I always celebrate the Disaster Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday. You cannot have enough batteries.

I scanned the 2019 Disaster Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday approved products list with a sense of disappointment. Over the years, it’s been whittled down to the basics.

For Florida newcomers, know that hurricane season begins Saturday and ends Nov. 30. So yes, that’s half the year. A time span which rather expands our usual definition of what a season is. And since 2006, Florida has kicked off the Atlantic hurricane season with disaster preparedness tax holidays. This year’s holiday starts Friday and runs through June 6.

Although the phrase “disaster holiday” might strike some a stark contradiction of terms, I think it reflects the basic sunniness of the Florida outlook. Monster storms may strike us again — let’s go shopping!

[READ MORE: Gov. DeSantis signs measure for 2 sales tax ‘holidays’]

Legislative staff estimates the Disaster Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday will cost the state $4.4 million in revenue and local governments $1.1 million this fiscal year. Like all holiday celebrations, there are costs.

The sales tax holiday was started by Gov. Jeb Bush as part of a state campaign to instill "a culture of preparedness" into the live-for-today, happy-go-lucky population of Florida. A people who live on a pleasant spit of land that may roll underwater in another generation are not likely to be reliable long-term planners by temperament.

The idea here was to encourage folks to buy flashlight batteries early on rather than line up at that supermarket for a round of panic-buying as winds pick up and television meteorologists use phrases like “cone of concern.” A laudable goal.

Last hurricane, I lost power for a full week. This was a camping-in-your-own-home experience that has made me sensitive about keeping batteries, cellphone rechargers and flashlights around all the time. I tend to hoard them.

Sadly, the preparedness holiday allows a break on only a limited menu of standard battery sizes: AAA, AA, C, D, big square 6-volts, and Halloween-candy sized 9-volts. Slablike cellphone and laptop batteries don’t count even though I’m always thinking I need more and bigger ones before the winds whip up.

Tarps, bungee cords and ground anchor systems also are included. But unlike some past years, Tiki torches are not. Tiki torches dispense light and mosquito-repelling citronella fumes while lending a certain amount of good cheer into the post-storm, debris-covered backyard.

But aside from AA batteries and a flashlight with a band so you can wear it on your head, nothing much on my hurricane list is on the list. A generator — one that costs $750 or less — is too big-ticket an item for me and their sound drives me nuts. And I already have coolers from my soccer- and softball-dad years.

At the first sign of a possible storm, here is my panic-buying shopping list. I get: decongestant/expectorant pills (a swinging barometer and days of rain play havoc with sinuses), yet another cellphone charger (you can never have enough!), duct tape (the all-purpose response to all emergencies), protein bars and vermouth. And, of course, some engaging hard-copy reading that might keep my attention if read by flashlight while tree limbs bounce off my house.

All vital off-list storm supplies. None of which made the list. Too bad.

This year, I should celebrate the Disaster Prep Holiday by adding to the flashlight collection and locating where I put the hurricane supply box last November.

It’s somewhere in the garage. It cannot have gone far. I’d hate to have to tear things apart in the dark to find it when things are blowing around.