Madison County is StormReady

Madison County is certified “Storm Ready.”

On Tuesday, Kevin Deitsch, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service St. Louis presented a StormReady recognition certificate along with a metal road sign to Madison County Emergency Management Agency Director Anthony Falconio and Chairman Kurt Prenzler at the Administration Building.

“Recognition as a StormReady community is a great honor to the agency, and county as a whole,” Falconio said.

Falconio said the certification means that Madison County did everything possible to be fully prepared for extreme weather conditions, such a storms, tornados and flooding.

“The county is appreciative of all the work done by EMA and its volunteers,” Prenzler said.

The StormReady Program is designed to help communities prepare for severe weather with the communications and safety skills needed to save lives and property-before, during, and after a weather related incident occurs.

In order to receive such recognition the county had to demonstrate competency in certain areas of storm preparedness such as providing timely alerts to the public and public safety agencies. Other areas demonstrated were the abilities to have trained storm spotters and ways to communicate weather conditions to the National Weather Service during a severe weather event.

To be 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.

Visit www.weather.gov/StormReady to find out more about the NWS program.

The StormReady recognition is awarded for a three-year period and is renewed by inspection through NWS.

“StormReady means that we are ready to respond to whatever Mother Nature wants to throw at us and that is a reflection of the team we have built at Madison County EMA,” Falconio said.