By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Severe weather season is upon Central Kansas and the Midwest. That was evidenced over the weekend with dozens of tornadoes reported from Texas to Nebraska and Iowa Friday and Saturday. Barton County Communications Director Dena Popp said area agencies continue finding new ways to deliver storm information to the public.
"We now have a 911 Facebook page," she said. "It's Barton County Communications/911. The Barton County Emergency Manager has a Facebook page now, and he posts all of his updates. That is Barton County Emergency Management on Facebook. Then the county page at Barton County KS, we try to post to all three of those whenever we get weather warnings."
Popp also reminds the public that tornado sirens around the county are tested each Tuesday at noon unless there is inclement weather. The sirens are not owned by the county, but any malfunctions during a test may be reported to Barton County Communications. In the event of a real storm, dispatchers can sound sirens in an individual community or for the entire county.
"We don't want to cry wolf to everybody if it's not going to affect them, but we do try to warn the public to the best of our ability," Popp said.
Barton County Communications is typically staffed with two dispatchers. In the event of severe weather, more dispatchers are brought in. Still, violent storms create chaos in the 911 center, and Popp said calls to 911 should be reserved for emergencies.
"If you have a medical emergency, if you have lines sparking, please call us, but we want to reserve our phone lines as much as possible for those true emergencies, not just a power outage," said Popp. "We don't have any way to know when the power is going to be back on."
Various electric utilities, including Wheatland Electric, have an outage map on their website that may be utilized to check outages and updates during a storm.