Area Storm Spotters Get a Special Refresher

Some of the people who help keep us safe during severe weather got a refresher from the National Weather Service in Danville Tuesday evening. {Bill Pickett has more…

Joel Bird (shown above), Director of the Vermilion County Emergency Management Agency, explained what the storm spotters do when severe weather threatens the area…

{AUDIO: “They’re the ones who go out and see what’s going on outside in the sky for us.  That’s a real integral part of what we’re doing here.  We can see it on the computer, but we can’t see it with our own eyes.  So they’re kind of our eyes in the sky for us to be able to figure out what directional path is – if the tornado is actually on the ground – or if what we’re actually seeing on the radar is correct or not.”}

(This is part of the Vermilion County Emergency Operating Center in Danville.)

Bird says many of the volunteer storm spotters have been helping for years….

{AUDIO: “The spotters that we have are well seasoned pros.  They know when a storm’s coming. They’ll call in and ask us what time we think it’s going to be here.  And we’re tracking the storm mostly all day long – getting updates from the National Weather Service.  So that way we can have them ready to go when we need them.”}

While many area storm spotters are police officers or firefighters, others are simply citizens who take the two-hour course wanting to help.

So how do the storm spotters stay safe?

{AUDIO: “We make sure we don’t send them out after dark. We make sure that they’re in a position they can get out of the way if they need to.  And some of them we just ask if they can do it from their own back yard to help us out, instead of having to go out in the car somewhere.  So mostly it’s to keep them safe and making sure they are keeping themselves safe.  And like I said, we don’t send them out at night because you can’t really see anything at night.”}

Although the outside storm sirens are a good way of knowing when severe weather is threatening your location, Bird recommends you have other ways of getting emergency information…

{AUDIO: “We’ve got a good social following for Vermilion County Emergency Management and www.Vermilioncountyweather.com.

I’m here updating as the storm comes through in the (Emergency) Operations Center.  So, we put out the ‘Watches’ and ‘Warnings’ on there.  We’re hooked up with the National Weather Service.  You can sign up for Nixle (Alerts) and it will give you the warning straight to your email or phone.”}

So far this year (as of April 15^th) there has already been 55 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois.  Normally there are just over 100 for the entire year.