Bismarck, ND – Governor John Hoeven today proclaimed April 26 – 30 Severe Summer Weather Awareness Week. One week, every April, is set aside to focus attention on severe summer weather and the need for the public to be informed and prepared for it.
Severe Summer Weather Awareness Week encourages the public, businesses, schools, and government agencies to focus on being prepared and being informed about severe summer weather.
Severe summer storms can cause damaging winds, hail, rural fires, flash flooding, hazardous materials releases, and power outages. Experience has demonstrated that a well-informed and prepared public can better cope with and survive life threatening severe summer storms.
Lightning/thunderstorms – When thunder roars, go indoors
When to Seek Safe Shelter: Lightning can strike as far as 10 miles from the area where it is raining. That’s about the distance you can hear thunder. If you can hear thunder, you are within striking distance. Seek safe shelter immediately.
Outdoor Activities: Minimize the risk of being struck. If you are boating or swimming, get out of boats and away from the water, get to land and find shelter immediately. Most lightning deaths and injuries occur in the summer. Where organized outdoor sports activities take place, coaches, camp counselors, and other adults must stop activities at the first roar of thunder to ensure everyone time to get a large building or enclosed vehicle. Leaders of outdoors events should have a written plan that all staff are aware of and enforce.
Indoor Activities-Things to Avoid: Inside building, stay off corded phones, computers, and other electrical equipment that put you in direct contact with electricity. Stay away from pools, indoor or outdoor, tubs, showers, and other plumbing. Buy surge suppressors for key equipment. Install ground fault protectors on circuits near water or outdoors. When inside, wait 30 minutes after the last strike, before going out again.
Helping a Lightning Strike Victim: If a person is struck by lightning, call 911 and get medical care immediately. Cardiac arrest and irregularities, burns, and nerve damage are common in cases where people are struck by lightning. However, with proper treatment, including CPR if necessary, most victims survive a lightning strike. You are in no danger helping a lightning victim. The charge will not affect you.
Thunderstorms and lightning are dangerous. With common sense, you can greatly increase your safety and the safety of those you are with. At the first clap of thunder, go a large building or fully enclosed vehicle and wait 30 minutes after the last clap of thunder to back outside.
