The hurricane season in New York runs from June to November, with the peak potential for hurricanes occurring between August and October. Are you and your home ready to face these natural challenges? While many hurricane predictions provide a few days of warning, certain weather patterns may give you mere minutes. Familiarizing yourself with the region’s major weather patterns and alert systems can significantly aid your preparedness efforts. Below, we’ve outlined steps that anyone can take to ensure readiness for hurricane season or any upcoming severe weather events. Although you may never need to implement these preparations, they can be invaluable in the eye of a storm.

1).Assemble a Go Bag for Emergency Evacuation

Prepare a go bag that contains essential items for each family member to sustain them during a potential evacuation. FEMA recommends a 72-hour supply of food, water, medications, and other essentials for each family member. Make sure your go bag includes first-aid supplies, flashlights, batteries, a whistle for signaling help, copies of crucial family documents, portable phone chargers, cash, backup medical equipment, toiletries, and sleeping bags or bedding.

2) Establish an Emergency Communication Plan

Ensure that every member of your household understands what actions to take during a weather emergency, how to reconnect with each other, and how to communicate effectively. Determine a convenient and safe meeting point before an evacuation. It’s important to teach children not to hide from emergency responders like police and firefighters, who are there to help.

3) Stay Informed with Notify NYC and Wireless Emergency Alerts

Enroll all family members with cell phones in the Notify NYC alert system, New York City’s official source for emergency alerts and essential city services. Stay connected with this system by setting up alerts through email, text, telephone, or social media. Additionally, subscribe to wireless emergency alerts on all cell phones. When the National Weather Service issues alerts, these warnings are sent instantly to WEA-enabled devices within the affected area, covering events like tornadoes, flash floods, hurricanes, dust storms, extreme winds, tsunamis, AMBER Alerts, and evacuation orders.

4) Safeguard Your Home Ahead of the Storm

Take proactive measures to protect your home and belongings before a storm hits:

• Prune weak branches from trees and shrubs near your home.
• Move outdoor items indoors, including patio furniture, decorations, grills, potted plants, bicycles, and toys.
• Install storm shutters or attach plywood to window frames to limit window damage.
• Inspect and repair your roof to withstand wind and flying objects.
• Clear and maintain gutters to ensure proper water drainage and prevent leaks.
• Turn off accessible water, gas, and electrical lines before evacuating.
• If possible, park your vehicle in a covered area, like a garage.

By following these steps, you can be better prepared to face hurricane season or any unforeseen severe weather events. Remember, preparation is key to ensuring the safety of yourself, your family, and your home. At Sentry Window Guards we make it our mission to help keep families safe in New York. For more information regarding our window guard products and our expertise in understanding NYC safety requirements, contact us today!

Between severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, flooding, tropical storms, snow and ice storms, and droughts, New York sees its fair share of weather related emergencies.

The weather can certainly be unpredictable, in some cases you will have a few days to prepare for severe weather, in others only a few minutes. We have included some steps below to ensure you and your family are ready for the next round of severe weather in our area.

• Collect and store items for an emergency supply kit. It is recommended by FEMA to have a 72-hour supply of food, water, medications, and other essentials for each family member. Be sure your emergency kit includes first-aid supplies, flashlights, batteries, a whistle to signal for help, copies of important family documents, and blankets.
• It is best to have multiple ways to be alerted of severe weather, especially at night. 
  • A NOAA weather radio with a tone alert is the best way to stay informed because power lines, wifi, and even cell towers can be knocked out during severe weather. The NOAA broadcast is directed by the National Weather Service. They broadcast weather forecasts, travel conditions, storm warnings and emergency alerts around the clock. If you would prefer to only receive updates specific to the NYC area, most models let you enter a location-based code, eliminating broadcasts that don’t pertain to you. Find a weather radio that can be powered by batteries, so you keep getting updates even in the event of a power outage.
  • Make sure your cell phone is subscribed to wireless emergency alerts. When the National Weather Service issues a severe weather alert for your location, the system looks to see which cell phone towers are included in the warning. All cell phone towers within the warning area send out an instant emergency alert to WEA-enabled devices. These alerts are pushed out for tornado warnings, flash flood warnings, hurricane warnings, dust storm warnings, extreme wind warnings, and tsunami warnings, as well as local dangers such as AMBER Alerts and evacuation orders.
  • Enroll in the Notify NYC alert system, which is New York City’s official source for information about emergency alerts and important city services. You can receive alerts through email, text, telephone, or social media.
• Make sure all members of your household know what to do, how to find each other, and how to communicate in a weather emergency. Decide ahead of time the safest place in your home to gather and ride out severe weather. Choose an interior location on the bottom level of your home away from all windows and exterior doors. You can even place blankets, cushions, shoes, and helmets in this location ahead of time. Get more ideas at Ready.gov. 
• If you live in a high rise building, in most cases of severe weather you will shelter in place away from exterior walls and away from windows and glass. If your building is being evacuated during severe weather you will need to know where the closest emergency exit is located. Remember not to use elevators and stay to the right while going down stairwells to allow room for emergency workers. When possible, take your emergency kit with you.

At Sentry Window Guards we make it our mission to help keep families safe in New York. For more information regarding our window guard products and our expertise in understanding NYC safety requirements, contact us today!