National Weather Service Forecast Office

The National Weather Service Recognizes Chemung County, New York as StormReady

From left to right:Dave Nicosia, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, National Weather Service Binghamton, Tom Santulli, Chemung County Chief Executive, Mike Smith, Chemung County Emergency Management Director, Kristin Card, Chemung County Emergency Planner, Tom Pesekey, Chemung County 911 Director and Deputy Director Emergency Management.

In a ceremony held in Elmira,NY Wednesday August 25th, the National Weather Service recognized Chemung County as StormReady. At the beginning of the ceremony, Chemung County's Chief Executive Tom Santulli commented on how important it is to be StormReady given the frequency of natural disasters and especially flooding in Chemung County. Tom gave much accolades to his Emergency Management Staff which includes Mike Smith, Director, Tom Pesesky, Deputy Director and Emergency planner Kristin Card. Kristin was specifically acknowledged as she organized and spearheaded the efforts in Chemung County for acheiving StormReady.

Warning Coordination Meteorlogist, David Nicosia presented a StormReady certificate and two StormReady roadsigns to the entire staff of Chemung County's Emergency Management Office and Tom Santulli Chief Executive. Dave discussed the history and background of the StormReady program and the importance of a strong partnership between the National Weather Service and Emergency Management to achieve our shared mission's of protecting people from disasters.

Chemung County joins 10 other counties in New York designated as StormReady and 768 other counties or communities nationwide.

StormReady is a nationwide community preparedness program that uses a grassroots approach to help communities develop plans to handle all types of severe weather from tornadoes to blizzards. 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.

Specifically StormReady Counties have to meet the following criteria to achieve this recognition:

To be officially StormReady, a community must:

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.

For more Information on the StormReady program, check out the following web site: http://www.stormready.noaa.gov


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