Severe Weather Preparedness: What You Need to Survive

You need a plan in the event of a weather emergency. Keep reading to hone your severe weather preparedness skills to help your odds of survival.   It seems to happen when you least expect it. The storm you thought wasn’t a big deal turned out to be massive. Unfortunately, not everyone takes extreme weather seriously. But with climate change creating more severe weather events, you need to make sure you prepare for worse storms.  Luckily, there are some simple steps you can take to get ready.   Below are five steps that will help your severe weather preparedness plan.  

1. Create a Plan

Do you know what to do when a storm hits? If not, you need to create a plan. Not all weather events are the same, so you need to be prepared to handle each one of them. Once you have your plans in place, you should take time to practice them. Involve your family in the process and practice regularly. If you have community centers that you frequent in emergencies, check with them to see what their disaster plans are. You can involve them in your plans.  

2. Sign up for Emergency Alerts

All the plans in the world won’t help you if you don’t know a storm is coming. Weather services offer emergency alerts that will tell you when a storm is coming. You can get your alerts in many forms. A popular way to get alerts now is smartphones. If you can’t get a phone alert for some reason, make sure you listen for the emergency sirens that play during bad weather.  

3. Prepare Your Home

Different regions are at risk for different severe weather events. It’s essential to understand which ones you’re at risk for and prepare your home for them. If you are in a hurricane area, you will need to make sure your home is boarded up to prepare for high winds. For people at risk for blizzards, they will need to watch for freezing and prepare salt for areas they need to walk. By preparing your home for the weather, you can reduce the damage the storm causes.  

4. Buy a Power Generator

If you’ve made it through the storm, congratulations. But what happens when you don’t have power after a storm? If you’re in the middle of summer or winter, you need electricity to keep your house a comfortable temperature. Power generators can do this for you. A simple portable generator can handle your power needs. Connect it with your vital appliances so you can keep comfortable and stop your food from spoiling while you don’t have power.  

5. Keep an Emergency Kit

Do you have the supplies necessary to treat injuries? If not, you’re going to be relying on emergency services to get to you. If there is a serious event with a lot of damage, emergency services will likely be handling a lot of calls. Having a kit will allow you to handle problems until a paramedic gets to you.   Take Severe Weather Preparedness Seriously It seems like people never think it will ever happen to them. But suffering damage from severe weather can happen to anyone. Use the severe weather preparedness tips above to prepare in case the worst does happen. Article submitted by Lara Buck.