Indiana Severe Weather Preparedness Week making sure that Hoosiers are storm ready

 

This week, March 10-16, has been declared Severe Weather Preparedness Week by Governor Holcomb. For those of us here in Indiana, this is a week dedicated to knowing what to do and how to stay safe when severe weather strikes.

Hoosiers deserve to be informed of planning and preparedness best practices that help minimize the number of weather-related deaths and injuries.

-- Governor Eric Holcomb

Today’s focus is on warnings, and as a part of this week, a statewide tornado drill will be conducted later this morning at 10:15AM.

The alert will go out through the emergency alert system to outdoor sirens, some but not all radio and TV stations, and NOAA weather radios. Wireless emergency alerts or WEAs which are the alerts sent to our phones will not be included in this test.

Although the alert going out later today will require no action and is just a test, it’s a good time to make sure your severe weather safety plan is in order. Step one is to know what to do when severe weather strikes - if a tornado warning goes off, where do you go?

If you’re at home, you want to get to the lowest level of your house, ideally a basement. If you don’t have one, find the innermost room away from any windows. A good rule of thumb is to put as many walls between you and the outdoors as possible.

What if your home wouldn’t make a good storm shelter - like an apartment off ground level or a mobile home? The next step would be to find out if one of your friends, family members, or neighbors has a home that would make a good shelter and see if you can join them. If the answer to that question is still “no”, seek out the nearest storm shelter.

Locating your safe spot is important to do before severe weather is in the forecast so that you don’t have to put much thought into it when the time comes.

For more information on Severe Weather Preparedness Week, visit the Indianapolis NWS office’s webpage.