Mercy Hospital in Rogers earns ‘StormReady Supporter’ designation

Mercy Hospital in Rogers has been recognized by the National Weather Service (NWS) in Tulsa as a StormReady Supporter. National Weather Service officials along with members from Benton County Emergency Management made the presentation Thursday (Feb. 29).

The facility is the only hospital in the state to earn this recognition, according to Martine Pollard Downs, Mercy Hospital spokeswoman.

The StormReady program gives communities the skills and education needed to survive severe weather – before and during the event. It’s a voluntary program developed by the National Weather Service in partnership with the emergency management community to help emergency managers strengthen their local hazardous weather operations.

“One of the aspects that the StormReady program emphasizes most is redundancy,” said Steve Piltz, meteorologist-in-charge of the Tulsa NWS Office. “It is important for communities to have multiple systems in place so if one system fails, others can be relied upon to both receive and disseminate National Weather Service information.”

The city of Rogers was recognized as a StormReady Community in August 2010, and Benton County became the 1,000th StormReady jurisdiction in November 2005. The StormReady Supporter program was recently developed to provide entities within already-designated StormReady communities an avenue to improve and develop their hazardous weather operations. The program is intended to also recognize those entities within a community that promote and practice severe weather awareness and preparedness.

According to the program’s guidelines, Qualifications to be a StormReady community include:
• Must have multiple ways to receive severe weather warnings and to alert the public to the threat;
• Must have established a communication center from which emergency response efforts can be coordinated; and
• Must promote the importance of public readiness through education and training.

According to National Weather Service statistics, at least 49 tornadoes have occurred in Benton County since 1950. Twelve of those tornadoes reached the strong category producing wind speeds from 110 to 165 mph. Tornadoes resulted in at least 28 injuries and more than $20 million in property damage since 1950 in Benton County.