Prepping Your Family for Severe Weather

1/25/2019 (Permalink)

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What to Think About in Severe Weather Planning

Being prepared is one of the best ways to come out ahead of the weather, and having an established family emergency plan is a smart move.

If your family already has an emergency plan in place, that’s great. Just be sure to practice and discuss your plan at the start of the various weather seasons so everyone knows exactly what to do.

If you’ve not yet created your family emergency plan, start here by taking a look at some things to take into consideration when creating it:

1. Receiving Emergency Alerts

We still have radio and television to broadcast warnings and alerts, but thanks to today’s technologies, it is very easy to receive emergency alerts and warnings on your smartphone. If you have a weather app or Google on your smartphone, you can quickly receive emergency alerts, which gives you with valuable time in severe weather situations.

2. Knowing Your Storm Shelter Options

If tornadoes are a common occurrence where you live, the lowest part of your home (i.e., the basement) is safest, but if there is no basement, you’ll want to be in the lowest part of your home in an interior room away from corners, windows, doors and outside walls. However, tornadoes aren’t the only weather circumstance that requires a form of storm shelter, and you can visit ready.gov to learn more about these situations.

3. Knowing Evacuation Routes

Having several evacuation routes mapped out before you need them can help should a hurricane, flood or fire force you from your home in a hurry. It’s wise to have multiple routes mapped out in case one is impassable. Remember to locate places that will also allow your pets to stay with you along the way.

4. Keeping Communication Open

Your family will need an emergency communication plan in place. It is easy to rely on cell phones to keep in touch with your family, but sometimes that will not be feasible as cell communication is reliant on towers that could sustain damage during the storm.

Power could also be lost, phones could be misplaced, and if there is no power, you will not be able to recharge them when needed. Also, set up a safe meeting place for your family, so that you can all meet there if separated.

If a storm does cause damage to your home or business, don’t hesitate to call your friends at SERVPRO of North Huntington to get the cleanup and restoration process started.