By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Severe weather season has arrived in Central Kansas. Earlier this month, small tornadoes touched down near Shawnee in the northeast corner of the state, and in Sumner County south of Wichita. As severe weather becomes more frequent, Barton County Communications Director Dena Popp encourages residents to turn to various sources of reliable information, including local radio and television, the Barton County Emergency Management Facebook page, or weather radios.
“If there’s inclement weather, if it’s cloudy and overcast and looks like it could storm, please rely on your resources,” she said. “We just ask (the public) not utilize 911 for those things. We have two dispatchers on at all times. If we are tied up on a non-emergency because somebody wants to know what the weather conditions are, or why the tornado sirens sounded, you’re relying on one dispatcher to handle emergency calls at that point.”
Popp said the same goes for electrical outages. Calls to 911 should be reserved for emergencies. Electric companies have their own pages with outage information and contact information on how to report outages.
“If your area is already reported in an outage, there’s no reason to call 911,” Popp said. “We are going to call the same number you are to report those outages, so we really want the public to call themselves.”
Barton County Emergency Management Director Sean Kelly reminds the public of the three storm distinctions: weather advisories are generally issued 24-48 hours before an anticipated storm. A weather watch is issued when the atmosphere is primed for significant weather. A weather warning is issued when the story is actively happening.