All Information Provided from www.noaa.gov
Americans live in the most severe weather-prone country on Earth. Each year, Americans cope with an average of 10,000 thunderstorms, 5,000 floods, 1,000 tornadoes, and an average of 2 landfalling deadly hurricanes. And this on top of winter storms, intense summer heat, high winds, wild fires and other deadly weather impacts. You can make sure your community is ready for the weather with the National Weather Service's StormReady® program.
StormReady is a nationwide community preparedness program that uses a grassroots approach to help communities develop plans to handle all types of severe weather from tornadoes to tsunamis. The program encourages communities to take a new, proactive approach to improving local hazardous weather operations by providing emergency managers with clear-cut guidelines on how to improve their hazardous weather operations.
To be officially StormReady, a community must:
* Establish a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center
* Have more than one way to receive severe weather warnings and forecasts and to alert the public
* Create a system that monitors weather conditions locally
* 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.
For more information on what is required for your community see the "How to Become StormReady" page.