Preparedness and Communications

“Maintaining and modernizing this infrastructure is core to ensuring system resiliency through our day-to-day needs and also ensuring that we’re resilient through droughts, including natural and manmade disasters.”

With the impacts from climate change, in some areas there is now a higher concentration of rain in a shorter period of time and stormwater systems, typically in the West and Northeast, are being overwhelmed.

The bill initially required schools to hire either a trained, armed school police officer, a school resource officer or a school security guard for every school building, but was scaled back because of cost concerns.

Predictive modeling can help stimulate traffic flow, and when combined with a robust mass notification system can help emergency managers conduct efficient evacuation operations during disasters.

An existing Red Cross building will be remodeled into a hardened 13,100-square-foot building that allows Bradenton's emergency response staff to weather a storm and deploy resources.

Reliable communications help provide quick, safe, life-saving help when a natural disaster strikes.

Washington's updated smoke management plan will give firefighters more planning time and a longer season to ignite controlled burns that help prevent massive wildfires.

The funding is part of $2 billion awarded nationally to help states build and sustain capabilities to prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from acts of terrorism and other disasters.

The city encouraged residents to check on family members, neighbors, friends and pets during the hot weather. David Holden, emergency manager for Joplin and Jasper County, Mo., said some city buildings will be open as cooling centers.

“It’s gotten hotter now than it was in the past, but we’re not done with the increasing exposure to extreme heat. It’s going to continue to increase into the future.”

"With Valdosta being inland, the chances of extreme impacts favor heavy rain and flooding more than wind," said Mike Doll, senior meteorologist with the private forecasting firm AccuWeather.

The Bradenton-born Boylan runs Mike's Weather Page, a website once described by hurricane harbinger Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel as a "one-stop shop" for the latest tropical updates.

First responders can suffer heat-related issues that can be long term and include chronic cardiovascular or pulmonary disease and chronic kidney disease that can be born of continuous exposure to the heat.

Des Moines Public Schools said it took immediate action to improve security. The breach was the third to occur in an Iowa school district in the last year, and 37 K-12 school districts in the United States have been hit this year.

Additional periods of rain will result in high river and lake levels. Duke Energy is moving water through the river system. Please pay close attention to changing weather conditions and take any necessary precautions.