Federal weather agency unveils new storm preparation plan

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -- American communities would adopt a uniform set of techniques to better react to natural disasters under a program developed by the National Weather Service. <br><br>Called Storm

Friday, March 3rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -- American communities would adopt a uniform set of techniques to better react to natural disasters under a program developed by the National Weather Service.

Called Storm Ready, the program was formed by the National Weather Service office in Tulsa, which has long been charged with staving off disaster in the country's "Tornado Alley" region.

Tulsa meteorologist Lans Rothfusz said it only made sense to come up with a set of storm-fighting standards in a country that sees an average of more than 1,000 tornadoes, 1,000 flash floods and 10 hurricanes per year.

"There are checklists in place for things you need to do for hazardous material handling and other events, so why not weather?" Rothfusz said Thursday. "If we put out a warning and people don't respond to it, we're not doing our job."

The program calls for regional advisory boards to examine cities that apply to participate. Cities dubbed "Storm Ready" would be re-evaluated every two years.

They must have in place a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center. They also must develop more than one method of alerting the public in case of a storm and have a weather-monitoring system. A public readiness program involving seminars and exercises also is required.

National Weather Service Director John J. Kelly Jr. said the long-term program will aim to qualify 20 Storm Ready cities each year. "The fact of life in the United States, by and large, is not if severe weather is going to occur, it's when it's going to occur," Kelly said. "And when it occurs -- particularly with tornadoes -- we need to be ready in advance figuring out what to do, not figuring out what to do after the weather occurs."

Rothfusz said that's hard to do -- even in a part of the country where severe weather watches are as much a part of the television lineup as talk shows.

He said of the cities his office examined in a yearlong pilot program in eastern Oklahoma and parts of Arkansas, only a handful had emergency management systems that would qualify as Storm Ready.

"A lot of these guys were flying by the seat of the pants and some were doing it very well because they had leadership and managers that were able to put together very solid and very good programs," Rothfusz said. "But other communities weren't quite that way."

He said the May 3 tornadoes that killed 44 people in central Oklahoma and caused about $1 billion in damage in the state opened a lot of eyes to the importance of storm preparation. "Some folks might think they have good programs and when they really take a hard look at it, they realize they have some potential for failure," he said.
"Prepared communities do save lives."