Severe weather including severe thunderstorms and tornadoes have been in the KCII-listening area in the last week. Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator Marissa Reisen is reminding area residents to take warnings seriously and if a storm hits the best way to communicate is with a text message from your cell phone, “The best way really is with text messages. In the event that we would see a disaster in the area. A lot of times people want to pick up their cell phone and call, but if everyone is picking up their cell phone to call the bandwidth of the cell phone towers is going to be inundated and your calls aren’t going to get through, or you’re going to get cut off halfway through a call. So text messages will take very little space on that bandwidth, so send those out and let people know you’re safe.”

Any time a severe thunderstorm warning or tornado warning is issued for Washington County, KCII will stop regular programming and bring you up to the minute coverage of the storm. Download the KCII mobile app and you’ll receive notifications any time the KCII Severe Weather Action Team goes live on the air for storm coverage. And if the power goes out, KCII will stay live on the air with our emergency backup generators.

Funnel cloud near Iowa City – listener submitted photo.