NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— Today is the first day of the 2022 Hurricane Season and it is expected to be more active than usual. Today, city leaders in New Orleans shared what plans are in place to keep everyone safe this year.
City leaders say now is the time to get connected, gather supplies, and make a plan.
“We are very concerned with what we’ve seen with rapidly intensifying storms,” Collin Arnold, Director of New Orleans Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said.
With climate change, city leaders say we’re not getting enough forewarning as to when a storm will strike, so pre-storm evacuations are difficult. So this year they are focusing on beefing up the amount of emergency resource centers.
“We are going to double the amount of emergency resource centers particularly libraries and recreation centers that will be able to accept emergency power,” Arnold said.
Arnold went on to say, “We want to make sure that we are addressing that by having our own in-house home-grown sheltering.”
And always another big concern with hurricanes is flooding. Currently the city says they’re in good shape.
“We have 95 of 99 drainage pumps available. That’s a very good place to be,” Ghassan Korban, Executive Director of New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board said.
And when a storm strikes, Second Harvest Food Bank is always ready to lend a helping hand. Today they were packing 1,000 disaster relief boxes.
“We like to have these boxes on hand because there are 3 days of food for a family of four and they don’t have to be heated or kept cold,” Natalie Jayroe, CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank said.
Something new this year—the City installed weather stations throughout the city that will give real-time video of weather conditions, neighborhood by neighborhood. All you got to do is log on to weatherwise.nola.gov.