Jefferson Davis County has been named a StormReady county. Officials with the National Weather Service in Jackson made the presentation to Jefferson Davis County Emergency Management Director Jocelyn Ragsdale on Oct. 18.

“Being storm ready moves Jefferson Davis County one step toward greater community resilience,” said Ragsdale. “Moving in a positive direction, let us all do our part to stay weather aware and continue to prepare for worst case scenarios. Preparedness saves lives.”

The Town of Prentiss was named a StormReady community years ago.

The StormReady program helps arm America’s communities with the communication and safety skills needed to save lives and property before, during and after the event. StormReady helps community leaders and emergency managers strengthen local safety programs.

StormReady communities, counties, Indian nations, universities and colleges, military bases, government sites, commercial enterprises and other groups are better prepared to save lives from the onslaught of severe weather through advanced planning, education and awareness. No community is storm proof, but StormReady can help communities save lives.

StormReady uses a grassroots approach to help communities develop plans to handle all types of extreme weather from tornadoes to winter storms. 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. Applying is easy.

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 hold emergency exercises.