I’ve been visiting friends in Kansas City this past week,
and the weather here has been a severe change from what we experience in
Georgia. First, we seem to have brought
rain to the area after they’ve been in a seven-month drought. Then the rain turned to snow, a two-inch
total and almost the first snowfall of the winter for them.
In the middle of the week we got a call from our daughter
back in Augusta. It seems they have
also had some storms there in our absence, and Cathy lost power for a few
hours. Even more worrisome, some trees in the small glade behind her house were
blown over. Fortunately, they didn’t fall toward her fence or house.
That same storm included a tornado that hit the town of
Adair, Georgia and killed one of its residents.
Why did I bring all that weather-related information
up? Well, it got me thinking about a
topic I’ve had rolling around in my brain for a couple of years that concerns
severe weather alerts that we hear on radio and see on TV.
Whenever there is a severe weather alert broadcast, the
meteorologist always refers to the counties involved in the alert. If you’re
watching television, there is usually a scroll bar with all the counties
involved accompanied by a small weather map with the affected area
highlighted.
Question: Do you
know what counties surround you?
When I’m driving and I hear a severe weather broadcast, I
have no idea where that storm is unless it is in one of the counties that
comprise the Augusta metropolitan area.
Those are Richmond and Columbia Counties. I also know that McDuffie County is just to the west of us—good
information to know, since most storms track west to east.
If there is any other county affected, forget it. I haven’t a clue whether the weather alert applies
to me or not. Now, that ignorance could
be critical and life threatening.
The friend we are visiting has a 4X6-inch, laminated map of
the counties in Kansas. It is there to assist when the weather service issues a
warning. It came from the local police department, I guess I don’t have to tell
you that Kansas is always in danger of getting severe weather during tornado
season. Most of the Midwest is, and
lately, the rest of the country has also gotten a lot of severe weather.
If you cannot get a laminated map from your local police or
sheriff department, there is a way to produce your own county map. Go online and type into your search engine
the words, “(state) Counties Map” without the quotes. Substitute your state at the beginning. Once you have the map on
screen, copy and reduce it to whatever size you want and then print it.
Since this is a life saving tip, I recommend that you pass
it along to all your family and friends.
There is one other aspect to this severe weather topic. I used to live in Omaha, another city
located in what is known as “Tornado Alley.”
I took the advice of our local weather team and bought one of those
weather alert radios that broadcast alerts from the National Weather Service
when a storm is in the area. It turned
out to be a huge inconvenience, because it would wake us up in the middle of
the night to alert us to severe weather in a 100-mile radius—usually at the
outer limit and nowhere near us.
Needless to report, that little radio was relegated to the trash.
