Tornado Awareness

After a tor­na­do or any severe storm, seri­ous injury can still occur to peo­ple caught in the after­math who aren’t con­scious of the safe­ty risks. It is not unusu­al in a dis­as­ter such as this for more peo­ple to be killed by care­less­ness after the fact than were killed in the event, itself. Keep these safe­ty tips in mind:

• Beware of out­door haz­ards.
• Watch out for loose or dan­gling pow­er lines, and report them imme­di­ate­ly to the prop­er author­i­ties.
• Be sure all elec­tric and gas ser­vices are turned off before enter­ing build­ings for the first time.
• Dis­con­nect the main switch and all cir­cuits.
• Watch for elec­tri­cal shorts or live wires.
• Don’t turn on any lights or appli­ances until an elec­tri­cian has checked the sys­tem for short cir­cuits.
• Elec­tric motors in appli­ances that have been flood­ed should be thor­ough­ly cleaned and recon­di­tioned before they are put back into ser­vice.

For more tor­na­do safe­ty tips, vis­it Ready.gov/tornadoes