Be prepared for anything took on a whole new meaning for Oklahoma
Record Breaking Snowstorms…Relentless Wildfires…Large Tornadoes…Damaging Earthquakes…
Rinse and Repeat…
This is exactly what 2011 has looked like for the state of Oklahoma and for many places across the United States. We’ve responded to a lot of disasters across the country this year, but today we’re sympathizing with Oklahoma who not only responded to earthquakes over the weekend, but then had to respond to a tornado outbreak yesterday.
We chatted with Rusty Surette from Oklahoma City to ask about this wild week and wilder year. On Monday, Rusty was heading to an interview to talk about earthquake preparedness when the sky started turning dark, and funnel clouds started touching the ground. He mentioned that growing up in Texas, he never really had a need to know much about earthquake preparedness, and was “studying up” on the topic from the resources on redcross.org. However, he is a self proclaimed “weather nerd,” and as soon as he saw the clouds form, he knew tornadoes were going to start touching down…and he was right. He took this picture from his car.
Luckily, no one was seriously hurt, and only a few houses were affected by this storm. Rusty pointed out that the volunteers of Oklahoma have been responding to some sort of disaster – whether a house fire or larger disaster – on almost a daily basis. However, with all of these responses in Oklahoma – and across the country – let’s take a moment to step back and thank the tens of thousands of volunteers who have been working relentlessly to make this work possible.
And naturally, this is also a great opportunity for you to take a look at your disaster supply kit – you know, just in case you haven’t done so after the dozens of other disasters that have happened this year….Would you be as ready as Oklahoma has needed to be this year?