ORANGE COUNTY, N.C. — On days when the weather is calm, emergency management officials in Orange County are preparing for the exact opposite.

Sarah Pickhardt, the division chief of emergency management for Orange County Emergency Services, says her team is responsible for emergency preparedness response, recovery and mitigation for natural, human-caused and technological disasters.

What You Need To Know

  • Severe Weather Preparedness Week for North Carolina is March 5-11

  • Emergency managers play a vital role in keeping people safe during a variety of natural, human-caused and technological disasters

  • They also work to prevent people from being at the center of future disasters by doing things like acquiring properties in flood-prone areas

  • Other easy ways to be prepared for emergencies include creating an emergency supply kit and signing up for county alerts

“I would say that our largest natural disaster threats, it's going to be severe weather, which severe weather season is either on the way, winter weather and like hurricanes and flooding,” Pickhardt said.

Pickhardt, who has been with Orange County since 2018, says her team often invests resources before they need them.

“We know that we spend like a dollar ahead of time, we're going to save about $6 on the back end, post-disaster, just in like avoided impacts,” Pickhardt said.

They also add to and change plans as they learn what the community needs in different situations.

“One of the things that we did after Hurricane Florence as a big lesson learned, was implemented a telehealth program. So in a shelter, we can actually bring in an iPad or a computer and connect somebody who's in the shelter, who maybe forgot their medicine,” Pickhardt said.

When they’re not responding to a major event, they’re figuring out how to make sure people aren’t at the center of one in the future.

“Things like acquiring properties that are in flood-prone areas and working to remove that structure and turn it into green space, since we know it's going to flood, we know it’s going to flood frequently. Working to find sort of creative solutions to reducing those impacts,” Pickhardt said.

They also spend time educating the community, including how to build an emergency supply kit.

“I've got a cat, so I might make sure I've got enough pet food, some spare litter. But then other things that might be useful would be like a weather radio so that in case their phone doesn't work, they're able to still get weather alerts,” Pickhardt said.

Because when everyone is as prepared as possible, it makes responding to emergencies a little easier.

“That's a lot of what emergency management does is it's looking for what are the needs going to be during disaster, working with our community partners,” Pickhardt said.

Pickhardt says another simple yet effective way to prepare for severe weather is to sign up for your county’s emergency alert text messages. It’s free to sign up and it’s the quickest way to get information from county officials.