Hurricane season begins next month: Here's how Craven County officials are preparing now

Craven County emergency personnel are doing everything they can to prepare now, rather than later, for hurricane season just right around the corner.

The N.C. Department of Transportation's Division 2 team held an event 10 a.m. Wednesday at the DOT's Craven County Maintenance Yard in New Bern. They explained what it takes to prepare for potential future storms.

The transportation department's Division 2 covers Craven, Beaufort, Carteret, Greene, Jones, Lenoir, Pamlico and Pitt counties' storms. With hurricane season to begin June 1 and last until November, Craven County's Maintenance Engineer Rhett Gerald said their first priority is to keep the community and roads safe.

"We want to make sure that our roads are safe for the traveling public, or that they're closed in a manner that keeps people from actually accessing those roads in a dangerous situation," Gerald said. "So we take pride in being able to minimize different types of tragic events that could happen and allow the people to travel safely."

NCDOT workers demonstrated Wednesday the various types of pre-storm preparations, such as making sure that chainsaws, which are used for cutting downed trees, are equipped with fresh chains. Other precautions they take include making sure that appropriate road signs and heavy cones are loaded on their highway trucks and performing any maintenance on the company vehicles and storm equipment so they're ready to respond to an event.

Craven County and the New Bern area has experienced highly impactful storms over the years, such as Hurricane Florence in 2018 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Gerald said he believes personnel can respond quicker if a similar event occurs.

"I think we're better now to prepare and respond to an event than we have been in the past," he said. "We're learning how to categorize different type of damages to the roadway ... and finding different ways to notify hydraulics up in Raleigh for pipe replacements. Just making those decisions quicker and making the repairs quicker."

Gerald said most of the NCDOT Division 2 training builds from the actual storm event itself in addition to meetings held before hurricane season starts.

NCDOT's Assistant Division Maintenance Engineer Mary Beth Houston said although Florence and Matthew were large storms, it's unknown where hurricane damage could occur.

"Every event is different," she said. "Areas in Florence may not have flooded in Matthew and vice versa, so we had areas in Hurricane Florence that had never flooded before. It's always keep an eye on that weather because it could change very quickly."

In case a hurricane does occur, planning head is the best tool, according to the transportation department. That could include ensuring excess water and food is accessible at home while roads and stores may be closed and staying at home if necessary.

Gerald has additional tips as hurricane season approaches:

"We want to make sure that people know that right after the event roads could be hazardous. We recommend that you stay off of roads if you can and allow the emergency response personnel to work," he said. "Please make sure that if you can not see the centerline of the roadway, please turn your vehicle around. The path can change for these hurricanes in an instant, so we should all be prepared."

Reporter Symone Graham covers local public safety for the Sun Journal. Have a story tip or idea? Send it her way at sgraham@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sun Journal: Here's how Craven County officials are preparing for hurricane season