Swisher County and Tulia take emergency preparedness to new heights

TULIA, Texas (KVII) — The National Weather Service Office in Lubbock, Texas, designated Swisher County and the City of Tulia as “StormReady.” The Storm Ready program helps communities increase their safety practices of informing people about severe weather or disasters.

“We don’t have to worry about hurricanes,” said Dion Miller, city manager for Tulia. “We have to worry about wildfires, tornadoes, blizzards and ice events.”

Swisher County is now one of 46 counties in the state of Texas to receive the designation. Tulia is now one of 91 cities in the state of Texas with the designation. The county and the city worked together to set up a 24-hour emergency operations center.

“The more advance notice we can get, the better it is for people who live here,” said Steve Brush, police Chief for City of Tulia. “We have lots of folks who need extra help getting to safe locations and that type of thing. The more advance notice we can get, the better off we are.”

“With climate change occurring the way it has over the years, we have more severe storms,” said Miller. “If you are not prepared it can become worse on the community and that can take lives.”

The program encourages communities to have in place multiple ways to monitor weather conditions and receive hazardous weather information in advance. Swisher County’s EMC Tim McAtee spent countless hours working to help ensure the county and city earned the StormReady status. Brush tells ABC 7 News people have to wear many hats for the county and city to receive the status.

“That’s the good thing about a small community that a lot of people want to pitch in and help,” said Brush. “People will do their part and they know that has to happen because we don’t have tons of paid people that can do all the jobs nobody wants to do.”

Ninety percent of all presidentially declared disasters are weather related according to the National Weather Service. The Storm Ready status granted to Swisher County and the City of Tulia is good through November 2020.