Officials from the National Weather Service (NWS) recognize Wright County Emergency Management agency for fulfilling the requirements necessary to become StormReady®.
Chad Hahn, warning coordination meteorologist of the NWS forecast office in Des Moines, presented a special StormReady sign to Wright County Emergency Management Coordinator, Jarika Eisentrager during a January 7th ceremony. The StormReady recognition will be in effect for three years, after which Wright County will go through a renewal process.
“Every year, around 500 Americans lose their lives to severe weather and floods,” Hahn said. “More than 10,000 severe thunderstorms, 2,500 floods and 1,000 tornadoes strike the United States annually. The National Weather Service developed the StormReady program to help people and communities become more resilient when dangerous weather strikes.”
StormReady is a nationwide community preparedness program that uses a grassroots approach to help communities develop plans to handle local severe weather and flooding threats. The program is voluntary and provides communities with clear-cut advice from a partnership between local National Weather Service forecast offices and state and local emergency managers. StormReady started in 1999 with seven communities in the Tulsa, Okla., area. There are now more than 1,900 StormReady communities across the country.
To be recognized as StormReady, a community must:
-Establish a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center.
-Have more than one way to receive severe weather forecasts and warnings and to alert the public.
-Create a system that monitors local weather conditions.
-Promote the importance of public readiness through community seminars.
-Develop a formal hazardous weather plan, which includes training severe weather spotters and holding emergency exercises.
Wright County Emergency Management agency is thrilled to be one of the counties in Iowa to be StormReady certified. This will allow us to better prepare the citizens and their property during times of severe weather.
