WFO Amarillo Meteorologist-in-Charge Jose Garcia presents Emergency Management Coordinator Brenda Vermillion and Carson County Judge Lewis Powers with StormReady highway signs and certificate.

Amarillo MIC Jose Garcia presents Emergency Management Coordinator Tommy Brooks and Moore County Judge Kari Campbell with StormReady highway signs and certificate.

(April 20, 2005) -- The Amarillo Weather Forecast Office has recognized Carson and Moore Counties as Texas' newest StormReady Communities. The communities were honored in separate ceremonies at the Carson County Courthouse (April 11) in Panhandle, Texas and the Moore County Meals on Wheels building (April 12) in Dumas, Texas.

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 880 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."

For more information on the National weather service StormReady program, visit: http://www.stormready.noaa.gov.