Howard County’s director of Emergency Management, Maria Bernadzikowski, spends her days preparing for the worst — and trying to minimize the impact of disasters of all kinds.
She knows that’s not how most of us live, but Bernadzikowski does want the public to learn more about what to do in emergencies and to be comfortable in understanding what weather emergency watches and warnings really mean.
“Not everybody can prioritize each of these things, but this is super important to understand: What is the difference between a watch … (and) a warning? What are my own evacuation points in my area?” she said.
Bernadzikowski said her office is always happy to provide more information to the public, and urges people to check out the county’s website for information on evacuation planning and emergency preparedness materials.
She told WTOP there are a variety of ways to keep tabs on weather conditions, including the threats posed by flooding. The first is the Wireless Emergency Alert messages that pop up on your mobile devices. The messages that appear are sent by federal, state and local public safety agencies and include distinct tones and vibrations that repeat twice in rapid succession.
Bernadzikowski said she’s aware that some people turn off those notifications on their phones. But she urges them not to.
“Alerting fatigue is a thing, right? We get too many alerts, we get different things” popping up on cellphones, she said. “We want to make sure that folks know when people get these alerts on their cellphones, or whatever means, that these are critical — they need to take actions immediately.”
But as the deadly flooding in Texas showed, she said there are areas where the reach of cellphones is limited. That’s even true in pockets of Ellicott City, she said, where catastrophic floods hit in 2016 and again in 2018.
“Not everybody has the best service down there,” Bernadzikowski said. “So having a (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather radio as a backup is also critical to make sure there is something that is going to wake you up in the middle of the night.”
The radios are enabled to broadcast weather information from NOAA and can be programmed to provide alerts to specific counties.
“It’s very easy. If anyone has any questions in the Howard County area, we’re very happy to help them do that,” she said.
After the flooding that Ellicott City experienced in the last decade, the county initiated a range of emergency safety measures, including the installation of towers that broadcast loud emergency tones outdoors so that anyone in the downtown Ellicott City can hear them. They’re activated when there’s the threat of flooding.
“One of the reasons, I should say, that we added the outdoor component, was because we acknowledged there are a lot of folks who aren’t familiar” with the flood threat, Bernadzikowski said, including tourists who visit the historic area from all over the country. “And we want to make sure there is a tertiary way for folks to get alerted.”
There are also signs posted in Ellicott City that are marked as “High Ground Access Areas,” indicating that they are outside of the flood plain.
The county’s emergency preparedness website includes emergency plan templates for businesses as well as households and individuals, along with tips on dealing with power outages, extreme heat and ways to make sure your pet is safe along with the rest of the family.
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