Craighead County's Office of Emergency Management is preparing for the potential for some wintry weather heading into the area over the coming days. KASU's Brandon Tabor spoke to the office's director, Anthony Coy, about what his office is doing. Coy also shared some tips that we can use to stay safe.
Introduction to Winter Weather Preparedness
Brandon Tabor: So what plans does the county have in place for preparing for the winter weather?
Anthony Coy: I would say, as far as our road department, our highway department their main job on the beginning is just making sure that their equipment's ready to go for the winter weather. In some of the other county offices, it's just business as normal. And then in the Office of Emergency Management our position as winter weather approaches is really just being ready to support any of our partners across the county, whether it's cities, counties whoever needs some sort of support from our office.
We're just being ready to to respond to that or assist in that should it be needed. A big portion of the time as winter weather approaches, usually the first one of the year tends to catch people a little more off guard. And so a lot of time is spent putting out the reminders of things to do to help mitigate any potential damages or problems if in fact that winter weather and inclement weather does arrive.
Preparation Tips for Winter Weather
Brandon Tabor: Is it too late for our listeners to prepare for the winter weather?
Anthony Coy: It's never too late. You know the old adage of getting your milk and bread. It's never too late to go get it, but you may get to the point where stores are running out of those resources.
And the same would apply to anything that you were going to prepare for ahead of time. Obviously the , earlier that you prepare. The better the chances of finding what you need or what you want to have things like, if you have outdoor faucets where you live, making sure those are covered and insulated. Things at a bare minimum of, if you have those faucets, make sure that your water hoses are unhooked from those faucets.
And if you don't have the faucet covers, like you can buy in the store and you don't have time to go get one, you can always take towels, dry towels and wrap that faucet. And, if you have to put tape around it, just to make an insulation blanket around something like that. Other people utilize materials such as ice melt or, things to keep walkways clear. Sometimes just having a shovel, can do a lot of good toward doing that without having to use the products that you can distribute, like rock salt or ice melt or things like that.
Of course, we get into other preparedness items in other aspects of your house, like with water pipes and such as that too.
Safety Measures During Winter Weather
Brandon Tabor: Let's say that the weather finally hits, it's cold, it's snowy outside, the roads are icy. What are some things that people can do to stay safe when the weather hits?
Anthony Coy: Number one, first and foremost, if you don't have to get out, don't. People like times when they can stay home and stream their favorite show or whatever play their video game.
If you can stay home and do that, do so. Don't get out just to see what it's like everywhere else. There will be enough social media pictures on those platforms or pictures shared to television media. You will see what it looks like elsewhere. You don't have to get out and drive in it. If you're driving, those problems can sneak up on you. And it is too late. You really don't realize you have a problem until you're already in it. And so that's the number one rule is just stay home if you can. Number two is, stay warm where you're at. We want our place where you live or where we're at, we want it to be comfortable. And everybody has different levels of comfort, but don't let your place get too cold. That cold air can be causing other problems with maybe your pipes in your residence or something like that. So maintain that heat in your residence the best you can.
If it becomes sunny, but there's, still snow on the ground. Let that sunlight come in. It'll help warm your residents and help keep you warm.
Brandon Tabor: I can imagine too, on the flip side of that, for those people who don't like the cold and turn up the heat some of those people might have heaters in their homes and they feel tempted to turn up the heat. What about those people?
Anthony Coy: We're all that way. I've been guilty of that before. If everybody turns up their heat our electric providers can certainly accommodate that, but it means that we're using more power and they need to get more power for us, which generally becomes more expensive.
Plus, it can tax the electrical grid to the point where the electrical company's provider is now having to balance the load to make sure that they can try to serve all the customers.
So there are ways that we can warm our residents or our workplace or something without always having to turn up the heat. You mentioned, if someone has a space heater , those are generally very safe items to use, but use them in accordance with the safe operation of those.
Don't have them anywhere near anything combustible. Don't use outdoor type heaters or grills or anything like that indoors. Number one, they're not designed for that. Number two, they can create carbon monoxide fumes which can kill you and you don't, you just go to sleep and you never wake up because it's odorless, colorless, tasteless.
You don't know that it's there until it's too late. So make sure if you're using a heating device indoors that it's number one designed to be used indoors and, number two, that you're keeping the area around it free from anything that could become flammable.
Dealing with Power Outages and Warming Centers
Brandon Tabor: So let's say that, the power is out and they are without heat.
I know here in Jonesboro there are several different warming shelters that are open at the community center and then at the Salvation Army. What about for people who don't live in Jonesboro? Where can they go in the county to get warm?
Anthony Coy: You know that, and that's something that we always have to think about. Most of the time when you have a warming center or an overnight shelter, and there is a difference between the two, because generally a warming center this time of year, even a cooling center in the summer, those places will have a schedule that they shut down for the night.
They are generally not an overnight facility. Whereas a shelter like you mentioned, Salvation Army, something like that, they will be prepared for people to spend the night. So most of the time, those are opened by our municipalities across the county if they are able to and choose to because if you think about it, most of the time, those cities and towns or even faith based locations, they will have some sort of facility that can accommodate that kind of operation.
If you think about it, the county government most of the time does not have a facility located in the county where they can accommodate something like that. Some counties do, but not all. So across Craighead County, at this time, I've been notified of three warming centers that are planning to be opened in the City of Jonesboro.
You mentioned the Salvation Army. And there may be more as time goes along. And probably on social media, you'll see some of those posts shared from other cities and counties outside of Craighead that, that can accommodate that kind of need should it be there, and those warming centers can vary on what services that they're able to offer.
Some may offer meals while you're there. Some may not. They may offer just a warm fluids, coffee or hot chocolate or something, which when it's cold like this, that can go a long way. They may have the ability to charge a phone or something like that, but generally those warming centers are not, will not be designed for an overnight stay.
They're just not equipped to handle that.
Brandon Tabor: If someone does suffer any kind of emergency outside of needing a warm place to go to what can they do?
Anthony Coy: Of course, our public safety responders, police, fire, E. M. S. It's business as usual for them. The downside of that is, we talked about it earlier, for our law enforcement personnel and even fire and E. M. S. , because they respond to motor vehicle accidents as well. A lot of times our resources get taxed when this kind of event happens, because people were out driving that really do not need to be driving on snow or icy conditions and maybe get involved in an accident.
Now we've tied up resources working the accident. That's just part of doing the business, but it could have been prevented. But the main thing to remember is that those emergency calls that we would have on any other day of the week and year, they're still going to happen. And so we need to make sure that we're not tying up emergency resources for something that could have been prevented in lieu of those things that can't be prevented.
We want to make sure just that we're mindful of that and we know our public safety personnel they're definitely mindful of it and they'll continue to do everything in their power to answer all those calls and provide all those services.
Brandon Tabor: Anthony Coy, he is the Director of the Office of Emergency Management for Craighead County and we were talking about what to do for winter weather.
Thank you so much for taking the time out to speak with me.
Anthony Coy: You're very welcome.
Brandon Tabor: Coy also said to be careful to not overexert ourselves when preparing for the winter weather, especially for people who have cardiac issues. He said to remember to take frequent breaks when necessary.
In Jonesboro, I'm Brandon Tabor. KASU News.
