(L to R) Steve Collier, Director Office of Emergency Management; Joe Arellano, Meteorologist-In-Charge; and, Austin Mayor Will Wynn ( Photo by Lindy McGinnis, Office of Emergency Management)

The NWS Austin/San Antonio Weather Forecast Office has recognized the City of Austin, Texas as a StormReady community. In a ceremony during an Austin City Council Meeting, Mayor Will Wynn read a proclamation declaring "Austin is a Storm Ready Community Day."

The nationwide community preparedness program uses a grassroots approach to help communities develop plans to handle local severe weather and flooding threats. The program is voluntary and provides communities with clear-cut advice from a partnership between the local National Weather Service forecast office and state and local emergency managers. StormReady started in 1999 with seven communities in the Tulsa, Okla., area. There are now more than 860 StormReady communities in 47 states.

To be recognized as StormReady, a community must:

• Establish a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center
• Have more than one way to receive severe weather forecasts and warnings and to alert the public
• Create a system that monitors local weather conditions
• 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

"Every year, around 500 Americans lose their lives to severe weather and floods," said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. David L. Johnson, director of NOAA's National Weather Service. "More than 10,000 severe thunderstorms, 2,500 floods and 1,000 tornadoes impact the United States annually, and hurricanes are a threat to the Gulf and East Coasts. Potentially deadly weather can affect every person in the country. That's why NOAA's National Weather Service developed the StormReady program."