CHEYENNE – Every year, severe weather kills hundreds of people and injures thousands across the United States. In Platte County, residents see many of these killer hazards, ranging from tornadoes to floods to fire and everything in between.
Are residents ready to keep themselves, their families and their friends safe in the face of these hazards? Historically, the third week of April is the earliest that a tornado has ever occurred in Platte County. That’s why the National Weather Service and Platte County Emergency Management have designated April 26 as Severe Weather Awareness Day in Platte County.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for residents of our communities to think about what they will do when severe weather strikes,” Platte County Emergency Manager Terry Stevenson said.
As part of Severe Weather Awareness Day, Platte County will test outdoor sirens at approximately 10 a.m. in all communities in the county.
“This is an important step to ensure that the warning procedures including the outdoor siren system work as they should,” Stevenson said.
In addition to the outdoor warning siren tests, the Platte County School Districts will activate tornado drill procedures.
To cap off Severe Weather Awareness Day in Platte County, the NWS will teach a SKYWARN spotter training session to be held at the Wheatland Fire Training Center (759 E. Cole Street) at 6:30 p.m. This multi-media class will be about 90 minutes in length, completely free of charge and open to anyone interested in serving their communities by being a trained NWS storm spotter. Historical and recent severe weather episodes will also be discussed.
“Radar and satellite information tell us a lot about a storm, but trained storm spotters are essential to complete the picture with ground truth,” said Chad Hahn, warning coordination meteorologist with the NWS in Cheyenne.
For more information about severe weather safety and preparedness, visit the NWS website at:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/thunderstorm/
