Join Our Free Parks and Recreation Weather Safety Webinar with NRPA

Jan 09, 2018

Parks and Recreation

While the weather outside is frightful for most of the nation still stuck in the icy grips of winter, it’s the perfect time to start planning your severe weather safety for the entire year and parks and recreation facility.

We know that one of your main concerns as park managers and facility operators is visitor and staff safety. Without visitors and staff, there is no way to enjoy all that your park has to offer. While there are plenty of risks that can threaten both parties, one of the biggest risks out there is severe weather. Severe weather includes conditions like tornadoes, hurricanes, hailstorms, heat, and especially lightning. Did you know that two thirds of all lightning deaths in the U.S. are associated with outdoor recreational activities? For that reason, lightning should be your top weather priority.

The problem is, a lot of park managers and facility operators don’t understand the types of lightning alerting solutions that are on the market today and how to best protect both staff and visitors. And that’s OK. There are plenty of myths about lightning safety out there. Not to mention, the branch of meteorology that surrounds lightning can be pretty technical. For example, did you know that 80% of all lightning strikes are in-cloud lightning strikes? These are the type that jump from cloud-to-cloud. While they can’t directly harm guests and employees, they are often accompanied by dangerous cloud-to-ground strikes and other forms of severe weather.

Webinar Content and Presenters

The complexity and importance of the issue is why we’ve put together an informative webinar for park managers and facility operators. Join Alise Flanjack, Deputy Director of Lee County Parks and Recreation Department and Earth Networks Meteorologist Steve Prinzivalli to learn more about the subject. Get insights as to why it’s critical to monitor lightning and severe weather events and find out how Lee County Parks and Recreation utilizes an automated weather intelligence solution to keep visitors and staff safe at their facilities, which are in one of the most lightning-heavy states in the country.

Lee County Parks and Recreation Department knows how serious lightning safety is. 11-year old Jesse Watlington was outside practicing football in Fort Meyers. Like any day between June and late October, afternoon thunder and lightning storms were imminent. Coaches assured parents that their in-hand lightning alert system was foolproof and that children were safe, but that was not the case. On October 3, 2012, a cloud-to-ground lightning strike hit Jesse and resulted in the child’s death. Not only were the alerting systems inadequate, but the staff were unprepared to deal with the incident as well. The coach on the field ran away from Jesse after he was struck instead of running towards him to help. It is a common misconception that lightning strike victims can electrocute others. It simply is not true.

Recreational activities can be very dangerous when weather comes into play. On the day of that fateful strike, the ENTLN sent out a warning 3 minutes before Jesse was struck. This goes to show just how important advanced warnings really are and that a lightning tragedy can happen any where at any time. You can’t wait for it to happen in your area for you to take action or the consequences can be deadly.