Winter is coming – are you prepared?

When the rem­nants of Super­storm Sandy hit Ohio on Octo­ber 29, it struck with a vengeance. It brought tor­ren­tial winds, flood­ing, snow and ice. It downed trees and power lines, leav­ing more than 250,000 Ohioans with­out power for day. Super­storm Sandy showed Ohio, the East Coast and other states just how unpre­dictable weather can be. Super­storm Sandy, with all of its dev­as­tat­ing destruc­tion, re-emphasizes the impor­tance of severe weather safety and preparedness.

Sun­day, Novem­ber 11 kicked off Ohio’s Win­ter Safety Aware­ness Week. In Gov­er­nor John R. Kasich’s res­o­lu­tion it states, “Win­ter Safety Aware­ness Week cre­ates the oppor­tu­nity for Ohioans to pre­pare their homes, schools, busi­nesses and orga­ni­za­tions for the upcom­ing months of poten­tial severe win­ter weather and con­di­tions asso­ci­ated with it, such as snow and ice storms, flood­ing from rapid thaws, (and) extended power out­ages caused by win­ter storms.”

As part of a coor­di­nated effort with the Ohio Com­mit­tee for Severe Weather Aware­ness (OCSWA), Gov. Kasich encour­ages Ohioans to update their safety plans, replen­ish their dis­as­ter sup­ply kits to sus­tain all house­hold mem­bers for sev­eral days, and pre­pare them­selves and their prop­erty for winter-related incidents.

“Super­storm Sandy rein­forced to us all the impor­tance of severe weather and emer­gency pre­pared­ness,” said Nancy Dra­gani, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Ohio Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency. “If you’re using a gen­er­a­tor as an alter­na­tive power source, make sure you read the safety direc­tions to avoid car­bon monox­ide poi­son­ing. Install smoke and car­bon monox­ide detec­tors, and ensure they’re work­ing prop­erly. Con­duct fire drills to ensure that every­one knows two ways out of any room.”

To help pre­pare for the upcom­ing win­ter months, OCSWA rec­om­mends the following:

• Pre­pare your home for win­ter. Cut and remove low-hanging and dead tree branches. Ice, snow and strong winds can cause tree limbs to break and fall. Have your gut­ters cleaned. Snow and ice can build up quickly if gut­ters are clogged with debris. Have aux­il­iary heaters, fur­naces and fire­places main­te­nance checked or ser­viced before using. If using a portable gen­er­a­tor, read instruc­tions thor­oughly to guard against car­bon monox­ide poi­son­ing. Review your homeowner’s insur­ance pol­icy; con­sider your need for flood insurance.

• Pre­pare win­ter dis­as­ter kits for the home and vehi­cle. Refresh stored non­per­ish­able foods and bot­tled water. Change the bat­ter­ies in your smoke detec­tors, car­bon monox­ide detec­tors and radios. Win­ter emer­gency kits should include warm cloth­ing, blan­kets, flash­lights, new bat­ter­ies, coats, hats, gloves, a battery-operated or hand-cranked radio, first aid kit, and enough non­per­ish­able food and water (one gal­lon per per­son, per day) to sus­tain every fam­ily mem­ber for sev­eral days. Have stored food, bot­tled water and sup­plies for your pets, as well.

• Invest in a NOAA Pub­lic Alert/Weather Radio. Every home, school and busi­ness should have a tone-alert weather radio with a bat­tery back-up. Weather and pub­lic alert radios are pro­grammed to auto­mat­i­cally sound an alert dur­ing pub­lic safety and severe weather events. Click on < www.weather.gov/nwr/ > for addi­tional information.

• Update your dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness plans. Every home, school, busi­ness and orga­ni­za­tion should have writ­ten plans for the dif­fer­ent types of dis­as­ters that can occur. Review the plans with the entire fam­ily or staff. Every­one should know what to do in the event of a snow or ice storm, a pro­longed power out­age, a flood or fire. Post con­tact infor­ma­tion for your local emer­gency man­age­ment agency. Pre­pare and prac­tice drills that require shel­ter­ing in place and evac­u­a­tion. Update your emer­gency con­tact list and estab­lish a meet­ing place out­side of the home, school or busi­ness, where oth­ers will know where to find or meet you.

The Ohio Com­mit­tee for Severe Weather Aware­ness is an advo­cate for emer­gency pre­pared­ness and is com­prised of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Amer­i­can Red Cross; Emer­gency Man­age­ment Asso­ci­a­tion of Ohio; National Weather Ser­vice; Hands On, Cen­tral Ohio; Ohio Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safety-Emergency Man­age­ment Agency; Ohio Insur­ance Insti­tute; Ohio Depart­ment of Com­merce – State Fire Mar­shal; and the Ohio Depart­ments of Aging, Edu­ca­tion, Health, Insur­ance, Nat­ural Resources and Transportation.

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion on win­ter weather safety and severe weather pre­pared­ness, visit OCSWA’s site at < www.weathersafety.ohio.gov >.

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.