Residents building their weather buckets
September jumped off National Preparedness month, Leon County Government and the City of Tallahassee prepared local residents in the “Build Your Bucket” event on Saturday at the Capital Area Chapter of the American Red Cross.
The “Build Your Bucket” event invited local residents of the Tallahassee area to come and get informed on how to handle weather disasters.
Here in Florida, weather disasters are not uncommon, from hurricanes, tornadoes, tropical storms, wildfires, and floods all frequently affect communities in Florida.
Melissa Griffin, a representative for WeatherSTEM, a localized, state-of-art weather tracking system used throughout Leon County informed residents on what WeatherSTEM advocates for.
“We’re promoting weather awareness with public health and safety information on heat and lightning detection,” said Griffin. “Knowing about the weather and climate around you helps you to make good decisions.”
The event offered resourceful information to residents as they showed up to receive free weather buckets, and get an understanding of what they should do incase of a weather disaster.
Volunteers from Red Cross, Florida State University first responders, officials from WeatherSTEM and the Police Department were all in place to answer and give tips when needed.
Division director at Volunteer Leon Jerri Bush, showed how to build weather buckets and demonstrated how to make use of the items during a weather disaster.
Many families came out in support of the “Build Your Bucket” event, Keisha Larkin found it to be “constructive” for her and her children.
“I thought it was a very good tool for them to use in case they were home alone or if something happened to me they would be able to help me out.” said Larkin.
Larkin believed that the tips given to her aided her family in a positive way.
“We are a lot more equipped and a lot more prepared if anything happens, we have our kit and they [the kids] know what to do, we have numbers now and we know who to call so I think we will be okay.”
The “Build Your Bucket” event was to encourage residents and seek understanding for the necessary precautions to weather disasters.
FSU Emergency Management Director Dave Burjak mentioned how residents first need to take charge in being prepared.
“The first responsibility for you as an individual is to be prepared. For us, when we teach you how to be better prepared it will hopefully eliminate your need to seek our services if something happens,” Burjak said.
This was the first time that the county and city came together and put on the “Build a Bucket” event. Both were optimistic about continuing with the event in the future.
For more information visit the Leon County Emergency Information Portal at www.LeonCountyfl.gov/EI and the City of Tallahassee Emergency Mangaement at www.Talgov.com/Emergency.