First storm of March hits Kentucky; what to do moving forward

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – With the severe weather kicking off March, Kentucky entered a state of emergency on March 3.

With the unfortunate loss of life and thousands without power, the first weekend of March in Kentucky was a somber one. Buildings were destroyed and fires broke out, pulling emergency responders many different ways with over 300 calls to Warren County Emergency Management for help.

Such an influx of calls indicated to Ronnie Pearson, director of Warren County Emergency Management, that more focus needs to be put on preparation for 72 hours.

“Here we are 72 hours later, and some people still don’t have power,” Pearson said, hinting at the need for personal generators.

Warren Rural Electric Co-op and Bowling Green Municipal Utilities both had large amounts of outages as the storm hit, with BGMU having 4,500 and WRECC at 45,000.

Pearson, along with others in the same line of work, are urging the public to better prepare as spring creeps through saying “we’re just now entering severe storm season for Kentucky.”

Pearson spoke on preparedness kits as well, saying, “It doesn’t have to be a big box with locks and everything, just an extra backpack with what you need. Water, phone charger, blanket…”

The Emergency Management Director for Simpson County said things along the same lines as he tries to secure funding for Simpson County’s first storm shelter.

Bob Palmer said, “When the storm’s knocking on the front door and the siren’s going off in the background, that’s not the time to figure out where you’re gonna go. Blue sky days like this is when you need to think about that.”