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Kosciusko County has been “StormReady” since August, but because of the federal government shutdown and other delays, it wasn’t presented to the county commissioners until their meeting Tuesday morning.
Emergency Management Director Kip Shuter said, “For a while, since I took over, I’ve been trying to get us designated as a StormReady community, and that finally happened and we were designated that in August.”
Dustin Norman, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS), and Lonnie Fisher, NWS meteorologist, gave a presentation on what it means to be designated a StormReady community.
“The StormReady program was originally founded in Tulsa, Oklahoma, back in the late ’90s. It was really derived from - you had emergency management across the country doing all these various things to prepare the community for hazardous weather, but there was never any set guidelines or criteria” for groups of counties to follow, Norman explained.
StormReady was created as an effort to help better prepare communities. It was permanently founded in summer 2000, he said. Since then, it has expanded to over 1,600 counties across the country, including universities and other entities.
“Kip has (expended) a lot of effort into shoring up the plans for Kosciusko County - so what to do if a tornado or disaster strikes. Having those plans in place is paramount for efficient operations and recovery,” Norman said. “So Kip has developed plans ... for the county and given it to us and we developed that partnership and that relationship. When counties do this, it really helps to demonstrate that public safety is a number one priority.”
The NWS office for northern Indiana is along Ind. 13 between North Webster and Syracuse.
“We call Kosciusko County home, so it’s very significant for our office to finally get Kosciusko to be StormReady. So, super proud achievement for us and Kip and the rest of the county,” Norman said.
They presented Shuter with a certificate and letter, and a large sign for the county to place wherever it deems it fit.
“(It) really just helps to show the public that Kosciusko puts its citizens first,” Norman said.
Middle District County Commissioner Cary Groninger asked, “And that StormReady, this isn’t just for tornadoes? Is it for winter storms?”
Norman responded, “This is StormReady for all hazards. So having those plans in place, what to do, whether it’s severe weather, winter weather, flooding, all of those, those procedures are in place. Kosciusko is required to have that ongoing relationship with us: Multiple ways to receive warnings, multiple ways to disseminate warnings to the public. Run drills, training exercises. So that’s why the StormReady program really tries to bring all of those things together and build that partnership and that relationship.”
