RVARC Disaster Preparedness

The best way to weather a disaster safely and with minimal financial impact is to prepare in advance. Use the links below from the Virginia Deprtment of Emergency Management to learn about how you can make sure that when disaster strikes, you and your family are ready.

Being prepared for emergencies is crucial at home, school, work and in your community. Disaster can strike quickly and without warning. It can force you to evacuate your neighborhood, workplace or school or can confine you to your home. What would you do if basic services – water, gas, electricity or telephones – were cut off? Local officials and relief workers will be on the scene after a disaster, but they cannot reach everyone right away. The best way to make you and your family safer is to be prepared before disaster strikes. Visit the American Red Cross Be Prepared web site for information on preparing for disasters.

The probability for at least one major Category 3, 4 or 5 hurricane landfall on the East Coast is 64 percent, 33 points over the average for the last century. Many people believe that a major hurricane cannot affect them because they do not live on the coast or that there is nothing they can do to protect themselves. But, it could happen to you, and there are simple, low-cost steps families and businesses can take to get ready: get a kit, make a plan, listen for instructions and learn your evacuation routes. Visit the Virginia Department of Emergency Management Hurricane page for more information.

Floods happen in all 50 states: on coasts, on mountains, along rivers, in the desert, in towns and cities of every size. The naural disaster that poses the greatest threat to the RVARC region is flooding. The most important thing you can do to protect yourself from financial loss is to have flood insurance. Floods can also pose life-threatening risks to you and your family. Find out what to do before a flood, during a flood and after a flood at the FLOODSMART web site.

Lightning is random, unpredictable and second only to flash floods in causing storm-related deaths in the United States. Virginia has more than 300,000 lightning strikes per year, with the majority occurring during the summer months. Though southeastern Virginia tends to receive the most lightning strikes of any other region in Virginia, all areas of the Commonwealth have the potential for lightning strikes. Lightning has killed 63 people in Virginia and injured at least 263 between 1959 and 2005, according to the National Weather Service. Except for flash floods, lightning kills more people in the United States than any other meteorological phenomenon, including tornadoes and hurricanes. Visit the Virginia Department of Emergency Management Lightning page.

StormReady is a nationwide community preparedness program that uses a grassroots approach to help communities develop plans to handle all types of severe weather. 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.

For more information on what is required for your community see the National Weather Service How to Become StormReady page.

The national Firewise Communities program is a multi-agency effort designed to reach beyond the fire service by involving homeowners, community leaders, planners, developers, and others in the effort to protect people, property, and natural resources from the risk of wildland fire - before a fire starts.

The Firewise Communities approach emphasizes community responsibility for planning in the design of a safe community as well as effective emergency response, and individual responsibility for safer home construction and design, landscaping, and maintenance. For more information visit the national Firewise page or the Virginia Department of Forestry's Firewise page.

Ready America is a framework designed to launch a process of learning about citizen preparedness. One of the primary mandates of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is to educate the public, on a continuing basis, about how to be prepared in case of a national emergency - including a possible terrorist attack. Take some time to stay informed about how to react to even unlikely scenarios. You should be prepared to adapt this information to your personal circumstances and make every effort to follow instructions received from authorities on the scene. For the most current information and recommendations, visit Ready.gov .

National Weather Radio (NWR) is a nationwide network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Service office . NWR broadcasts National Weather Service warnings, watches, forecasts and other hazard information 24 hours a day. Working with the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) Emergency Alert System , NWR is an "All Hazards" radio network, making it your single source for comprehensive weather and emergency information.

In conjunction with Federal, State, and Local Emergency Managers and other public officials, NWR also broadcasts warning and post-event information for all types of hazards. NWR is provided as a public service by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), part of the Department of Commerce. NWR includes more than 940 transmitters , covering all 50 states. NWR requires a special radio receiver or scanner capable of picking up the signal. The regional NWR transmitters are WXM72 (162.425) and WXL60 (162.475).

For more information about mitigating the impacts of local disasters, visit the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission's Regional Pre-Disaster Mitigation Planning site.

The Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plan focuses on natural disasters and their potential impacts. The Plan process consisted of public participation, risk assessment, mitigation strategy, and plan maintenance procedures.

The resulting plan provides the localities within the Regional Commission’s service area with the necessary information and strategies to make informed decisions concerning hazard mitigation activities