If a tornado struck your commercial property, would you be prepared? Do you have a tornado safety plan in place? If not, consider this: last year, there were more than 1,400 tornadoes in the United States, resulting in 34 fatalities. The storms caused almost $5 billion worth of property damage. So, what can you do to help protect your property and the people on it? Here’s a quick lesson in tornado terminology and some tips to help you adequately prepare for the season.
Tornado Terminology
Do you know the difference between a tornado watch and a warning? It’s important for property managers to understand what is being described to help in tornado safety 3013planning.
Tornado Watch – means a tornado is possible
Tornado Warning –means a tornado is already happening or will happen soon. When there is a tornado warning, you need to head to a safe place immediately.
Direction of Movement –tornadoes usually move southwest to northeast, but that can be impacted by the parent thunderstorm. In other words, tornadoes are unpredictable and can move in any direction.
Tornado Safety Plan
It is important to have a tornado safety plan in place before a watch or warning announcement is made. This includes training property managers and employees on proper safety procedures.
One of the first steps of the plan should be to identify a safe place to go during the storm. Tornado safety areas should ideally be in a small interior room on the lowest floor possible, away from doors, windows, or exterior walls. In addition, tenants, residents and employees should stay in the middle of the room and away from corners, which can attract debris. If your property is a high-rise, there may not be time to get to the lowest floor, so pick a hallway in the center of the building.
Tracking and Updates
The main objective of a tornado safety plan is to protect employees at a commercial property. Stealth live video monitoring service can help in a few ways. If your business utilizes an access control system, we can take the information generated from the swiping of access cards to track personnel during an emergency. In addition, our trained specialists can check video feeds to help ensure everyone is where they need to be. Because we are remotely watching your security cameras live, safely away from the storm, we can update a designated point of contact about current weather activity in real time.
Help ensure the security of the people on your property. Prepare a tornado safety plan that includes live video monitoring. Contact us to learn how our weatherproof surveillance cameras can help protect your commercial property.
