The 2017 hurricane season will be remembered for the extreme devastation it caused in Texas, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Florida as well as our neighbors in the Caribbean. While long-term recovery efforts continue, plans have been readied for the 2018 hurricane season. No one knows how the United States will be affected by hurricanes this year, so plans must be prepared with the possibility that your community will be impacted.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency with federal partners, such as the National Weather Service/National Hurricane Center and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, alongside state, county, and city emergency managers, have been working diligently to prepare for hurricane season. This is done through training and outreach events coordinated by FEMA’s National Hurricane Program. The program’s mission is to provide technical assistance to emergency managers and federal government partners for hurricane preparedness training, response and evacuation planning, and operational decision support.
During this past winter and spring, the National Hurricane Program provided critical training for emergency managers that helps them to make well-informed decisions for the next hurricane. These life and death decisions include ordering evacuations of residents away from the coast, closing schools, and preparing their communities from hurricane-force winds, storm surge, fresh water flooding, and tornadoes.
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