Are You Prepared for Hurricane Season?

The official hurricane season begins June 1 and extends through November 30. In addition to preparing your family and home, your help is also essential to ensure the College is prepared for the hurricane/tropical storm season this year.

Now is a good time to review your departmental disaster preparedness plan so you know what your responsibilities are during weather emergencies. Any changes in personnel or equipment should be included in your site and departmental disaster preparedness plans. Also, remember to test your weather radios and replace the backup battery.

Does your plan include the following preparation steps?

1. Backup of critical computer data.
2. Storage of backup data to protect it from water and debris or moving it to an offsite location.
3. Instructions and assignments for faculty and staff to turn off computers, printers, scanners, and covering them with bags or sheet plastic to protect them from water and debris.

Facilities Services staff will be committed to campus-wide and college-wide preparations prior to the storm. Therefore they will not be able to perform the above responsibilities for your department. Please do your part to prepare your department and the College before the storms come. We will all be glad we took the time to prepare.

Tampa Bay Hurricane Guide

The Tampa Bay Hurricane Guide is published annually in a Sunday edition of the St. Petersburg Times newspaper in late May or early June. Be sure to obtain your copy or go to the SP Times website at www.sptimes.com and select the link to the Hurricane Guide for hurricane preparedness information.

If you do not know the evacuation zone for the area where you live, find out if or when you may need to evacuate when a storm approaches. Go to Pinellas County Emergency Management’s website to look up your evacuation level plus much more.

www.pinellascounty.org/emergency/default.htm

Additional Resources

To learn more about how to protect your family and property from the hazards of hurricanes, tropical storms, tornadoes and flooding, take some time to check out these websites:

Florida Emergency Management – www.floridadisaster.org

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – www.fema.gov/areyouready

Are You Ready? A Guide to Citizen Preparedness provides practical information on how your family can prepare for any disaster. It includes hazard specific safety tips for natural and human caused disasters and information to assist you in preparing and protecting your family during such emergencies. You may recognize the name of this publication from the red and white posters that are posted in classrooms and common areas around the College.

FEMA’s home page www.fema.gov also provides excellent web links and additional information about disaster preparedness for communities and the nation.