save Sadie by itself — the lifeguards did that. But without the AirTag, her owners would have had no idea which beach to go to, no information to give the fire department, and the search would have started in the wrong place at the wrong time. The AirTag pointed everyone in the right direction at the moment it mattered most.
Dogs and cats bolt during storms for specific reasons: the sound of wind, thunder, and structural stress triggers panic-flight instincts that override training. During evacuation, unfamiliar vehicles and routes create disorientation. When doors and gates open during loading and unloading, panicked animals run. During the storm itself, any breach in the structure — a door blown open, a screen torn — becomes an escape route. After the storm, strange smells, disorientation, and open fencing create the conditions for separation. AirTags on collars, sewn into harnesses, or clipped to tag rings address all of these scenarios.
An AirTag in a silicone collar holder is the standard setup for dogs. Waterproof, secure, and the dog doesn't notice it. The tag should sit on the back of the collar away from the neck, where it won't cause discomfort. For cats, a breakaway collar with an AirTag holder — the breakaway feature is important for cats, who can get collars caught.
If your dog wears a harness, clip or sew an AirTag directly into the harness material as a redundant tracker. Some pets lose collars in panicked flight but keep harnesses on. Two AirTags on a large dog during hurricane season is not excessive.
AirTags run on a standard CR2032 battery that lasts about a year. Replace it annually — set a calendar reminder for the start of each hurricane season, June 1st. A dead AirTag is worse than no AirTag because you might assume it's working when it isn't.
Every shoe has a thin piece of leather or vinyl that covers the insole itself — the inner lining that your foot rests on. Look at the bottom of that insole and you will see it. Take a small piece of tape, lift that liner, and slide the AirTag underneath it — specifically positioning it under the arch of the foot, not the heel and not the toe.
This is the key detail. Under the arch. That is the part of the foot that never touches the ground during a normal step. You are not standing on it. You do not feel it. The insole presses back down over it, the liner covers it, and it is completely invisible. The shoe looks and feels completely normal. Your child does not know it is there. Your husband does not know it is there. Your grandmother does not know it is there. But you do — and so does your phone.
This works in sneakers, dress shoes, boots, sandals with arch support — almost any closed shoe with a removable insole. Do it today. Do every family member's everyday shoes. You will likely never need it. And if you ever do need it, you will be unspeakably grateful that you did it on an ordinary Tuesday and not the day before a storm.
Look at the inside bottom of the shoe. There is a thin layer of leather, vinyl, foam, or fabric covering the insole. It usually has a slight seam or edge you can feel around the perimeter.
Using a small piece of tape or your fingernail, gently lift the liner starting from the side, at the arch — the middle of the shoe where the sole curves upward. You only need to lift it enough to slide the AirTag in.
Slide the AirTag under the liner, positioning it directly under where the arch of the foot sits. This is the area that never makes direct contact with the ground during walking. The coin-shaped tag sits flat, completely covered by the liner above it.
Press the liner back down firmly. Use a small piece of clear tape along the edge if the liner doesn't stay fully flat on its own. The shoe now looks and feels completely normal. Stand in it. Walk in it. You will not feel it.
This idea came from a family in California and it is so simple it's almost obvious once you hear it. Take a standard metal pet dog tag — the kind engraved at any pet store or Walmart for about $5 — and instead of putting a pet's name on it, engrave the child's name on one side and the parents' phone numbers on the other. Clip it onto the child's house key ring.
The child already carries those keys every day. The tag travels with them automatically, to school, to a friend's house, on an evacuation, everywhere. It doesn't need a battery. It doesn't need a network. It doesn't get wiped when the phone gets wet in a flood. A stranger who finds a lost or injured child sees that tag and knows immediately who to call. A first responder checking pockets has the contact information right there in their hand.
The AirTag tells you where your child is. The dog tag tells a stranger who your child is and how to reach you. Together they cover both directions of the emergency — your search for them, and a good Samaritan's search for you. Get both. They cost under $40 combined and together they cover scenarios that neither covers alone.
What to engrave: Child's first name and last initial | "IF FOUND CALL" | Mom's cell | Dad's cell | Out-of-state contact as backup. See our full Family Emergency Plan guide for the complete key tag strategy.
An AirTag tells you where your child is after they are separated. It does not prevent separation. In a hurricane evacuation scenario, young children should be physically attached to an adult — held by the hand, in a carrier, in a car seat. The AirTag is the failsafe for the unexpected, not the primary safety system.
AirTags work through Apple's Find My network and require an iPhone to set up and use. If your family uses Android, the equivalent is the Samsung Galaxy SmartTag2 (for Samsung users) or Tile (works with any smartphone, Android or Apple). Google's Find My Device network also now supports compatible trackers. The underlying strategy — small tracker on the person or animal — is the same regardless of platform. Pick the one that works with the phones your family actually uses.
According to the Alzheimer's Association, 6 in 10 people with dementia will wander at some point. Wandering means leaving the home or a safe area without warning, often with no memory of why or how to return. In Florida's heat, a dementia patient who wanders is in danger within hours — from heat exhaustion, from traffic, from waterways, from simple disorientation in a neighborhood they have lived in for decades. An AirTag in the shoe, installed permanently and checked weekly, gives a caregiver the ability to locate a missing family member in minutes rather than hours.
The shoe installation described above — AirTag under the arch of the insole, liner pressed back down, completely invisible — is ideal for Alzheimer's patients specifically because they do not know it is there and cannot remove it. Many dementia patients become distressed by visible tracking devices or remove them when they notice them. Under the insole, there is nothing to notice and nothing to remove.
Do every pair of shoes they regularly wear. The shoes they wear to appointments, the shoes they wear around the house, the shoes kept by the front door. If they have the AirTag in their everyday shoes, you always know where they are. Not just during a hurricane. Every day. Every night. Every moment when the back door is accidentally left open or someone leaves a gate unlatched.
This is the application that matters most. The hurricane is what brings people to this page. But Alzheimer's wandering is the reason the AirTag should already be in the shoe before the hurricane is ever on the forecast.
The Alzheimer's Association's MedicAlert + Safe Return program is a 24/7 emergency identification and response service for people with Alzheimer's and related dementias. When a registered person is found, first responders can call a 24-hour hotline to immediately access the person's information and contact the family. Registration is around $55/year. Combined with an AirTag in the shoe, this provides layered protection: you can find them, and if someone else finds them first, they can reach you.
Generator theft after hurricanes is not hypothetical — it happens after every major storm in Florida. The thief's calculus is simple: generators are worth hundreds to thousands of dollars, everyone in an affected neighborhood needs one, and the generators are sitting outside running at all hours because they must be outdoors for carbon monoxide safety. Under cover of the noise from all the other generators in the neighborhood, a thief can load yours onto a truck in under two minutes.
An AirTag hidden inside the generator frame or body — not visible, not accessible without tools — turns your generator into a trackable asset. If it disappears, you open your phone, see where it is, and give that location to the police. This is not foolproof, but it is dramatically better than nothing, and it costs $29.
The goal is concealment — a thief who can see and remove the AirTag defeats it. Good locations vary by generator model but generally include:
The key is that the AirTag should not be visible during normal operation or casual inspection. A determined thief with tools can find anything; the goal is that the generator disappears and they don't know they've taken a tracker with it.
The most important principle in generator security is understanding who you're protecting against. A professional thief with a battery-powered angle grinder and 90 seconds can defeat almost any chain or cable. But professional thieves are rare. What you are almost always dealing with is an opportunist — someone who sees an unsecured generator, checks if anyone is watching, and picks it up and walks off. That person is defeated by almost any visible security measure, because they will not risk the noise, the time, or the effort when there is an easier target nearby.
The goal is not to make your generator impossible to steal. The goal is to make it harder to steal than your neighbor's unsecured one. Chains, cables, and concrete anchors do exactly that.
Dig a hole near where you run the generator, fill with concrete, and set a large forged steel D-ring or eye bolt in the wet concrete so it cures in place. When the concrete sets, only the D-ring is visible at ground level. Chain your generator to this anchor with a hardened chain. A thief cannot remove the anchor without major excavation — the chain becomes the weak point, and hardened chains require specialized cutting tools. This is the setup experienced Florida hurricane residents use. It takes one afternoon to install and lasts indefinitely.
Chains are rated by hardness, and the difference matters enormously against bolt cutters. A standard hardware store chain can be cut with common bolt cutters in seconds. A hardened security chain — specifically one rated as Grade 70 or higher transport chain, or chains from security brands like Pewag, Kryptonite, or Abus — requires heavy-duty bolt cutters or an angle grinder to defeat. The chain should be 3/8" or thicker. Buy by the foot at hardware stores and add your own padlock.
Braided steel security cables — specifically those marketed as bolt-cutter resistant with a hardened steel core — provide strong security in a lighter, more flexible form than chain. They are easier to route through the generator frame in awkward positions and can be looped around fixed objects without an anchor point. Look for cables with a minimum 3/8" diameter braided steel construction and a shrouded lock head (where the lock body is recessed to prevent bolt cutter access to the shackle).
A hardened chain with a poor padlock is still a poor setup — the lock is often easier to cut than the chain. Use a padlock with a hardened steel shackle and a shrouded design that protects the shackle from bolt cutter access. Brands like Abloy, Medeco, and Abus make locks specifically rated for high-security outdoor use. A quality padlock costs $30–$80. It is the most overlooked component of generator security.
Many portable generators have wheel kits. When the generator is in use at a fixed location, remove the wheels and store them inside. A generator without wheels is significantly harder to transport quickly — it must be lifted rather than rolled, which requires two people and makes much more noise. This simple step reduces theft risk meaningfully and costs nothing.
A battery-powered or solar-powered motion light positioned to illuminate the generator area activates when anyone approaches. In a dark post-hurricane neighborhood, a sudden bright light is a significant deterrent to opportunistic theft — it draws attention and eliminates the cover of darkness. Motion lights cost $15–$30 and require no wiring. Several Florida residents report this as the single most effective standalone deterrent they have used.
After Hurricane Sandy, multiple households suffered carbon monoxide poisoning because residents moved their generators too close to the house — or even inside — out of fear of theft. Carbon monoxide killed people who were trying to protect their generators. The correct rule is absolute: generators must run at least 10 feet from any door, window, or vent, no exceptions. Secure the generator with chain and anchor so you can run it at a safe distance without fear of theft. Never trade carbon monoxide risk for theft protection.