Prepare for bad weather while the sun shines

The old saying is to "make hay while the sun shines."

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During Severe Weather Awareness Week, that could be paraphrased: Prepare for bad weather while it's sunny.

In that vein, it's fitting that the statewide tornado drill, originally scheduled for today, has been postponed until Friday because the forecast calls for stormy conditions today, and emergency officials didn't want the drill to be confused with a potential emergency.

Even in Columbia County, designated in 2004 as a StormReady community by the National Weather Service, residents shouldn't take the threat of severe weather lightly.

Just last June a "microburst" knocked down trees and damaged homes in neighborhoods off Hardy-McManus Road in Evans, just three months after a twister plowed through Thomson and faded near the county line.

As historian Charles Lord's column below tells us, we're no strangers to bad weather.

Getting prepared isn't difficult, as Columbia County Emergency Services Division Director Pam Tucker pointed out in her comments Sunday. Basic information is available on the county's Web site, www.columbiacountyga.gov, along with a helpful quiz at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at www.fema.gov/areyouready.

The time to check it and get prepared is now, while the sun is shining. Those computers don't work too well when a storm knocks the power out.