Tornadoes in Collin County, but are we StormReady?

Watching FOX 4's coverage of the Anna tornado in northern Collin County has me wondering if Flower Mound will ever take the necessary steps to become an official StormReady community.

StormReady is a program established by the National Weather Service to help communities better prepare to act in the event of severe weather. Highland Village, Plano, Southlake, Coppell, Frisco are among several North Texas cities who have taken the necessary steps to get certified. Why not Flower Mound?

I e-mailed the Town's emergency management coordinator, and here's the thoughtful reply I received a few days later:

Flower Mound has met many of the criteria of becoming a StormReady Community. We still need to purchase some weather radios for the fire stations and some hydrometerological monitors. Unfortunately, my budget last year would not allow for those purchases but if things continue on track I hope to be able to purchase them at the end of this budget cycle. We are also working with the county to pursue a federal grant to purchase a reverse 911 system for the entire county.

We work closely with the National Weather Service and Gary Woodall comes out once or twice a year to teach the Storm Spotters and Severe Weather Awareness class. If you are interested I can contact you the next time we have one scheduled.

We also have a very active Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program in Flower Mound and just recently graduated our fifth team with another training session starting in September. If you are not familiar with the CERT program I would be more than happy to send you some more information.

Thanks Karen! This is very good news for the Town, and yes, please let me know how I can help the Town with severe weather preparations. I know Gary Woodall, and he's a terrific resource. I know quite a bit about North Texas severe weather, from 30 years of living here, plus 10 years of working with severe weather at the TV station, and doing a lot of research on the side.

Here's a link to the Town's Emergency Management Department web page -- there's good information here that you should check out.

I'd like to take the CERT training. Have any of you taken the class? What do you learn? Post a comment.