We urge citizens to heed the advice that has been given over various outlets regarding your safety through this event.
Depending on the timing and severity of the situation, we will activate our Emergency Operations Center, and will deploy our resources to assist our citizens, City of Butler Public Works, and other Emergency Services providers in the city, county, or our mutual aid partners outside of the area if requested and our resources allow.
We will be in contact with the State of Missouri Emergency Operations Center throughout the event, and will be monitoring the National Weather Service forecasts.
There have been several news releases over the last few days throughout the media regarding preparation for this event. We would like to stress a few items we feel are vital for public safety:
1. If your power goes out and you are running a generator, do not it in your house, attached garage, or even close enough to the house that a draft may bring carbon monoxide into the residence through openings.
2. If running a generator, make sure that it is installed in such a way that it will not back-feed through your breaker box and back into the power system where linemen are working.
3. If wires are down, stay away from them. You don't know if they are energized or not. If a line is down on an object such as a chain link fence, do not touch the object. It may be energized. If an ice covered tree limb has an energized line in it, even touching the limb could be dangerous.
4. If limbs become ice covered and start falling, stay inside your house and away from any windows that limbs or entire trees may fall into.
5. If you are on oxygen and have an oxygen generator and power is lost, the Fire Department has a limited supply of portable generators and oxygen cylinders that can be used. These will be available for life safety issues only.
We urge you to monitor the changing conditions closely throughout the event.
At such time that the Emergency Operations Center is activated, contact numbers are as follows:
660-679-6323
660-679-6318
