StormReady

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 flooding. 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.

In March 2001, Norwich was recognized by the National Weather Service as New York's first StormReady city, and one of the first 85 counties/communities in the nation

Peter Ahnert (right), Meteorologist-In-Charge, National Weather Service in Binghamton, presents a StormReady sign to then-Mayor Robert C. Raphael, Jr. (middle) and Emergency Management Director A. Wesley Jones (left).

StormReady communities are better prepared to save lives from the onslaught of severe weather through better planning, education, and awareness. No community is storm proof, but StormReady can help communities save lives.

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.

To learn more about StormReady, visit the National Weather Service StormReady
homepage at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/stormready