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Information courtesy Brian K. Short, director of Henderson-Vance County Emergency Operations
Please check the WIZS website, Facebook page and listen live to WIZS 1450 AM and 100.1 FM for storm updates throughout the week. The latest briefing from the National Weather Service can be found any time by clicking here.
Hurricane Dorian has begun making its northerly turn and is headed our way. The storm has decreased now down to a category 2 but is still expected to track very close to our coast as a category 2 storm.
As of now, we can still expect wind gusts of 15 – 35 mph and periods of heavy rain. Localized urban and flash flooding is also likely. Isolated downed trees and power outages are also possible. Presently, we should begin to feel the storm’s effect late Wednesday evening into early Thursday morning. Rainy and windy conditions will likely be present throughout the day Thursday and into Thursday night. By mid-day Friday, the storm should have moved on.
The local Vance County Emergency Operations Center will partially activate with EM staff only as of 9 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday). We will also escalate to a readiness level of 1 at that time.
Today, we conducted a local officials briefing at 11 a.m. in the EOC to lay out our local response posture and we will continue to coordinate with our local response agencies over the coming days.
We will also continue to have daily conference calls with State EM, the National Weather Service and other State agencies throughout the week as well.
We continue to recommend that our residents begin basic storm preparation activities of their own if they have not already done so.
At this time we do not believe our level of impact will require the opening of a shelter. If that changes, we will utilize our Code Red community alert and notification system and social media to get the information out to our citizens.
We will be issuing a local Proclamation of a State of Emergency for the City of Henderson and Vance County as of 5 p.m. today. Presently, there are no public restrictions in place, however a curfew could be implemented if travel becomes hazardous due to fallen trees, blocked roads or downed power lines.
Please keep in mind, if you should experience a power loss, it could take several days to get it restored depending on our level of impact. We encourage those of you that do not have an alternative power source available to charge your personal devices (phones, laptops, etc.) and, in particular, those devices that provide a life sustaining function for you, such as a portable oxygen concentrator.
Please remember that 911 is for emergencies only. We will be overstaffed for the event, but our telecommunicators will likely be extremely busy handling emergency calls. Processing nonemergency calls could delay help getting to a person with a true emergency.