National Weather Service recognizes Barry County as StormReady; officials urge redundant alerting

Barry County officials were presented with StormReady recognition by the National Weather Service on March 10, a designation county emergency manager Patrick Jansen said recognizes local capabilities to receive, monitor and distribute severe-weather information.

Nathan Jerusil, senior meteorologist at the NWS office in Grand Rapids, explained the StormReady criteria: the ability to receive NWS information, redundancy in disseminating warnings to the public and local monitoring capacity. Jerusil said those elements have been met in Barry County and formally recognized on Feb. 18; he presented certificates for the county government, county central dispatch and the county auxiliary communications group.

"With the warnings that were issued that day, we saved countless lives," Jerusil said, describing recent severe-weather events in neighboring communities and urging residents to use NOAA weather radios, wireless emergency alerts and local dispatch subscriptions for redundancy.

Jansen described steps taken by county emergency management, including county-wide weather radios, outreach on signing up for wireless alerts and planned training: a storm-spotter course on April 18 at Martin High School and related FEMA and preparedness classes this spring. He also noted the county is working on agreements to expand resident access to nearby hazardous-waste or recycling sites.

Commissioners asked about outdoor sirens and the transition to phone-based warning systems. Jerusil explained outdoor sirens are designed for people outside and that wireless emergency alerts reach people with smartphones within affected cell polygons; he recommended redundancy because no single alert method reaches everyone.

Ending — The board recessed for several minutes after a group photo; officials said the StormReady designation provides an additional public-safety recognition and a framework for outreach and training.