NOAA’s National Weather Service praises Anne Arundel County, Maryland’s Department of Emergency Management for completing a set of rigorous criteria necessary to earn the distinction of being declared StormReady.

Anne Arundel County has joined other communities in Maryland and across the nation declared by the National Weather Service as “StormReady.”

As described by the National Weather Service,

StormReady uses a grassroots approach to help communities develop plans to handle all types of severe weather—from tornadoes to tsunamis. 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.

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.

Upon receiving the StormReady recognition, County Executive Steve Schuh stated,

“Safeguarding our communities from dangerous weather and other potential threats is a daily priority in Anne Arundel County, and we appreciate this recognition from our partners at the National Weather Service.”

For more information about the StormReady program, see the National Weather Service.

To see if you live in a StormReady community, see this list of Maryland’s StormReady counties and communities.