SUMMIT COUNTY, OHIO—County Executive Ilene Shapiro is pleased to announce Summit County is officially certified StormReady, a designation provided by the National Weather Service. Summit County is one of only 39 counties statewide to receive the designation.
The StormReady program uses a grassroots approach to help communities develop plans to handle all types of extreme weather—from tornadoes to winter storms. 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. According to NWS, communities that are StormReady can help save more lives during severe weathers events.
“As we continue to see more severe, and even extreme weather events, Summit County is doing all we can to make sure we are as prepared as possible to react and respond in order to protect our community,” said County Executive Shapiro. “We are proud to receive this certification and grateful for the support of the National Weather Service.”
The County’s Emergency Management Agency (EMA) led the charge to receive the designation. To be become StormReady, EMA demonstrated Summit County met the following requirements:
- 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.
“StormReady ensures our abilities and our commitment to our residents that we are well prepared using technology, planning, and community involvement to respond to and remain resilient through weather-related events and disasters,” said EMA Director Thomas Smoot.
“Storms come and go, but not our Emergency Management Team. They are here with us 24/7, they put their head down and work relentlessly on keeping us safe,” said District 4 Council Member and Public Safety Chair Jeff Wilhite. “The work of the County and the Public Safety team gives you a sense of how safe we really are.”
County Executive Shapiro and her EMA team remind residents there are two free tools they can use to stay alert and prepared for disasters, severe weather, and emergencies. The first is Revere Alert, a service that provides warnings for threats to health and safety by sending emergency messages to email addresses, devices for the hard of hearing and telephone lines. Residents can register for Reverse Alerts at https://summitoh.regroup.com/signup.
Residents may also use the EMA Mobile Application to receive push notifications similar to Reverse Alert but with additional features. These features include the ability to create an emergency plan and share it with your family and friends, free access to the NOAA weather radio system, and traffic updates from the Ohio Department of Transportation. The EMA App is free, so sign up at apps.myocv.com/share/a49644308.
A recording of the event is available at https://fb.watch/gp45nZiDv1/.
