(Spirit Lake)– We’re in the midst of Severe Weather Awareness Week in the state of Iowa. Today’s (Thurs.) is on preparedness. Dickinson County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Ehret says there are things we should be doing now, before the season starts…
“We always tell people try to have enough supplies on hand to get through for three days. And you look at what happened last year with the derecho there were places that were without power for a week or better. So have supplies on hand to get you through the first 72 hours. For more immediate needs, you know, in your shelter make sure you’re going to shelter with regular hard sole shoes. If you have to leave your home after it’s been struck there’s probably a lot of debris laying around. You don’t want to be walking around barefoot. Have water and some nonperishable foods and things like that there as well. A first aid kit is good. Another thing they don’t stress around here as much but you hear more about it down south, helmets. If you think about it, we’ve all seen videos of tornadoes going through. There’s a lot of debris flying around in the air. You don’t want to get hit anywhere, especially in the head, with that debris that’s flying around. So if you have bicycle helmets, old sporting helmets of some sort, whatever, whatever you can put on to protect your head, that’s another good item to have in your shelter.”
We conclude the observance of Severe Weather Awareness Week tomorrow (Fri.) when the topic will be on the dangers of flooding.
