We are in the heart of severe weather season, and it is important for your family to feel comfortable and confident in your safety plan! Technology has come a long way and we are now able as meteorologists to give people 15 minutes, sometimes longer, lead time ahead of a tornado potentially being in their area. During those 15 minutes, you don’t want to be questioning where your safe place is in your home or what you need to bring with you in your safe place!
First the safest place inside of your home if you don’t have a basement is the lowest level of your house and the most interior room. You want to surround yourself with as many walls protecting you from the outside winds of a tornado. If you don’t have an interior room, I always tell people a bathroom is preferred because the pipes inside the bathroom walls can act to reinforce the walls and it can be a little more secure.
Next, you need to have a storm shelter kit, ready all storm season long and just keep it in your safe place. Inside of your safety kit, you’ll want to have things like a flashlight and fresh batteries, charging bricks that you can plug your phone into in case the power goes out, water and snacks for your kids.
A NOAA weather radio that operates on battery power is also preferred just in case the power is out and you need to stay up-to-date on weather information.
You never want to think about your home receiving damage from a tornado, but it’s better to prepare ahead of time. Having a first aid kit handy in your safety kit, along with a folder of your important documents. In the event of damage you want documents like your insurance information nearby!
I also recommend you have helmets and tennis shoes for every member of your house. Tornadoes aren’t necessarily harmful because of the wind that they pack themselves, it’s what that wind picks up. Any debris inside a tornado can act as projectiles that could lead to injury.
If you’re like me and have a little one at home, I always put some of her favorite stuffed animals or books inside of her safe place to also help her feel more comfortable if we do have to shelter.
News Channel 5 has recently started a Safe Places program, where we list open churches and nonprofits on our website that open during severe weather as a safe place to go. I am so happy that my hometown in Wilson County now has one safe location in our system that recently opened during April storms at the Lebanon first United Methodist Church. These shelters are crucial to help our friends and neighbors who live in mobile homes or vulnerable housing who don’t have a safe place to go and we need more of them! If you know of any church or nonprofit that would like to help in the fight to keep people safe during storms, please have them reach out to me safeplaces@newschannel5.com.