AccuWeather's Ariella Scalese takes a look at how you can prepare for severe weather.

AccuWeather's Ariella Scalese emphasizes the importance of having a plan in place for severe weather situations. Key recommendations include creating a tornado safety plan, having multiple ways to receive alerts, and understanding the specific risks for your location, such as tornadoes, damaging winds, hail, or flash flooding.

Scalese advises seeking shelter in the lowest, most interior room without windows during tornadoes, and using sturdy protection for your head. In contrast, during flooding, it is safest to move to the highest level of your home, but not the attic—head to the roof if necessary and call emergency services. Avoid driving through flooded waters and stay informed about the severity and type of weather threats in your area.

How you can prepare for severe weather

Well, having a plan is always a good scenario, no matter what situation you're in, but especially when it comes to severe weather. And you're already doing a great job here by watching the AccuWeather network, getting ahead of hopefully the storms, whether that be into the north central, the northeast parts of the southeast. So one of the most important things is creating a tornado safety plan, as tornadoes can be some of the most serious when it comes to severe weather, but damaging winds, you want to kind of have a similar situation about that. So we'll talk about some of those safe spots for tornadoes. Having multiple ways to get alerts, of course, we all rely on our phones, but if you are in a spot that maybe loses cell service or your phone battery dies, having backup ways, also a good suggestion. And learning about the storms, what type of severe weather for your exact location? Is it going to be flash flooding? Is it going to be more of the tornado threat, the wind threat, the hail threat? And what is the threat level? And we look at our risk level here. We use words like some, moderate, high, and extreme, and which with each comes the coverage of the storm. So a some risk means severe storms in parts of the area versus a high risk, which is widespread severe thunderstorms. So it doesn't mean in a some risk we can't have strong storms. It just means they're not going to be maybe as widespread. So when we talk about making that tornado safe plan, you always want to be in the lowest level of your home. Some homes built with basements or storm shelters, that's going to be your best case scenario. But understandably, not everybody's going to have a basement. Maybe you live in an apartment complex. You want to be on the lowest level, the most interior room, and a room that hopefully does not have windows. That'll be your safest spot. Once you're in that safe spot, you want to be under something sturdy and you want to hopefully cover your head, whether that's a bike helmet, thick blankets, a pillow, and stay in shelter until the storm has passed. Now, opposite information when it comes to flooding, right, you want to get to the highest level. Of course, you always want to avoid driving through flooded waters and get to the highest level. The attic, actually not safe. You want to be to the roof and then call 911 when you get there. Stay safe.

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