Sally Bishop Named County’s Emergency Management Director
Sally Bishop is now the director of Pinellas County’s Emergency Management Department. Pinellas County Interim Administrator Fred Marquis made the appointment official on Monday, Jan. 7. Bishop was appointed interim director after former Emergency Management Director Gary Vickers’ fatal traffic accident last February and, before that appointment, served for nearly two years as assistant director.

“I am humbled to have been appointed,” said Bishop. “I couldn’t have asked to work with a better team of emergency managers. Together, we will continue to work to make Pinellas a better prepared county.”

Bishop’s experience is a culmination of more than two decades of emergency planning and disaster response, and operations in the field. Bishop began work with Pinellas County’s Emergency Management in 1986 and over the next eight years worked numerous storm, disaster and recovery efforts, including: the Storm of the Century, 1993; the Severe Weather Incident, 1991; Tropical Storm Keith, 1988; Hurricane Floyd, 1987 and the Jones Chemical Fire, 1986.

She spearheaded the development and refinement of numerous county programs and operations, including the Hurricane Evacuation Implementation Guide, Special Needs Evacuation Program and the county’s disaster recovery operations. Bishop is credited with the co-creation of the Hurricanes and Health Care conference, which provides critical training and information to county health providers.

Bishop supervises a staff of seven emergency managers and coordinates countywide emergency planning efforts. She works extensively with the county’s 24 municipalities, surrounding counties and the state’s Division of Emergency Management.

Hazardous Weather Awareness Week
When hazardous weather in Florida is discussed, most people think of hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November 30. However, dangerous weather can happen in Florida in any month. The last two weeks in February and the first two weeks of March are the period when deadly tornado activity peaks in the state.

Last February, Florida saw one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in its history. A very intense low pressure system developed off the Gulf coast and pushed inland, spawning three powerful tornadoes through north central Florida. The storms killed 21 people – the deadliest outbreak since the Kissimmee Tornado Outbreak of 1998, which killed 28 people.

To commemorate this event and to encourage people to develop emergency plans, Florida has named February 2 – 9 as Hazardous Weather Awareness Week.

One of the week’s goals is to promote a culture of preparedness throughout all school grade levels. Events include distribution of the Florida Hazardous Weather Guide to middle school classrooms, distributing children's weather books in elementary school classrooms and hosting a poster contest for fourth and fifth grader students. Also, as a part of the campaign, there will be a statewide tornado drill conducted by the Florida offices of the National Weather Service tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, February 6, 2008.

For more information on this event, visit the state Department of Education’s Just Read Florida website at www.justreadflorida.com/HWAW.

Painting your home?
Lower temperatures and minimal rain chances make late winter and early spring the ideal time to paint your home. If you plan on picking up the brush and roller, here are some tips that can help you prepare your home to better face hurricane season:

• Root out rot. Look along the roofline of your home at the overhangs. Any rotting wood should be replaced to keep your structure strong.
• Inspect your roof. While you are up on the ladder, how do your roof shingles look? Any missing? Broken? Curled up at the edges? If so, a re-roof might be in your future. New building codes and installation methods will help ensure your new roof can better withstand high winds.
• Bust the rust. Corrosion on fasteners, such as the clips that keep your downspouts anchored to your home, can lead to failure in a hurricane or other high wind. Replace those deteriorated fasteners while you are already working outside.
• Check your caulk. Old, cracked window caulk and door weather stripping can allow wind-driven rain to work its way into your home. Scrape out the old and replace with new silicone caulk rated for use on doors and windows. Most hardware stores and home centers also sell replacement weather stripping to help keep your home weather tight.

Something to check about claims
After surviving a damaging storm, you’ll want to get your life back in order as quickly as possible. Part of that recovery includes getting a check from your insurance company to start the rebuilding process for your home. When you get your check, there are some things you may need to know.

The insurance company must make claim checks payable to both the policyholder and their lender, however, this applies to Coverage A (dwelling) losses only. For policies issued or renewed on or after October 1, 2006, the dual endorsement requirement excludes payments made for personal property (contents) loss and additional living expense (ALE) benefits.

The lender will normally hold the insurance proceeds in a special account and release funds for home repairs in scheduled draws after receiving itemized bids and signed contracts from licensed contractors.

An issue or conflict can arise if the contractor requires a deposit up front to begin repairs and the lender will not release funds to honor that request. Resolution for such instances requires the policyholder, contractor and lender to work together to achieve mutual agreement.

For more information on insurance issues, call the Florida Department of Financial Services at (800) 342-2762 or visit www.fldfs.com.

We take our show on the road
Want to get even more informed about hurricane preparedness? Give Pinellas County’s Speakers Bureau a call at (727) 464-3000. An emergency preparedness expert can make a presentation at your meeting or event, providing valuable information that may save your life. Pinellas County Extension also offers a list of classes on home and yard improvements that can help you be more hurricane ready. For these classes, go to www.pinellascounty.org/events or call (727) 582-2100.

What does that mean?
Most children – and more adults than care to admit to it – enjoy staring into the skies on a peaceful day, looking for shapes in the clouds. While clouds are familiar to everyone, getting to know more about them can help you unlock what’s taking place with the weather. For the next few months, we’re going to cover a little Cloud 101 to help you understand more about these fascinating features.
Let’s start at the top. Above 23,000 feet (nearly four miles up) the cirrus clouds form. These high clouds are composed of ice crystals and don’t cause any precipitation on their own. They can take three distinct forms:

Cirrus: delicate looking wispy strands of silvery clouds which are nearly transparent	Cirrocumulus: thin patches of small, white rounded clouds usually in patterns of long waves	Cirrostratus: A milky-white veil that covers the entire sky. This typically produces halos around the sun or the moon.

Cirrus clouds have been called Mares’ Tails (cirrus) and Mackerel Sky (cirrocumulus), and sailors have been keeping an eye out for them for centuries. Since cirrus clouds can lead frontal boundaries with unsettled weather, the appearance of cirrus clouds can indicate that a storm may be on the way.

At the tops of hurricanes, cirrus clouds form above the denser storm clouds as air is vented out the top of the storm. This outflow is very important for the development of strong hurricanes and can easily be seen on satellite images.

Next month, we’ll drop in altitude a bit to look at the middle-level clouds.

Weather facts of the month

• The highest surface wind speed ever officially recorded is 231 mph during a gust at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire on April 12, 1934. The anemometer was later tested by the U.S. National Weather Bureau and confirmed to be accurate.
• A higher wind speed recorded in Guam at 236 mph during 1997’s Typhoon Paka was declared invalid because the instrument was damaged during the storm and could not be checked for accuracy.
• Wind speeds within certain atmospheric phenomena (such as tornados) may greatly exceed this value but have never been accurately measured. The figure of 316 mph during the F5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, is often quoted as the highest measured surface wind speed but it was measured by Doppler radar (which is only able to provide an estimate) and was measured 100 feet above ground.