Monday, June 24, 2013

Recent Storm Observations by the Dunwoody Police Department


On Thursday evening June 13th, a severe weather event struck the City of Dunwoody and the surrounding area. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. A large number of trees were downed blocking many roadways and taking down a number of power lines. As a result, many residents lost power through late Saturday or early Sunday. The Dunwoody Police Department and the City of Dunwoody Public Works Department worked tirelessly with Georgia Power, Comcast, AT&T and our contractors to clear the roadways and restore power as soon as possible.

After the severe weather event, police officers and our public works staff used barricades and/or caution tape to block entire roads or parts of roads that were unsafe due to trees and/or power lines being down. Unfortunately, a number of potential safety violations were observed during this time. One resident attempted to cut a tree up that had power lines entangled in the tree. A large number of residents, including some children, were observed jogging, walking and riding bicycles under, over and around the downed trees with power lines. In addition, caution tape was torn down in some cases and barricades were removed.

We encourage everyone to stay away from downed trees, especially those with power lines entangled in them, and do not remove barricades or caution tape. Those items have been placed there for everyone’s safety. Your cooperation is appreciated and will help keep everyone safe.

Recently, the City of Dunwoody launched the Dunwoody Alert Network so citizens have a place to go to sign up for important information from the City of Dunwoody including severe weather events. Citizens can sign up to receive weather warnings from CodeRed. You can sign up to receive telephone, email or text notifications. If signed up, you will receive the CodeRed Weather Alert warning when the National Weather Service issues a warning and your address is located within the path of the warning. Many citizens were signed up with CodeRed and received the notice of the severe weather.

We will review our response to this severe weather event to identify any areas in need of improvement so we may better serve the citizens of Dunwoody in the future.

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