Using Public Education and Disaster Mitigation Campaigns to Develop a Disaster Resistant Community

The increasing costs of disasters and their continuing threats to east central Florida have led to the development of a progressive severe weather public education and disaster mitigation campaign in east central Florida. The first step in developing an excellent public severe weather awareness campaign is to identify the weather related threats to a community. Through extensive applied research, WFO Melbourne has determined that lightning, tornadoes, rip currents, damaging winds and hail associated with severe thunderstorms, and waterspouts are consistent weather hazards in east central Florida.

An agressive public severe weather education and awareness campaign has been implemented for east central Florida residents by WFO Melbourne. A Weather hazards pamphlet has been developed and has been distributed to all chamber of commerce offices in east central Florida to provide weather education for new residents and visitors to the east central Florida. Tornado and lightning safety rules and NOAA Weather Radio information has been developed for R.V. and KOA campground sites in east central Florida. This education effort has been expanded to a national campaign with tornado and lightning safety rules and NOAA Weather Radio information being distributed at nearly 600 KOA campground sites across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, reaching around 80 million campers annually. Lightning safety rules have been also developed with Florida emergency management which will result in lightning safety rules being posted on area billboards and signs near ball parks, public swimming pools, golf courses, marinas, and area public parks in east central Florida.

Further public awareness campaigns have included the development of tornado and hurricane safety rules with the Save-A-Lot and Winn Dixie grocery chains and Ace Hardware in east central Florida. These safety rules were distributed on a national level in the weekly advertising circulars and on grocery bags with around 200 million tornado and hurricane safety rules circulated across the U.S. in 37 states. Another agreement with Florida Power and Light (FPL) has resulted in over 500,000 customers receiving tornado, lightning and hurricane safety rules in the monthly newsletters. Further public education has involved the development of a web-based severe weather spotter training session which has resulted in the training of around 100 severe weather storm spotters, and a web-based lightning safety and education training session for area schools, museums and libraries. NOAA severe weather pamphlets and related Florida weather hazards information have also been compiled into a booklet which has been placed in all east central Florida libraries to be checked out by the public.