MikeMooreMedia

Rodney Cates, Director, Rockinghham County Emergency Services 08.07.24

Update on Tropical Storm Debby, "significant rainfall" for our area, 4-6 inches; how EMS prepares for weather emergencies; 911 Center upstaffed; Blacksburg NOAA forercast; Belews Lake water levels. www.ReadyNC.gov

Duration:: 14m
Broadcast on:: 07 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Mike Moore Media. I'm checking in with Rodney Cates, Director of Rockingham County Emergency Services. Rodney, always a good to talk to you. We have this podcast, the first Wednesday in the month, and it's all about Debbie today, isn't it? Mike, it is a good morning. Good to talk to you. Yeah, Debbie, the forefront of everyone's mind right now and all the weather stations are talking about Debbie and hopefully we can put some people at ease today about Debbie and the impact that we see coming to our county. Mike, we began tracking this Monday when the weather really started talking about it and we began our planning sessions. You know, we've talked many times about planning and it's important. The first thing I want to put out is it's important for families to plan now. It does look like this is going to be a pretty significant rain event. All the news media for our area coming out of Blacksburg, Virginia, and comparing that with the National Weather Service in Raleigh, it does not look like a large wind event for us. It's going to be breezy, but no, we're on the west side of the storm, which is the best place to be. The east side of the storm is where the tornadoes respond. The major part of the flooding will occur is on the east side. The storm right now looks like it's going to track right through the Raleigh Durham area. It'll come in, actually, I'm referring to the Tropical Storm Debbie update that we received this morning at 6 a.m. from National Weather Service Blacksburg. It shows there's about 2 a.m. Friday morning as a tropical depression right over the Raleigh Durham area. Our target time is going to be late tonight at the storm approaches and tomorrow when we will see the heavier rain. But again, the significance of the storm stays on the east side of the storm, which will be pretty good ways east of us. So we're looking at in the Rockingham County area, you know, they're showing 4 to 6 inches of rain. The 4 inches are really from reach for north and west. The very bottom southern section of the county shows you'll be getting a little bit more rain, but Guilford County also shows you'll be getting more rain than we are. So we're certainly prepared and we've been preparing all week. We have prepared all of our resources. We have met with our state and local partners to put everything in place should the storm change or the direction change or we get more impacts than we're currently seeing. We're ready to enact anything that we need to enact and all of our partners are ready. Our emergency services teams are ready, but at this point, it looks like late tonight and tomorrow, some heavy rains throughout the day, the storm exiting, early Friday, they actually say that by Friday afternoon we could potentially see some sunshine or by late Friday afternoon. So certainly some good news and some silver lining within this for us, our partner is down east and in eastern North Carolina, certainly we'll bear the brunt of this and we hope the best for them, but for us in Rockingham County and the neighboring counties around us. We feel like it's just going to be a pretty significant rain event at this point. Yeah. Okay. I'd heard some pretty big numbers for down east around Wilmington. You still getting some of those large numbers there too? I do. They're showing up to potentially a foot or just over a foot of rain for the Wilmington area. Wow. Oh, more head city up that way. The storm currently right now is sitting right off the coast of Savannah, Georgia and they predicted to gain just a little bit of strength, but it still will stay just as a tropical storm and then it'll make inland again or make another landfall actually right around the Myrtle Beach area and it's going to continue at this time on a North Northwest track, which then will bring it in probably just west of the Fayetteville area and then it tracks up through North Carolina and actually begins to make a North Northeast turn as it gets to the Raleigh Durham area and then skirts on up the coast. It actually shows about two PM Friday afternoon being in the very northern part of Virginia. So once it starts, it's North and Northeast turn. It's going to kind of speed on out of our area pretty quickly. Okay. Thank you for that update and we were talking to before we started this podcast. There is a difference in those national weather service forecasts between say Raleigh, Durham and Blacksburg and so we go with the Blacksburg information. Typically, we do, you know, Blacksburg shows some accuracy for the west side of our counting. If you really look at the Blacksburg forecast, they really target western North Carolina, western Virginia, all the way up into West Virginia. So for our western areas and our western parts of Madison, May of Ann Stonewall area, I think Blacksburg has a pretty high level of accuracy. If you look at the east side of our counting, a lot of times Raleigh can predict their weather a little with a little better accuracy. So we're kind of right on a dividing line of which weather station actually hits us with the most highest level of accuracy. But when these events come along, we compare the two and look at them. Duke Energy puts out some great weather. Their meteorology staff does a great job at predicting and they are always very, very accurate. And we also, when this is going on, we had one yesterday, we have daily meetings with North Carolina emergency management and the meteorology staff from Raleigh for the state of North Carolina. It puts out a lot of great information too with a high level of accuracy. So we take all of those and compare them and try to get some similarities in all of them and that's really where we begin to make our decisions because each of those forecasts can impact our area. Sure. Now, we've talked before about being prepared as a homeowner, as a resident, but let's talk a little bit more for those that haven't heard you before and how you prepare in emergency services here in Rockingham County. Well, like I said, we began Monday working on the plans. All of our assets, our generators, our extra vehicles that we have, our UTVs, that we could potentially be used to move manpower or to move patients, we make sure all of that's operational already. And we do that all week. We start that equipment and make sure it's ready, but beginning Monday morning, we had our staff checking generators and checking trailers that make sure the tires are inflated and, you know, anything can happen over a weekend or a period of time. So we make sure that everything we have is operationally ready. We make sure that all of our staff are operationally ready. We've already upstaffed our 911 center for tomorrow, tomorrow night, and then the Friday. Just to prepare for an inflated call volume, we look at what the state does. The Roy Cooper has already initiated a state of emergency for the state of North Carolina. Predominately, that's where our eastern areas and we have not done that at this point, but again, that's something that we have ready in our toolbox. And I think that's a good term to use. We make sure all of our tools and our toolbox are ready to use, and we are able to pull those tools at any point, our Swiftwater Rescue Team. We have made contact with them. That's actually headed up by Eden Rescue and it has members from Eden Rescue, retail rescue and Madison Rockingham Rescue. All of those members were polled. Their equipment has been surveyed to make sure that it's ready. So we just go through a checklist of everything that we have that could potentially be used in a situation like this and make sure early on that it's ready. And we start those preparations again on Monday with the knowing that the storm that our target day is going to be tomorrow, but that gives us several days to make any modifications that we may need to make prior to the storm so that we can ensure that we're ready when the storm gets here. Okay, well, it's always comforting to know that your department, everybody involved, is on top of things here. And something else we have mentioned numerous times, in fact, I included it in our newscast today, ready in C dot gov, ready in C dot gov, a great tool to prepare, help you prepare and be ready for any kind of emergency. It is. And that comes from the North Carolina Emergency Management Team. At their webpage, there are travel routes. You know, a lot of people have properties at the beach or properties in eastern North Carolina. And certainly after the storm passes, they're going to want to travel to see what the condition of that property is that gives you route information, roadways that may be blocked or flooded as they travel down east, travel advisories. So, so much information, there's information on preparation, you know, the preparation for us started early preparations for individual families should be going on right now, granted it should be only be a pretty significant rain event for us. But if roadways are flooded, and we have to get loved ones to a doctor or something of that nature, what are those alternate routes? Are cars fueled? Should a roadway be flooded? And we can't get to a gas station that we normally go to, what are our alternate routes and our alternate means of fueling our vehicles, charging our phones, do we have some extra cash on hand just in case there were to be a power outage and the ATMs are not working? So so many things need to be under preparation today and should have been all week in preparation for tomorrow. You know, you prepare for the worst and hope for the best and that's where all of us are at this point. Yeah. Okay. What is the best place to go to get weather information and things like that, Rodney? So like you said, ready, you can see .gov, there's some weather apps there. The local channel Spox8 has a great, they're actually streaming on their news in the bottom corner of their screen, they're actually streaming a forecast and a track of the storm right now with their regular news. The Blacksburg weather forecast, NOAA, the National Oceanic Association, they put their website as a bit cumbersome to get through but they have some very good information, they have river information on there so there are many, many apps and things of that nature that can assist one in getting these updated forecasts. Okay. Very good. And I just, you just refresh my memory on something there when you said something there about, I heard it just a quick something on one of the TV newscasts this morning about Blue's Lake and dropping the water levels there and I never had a chance to follow up on that. You have anything on that and why do they do that? They do that. They have to maintain for the steam station up there that we've been to numerous meetings with them off of the storm, not associated with the storm but to understand how they operate. Their water level with the steam station can only fluctuate a very small amount so they drop water in anticipation of heavy rain so that they can maintain the level at the steam station that is necessary for the proper operation of the steam station and that's significant because when they drop water then it goes into our local rivers with, so that adds some water to the river and then you have expected four to six inches of rain which adds that much more to it so they do notify us each and every time they drop water off the river even if we have heavy afternoon storms during the summer, sometimes they'll release water off of it so it's nothing at all uncommon or nothing that should be alarming to anyone that they're dropping water, that's a common practice that they have to do to maintain the proper operation of the steam station up there. They are actually dropping water at this time we've notified yesterday that they're doing that. Yes, okay. That's routine. Okay, well, Rodney, wow, lots of good information as always from you, anything to close with today in our last minute or so? The only thing, the state we've already talked to DOT, the DOT will pre-stage barricades at areas that are known and prone to be flooded. If a roadway is barricaded, it's a misdemeanor and a North Carolina General statute to move those barricades. They're first going to be placed in jail and receive the very substantial pine for doing that. That is a life safety measure and that's why those barricades are in place, so barricades are in place. We strongly, strongly encourage people do not violate the law. The North Carolina General statute do not move those barricades because the person that's coming behind that barricade was moved for may drive off into water and could be seriously injured or killed. The other things stay off the rivers. I know that the flow of the river gets fast and it gets fun for those adventurous people but when those adventurous people get in trouble, our responders are the people that have to go out there and get them. That place is our people in jeopardy when we should be focusing on people that really have a need and are not doing something that they shouldn't be doing, such as floating the river during these events. We just ask people to utilize caution. I'll think about the look at it from 40,000 feet. If I get on this river and I get in trouble, how many people are going to impact and how many people are going to take these responders away from that actually need their resources. That's what we ask people to do next time. Rodney, thanks for the update. I appreciate that. We all do and I feel confident now you've told us how prepared we are and getting ready for the impact here in our state. As you said, significant rainfall and no real damaging winds, so that's always good news. Thank you, Rodney. All right, Mike, take care and if anything changes, we'll update you. Okay, please do. All right, that's Rodney Kates. He is Director of Rockingham County Emergency Services, and yes, we will keep you updated here on Mike More Media, and we'll check back in with Rodney and slip in a podcast here and there if we need to do that as well. Again, a reminder, you can go to ReadyNC.gov, where you'll find a lot of good information to help you prepare for storms, emergency situations and things like that. On Facebook, Rockingham County Emergency Services. [BLANK_AUDIO]