Make A Difference

Sunday marked 10 years since the winter storm many of us refer to as “snowmageddon” hit the state of Alabama.In the decade since, Chris Tate, deputy director of the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency, said they’ve learned lessons from the “devastating” weather event.Following “snowmageddon,” Tate said the EMA has continuously worked on how they plan and respond to emergencies.He said informing the public ahead of weather events is a big priority.”We communicate the information to the public as best we can and to all of our partners,” Tate said.In addition to informing residents, Tate said the EMA works with first responders, public works employees and transportation officials to plan ahead.”Our goal there is to ensure that they can make a great decision, given the information,” Tate said. “Oftentimes, you know, incomplete and imperfect at the time that they have to make those decisions, but we give them everything that we can to help them with that process so that we can keep our citizens and our public safety and public works folks, keep everybody as safe as possible.”Tate said the goal after responding to weather events like “snowmageddon” is to learn and improve before the next one.Officials with the St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency also said they learned from the 2014 winter storm.Charity Mitcham, deputy director, said the general lesson learned is that the public should be prepared for future incidents.”Having an emergency kit packed and placed in the vehicle, items like jumper cables, ice scraper, chargers/battery packs for cell phones, and blankets,” Mitcham said.She also recommended keeping cat litter or sand in your car, saying it would help with tire traction.