As the hurricane season is upon us it’s time to review some of the resources to help keep us ready. During the first week n May it was Hurricane Preparedness week where we review annually the major components of Hurricane Preparedness. They are Determine Your Risk, Develop an Evacuation Plan, Assemble Disaster Supplies, Get an Insurance Checkup, Strengthen Your Home, and Help Your Neighbor. Once you have gone over each of the core components and have determined your risk, made your evacuation plan, obtained supplies, checked your insurance, strengthened your home and got to know your neighbors and their capabilities all you have to do on a regular basis is to review and update accordingly. Being Prepared is great, however, getting advance notice to implement them is crucial. As weather seems to be our biggest threat, especially, severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes. You can wait for a public warning issued by Emergency Management or you can “cut out the middle man” and get your information from the same source as municipal authorities do and save a few minutes and perhaps save lives. We are suggesting this as it is always better to have several sources for your information in case one fails or is delayed. All weather warnings originate from the same source – The National Weather Service and are specific for our area. One way of getting the weather warnings is to download the FEMA app to your smart phone and when the NWS issues a warning for the area you selected in the app you will be notified when a severe weather warning is issued. There are a multitude of weather apps available for free. Find the app that is easy to use and meets your needs. If you are person of habit, that is checks their email or calendar before you start your day consider adding checking the NWS website on a daily basis. Knowing the weather for the day or even week will help you plan around weather. Consider an inexpensive weather alert radio for your home. It will sit there quiet until a weather alert issued. You can set the radio for your specific location and for what alerts you will hear. When it comes to hurricanes one good thing for us we are usually given several days notice. The best place for this information is the National Hurricane Center website https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ They will track a tropical disturbance up until it becomes a hurricane and then until it dissipates. The website shows in graphic form predictive information where and when the winds will start in our area and storm surge information. On the left hand side of this webpage on https://ready.northwildwood.com are links to websites that you should take a moment to review. There has been no time in our history that there so much real time weather information available literately at our fingertips on our smart phone. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with these resources and when you need to use them you will know what to do.
