Warnings about dangerous weather could save your life

When hazardous weather approaches, Clemson University safety officials want you to know as soon as possible so you can take action that might just save your life.

So Clemson University subscribes to AccuWeather’s SkyGuard warning system, which provides site-specific weather information customized to the location of the campus and concerns of safety officials. Its meteorologists monitor conditions in a relatively small area surrounding the main campus.

“Warnings, which AccuWeather provides to its customers routinely, have different criteria than that which the government’s National Weather Service would use to generate warnings for the public,” according to Rhonda Seaton, director of Marketing Communications for AccuWeather.

Because of this customization and criteria, “we are able to provide significant advance notice for dangerous weather, such as tornadoes,” she said.

“We subscribe to SkyGuard Warnings to supplement the forecasts from the National Weather Service in order to ensure the highest level of safety for our students, faculty, staff and visitors” said Sarah Custer, Clemson’s emergency manager. “Our goal is to send notifications about any emergency situations with adequate time for our personnel to take protective actions..”

• For actions that you should take in emergency situations, please click on the appropriate hazard at  https://www.clemson.edu/cusafety/preparedness/

Clemson has several methods to alert you to weather threats.

Sirens sound a tone and a voice message about the threat to alert people who are outside. They most often sound when lightning is detected within eight miles of the campus. That gives people time to take shelter inside or in a vehicle.

If the weather threat is more severe, such as a tornado warning, university telecommunications officers will send a CU Safe Alert message. Text messages go to people who have signed up to receive them. CU Safe Alerts also go to all Clemson email addresses, to alerts.clemson.edu, the @CUSafety Twitter account and to the Alertus desktop app.

Clemson students and employees at its Innovation campuses also can download the Alertus Recipient App on their mobile devices to receive Alertus messages, using the Organization code: Clemson.Messages are sent by employees at those campuses who are alerted to dangerous weather or other threats.