Emergency Weather Tips

Severe weather often causes damage to homes and neighborhoods. However, by maintaining certain areas of your home and yard you can protect yourself and your property against this damage.

Monitor and Maintain Your Home Drainage Systems

• The land surrounding your home is graded to slope away from your house. Your roof is equipped with downspouts and gutters for adequate drainage. If you maintain this system, you can protect your home from water damage and flooding.
• Make sure your drainage system directs water away from your foundation and not onto your neighbor’s property.
• Clean your gutters and downspouts.
• Monitor build-up in you gutter system, just one rainstorm can clog a well-flowing drainage system.

Sewer Backups:

• If there is a heavy storm and sewage backs up through sinks or toilets, call Berkeley County Water and Sanitation at 572-4400. County workers will check and remove blockages in the main sewer line.
• If the problem is the result of too much storm water in the system, you may have to wait until the storm has subsided to resolve the backup.

Prevent Serious Health Problems from a Sewer Backup:

• Turn off power to eliminate electrical hazards
• Keep children and pets away from the area
• Use rubber gloves and disinfectants to thoroughly clean the contaminated area
• Discard saturated wall-to-wall carpet and padding; clean all hard surfaces with hot water and soap, rinse with a bleach solution (one tablespoon of household bleach to one gallon of water)

Preventing neighborhood drainage problems:

• Never block any part of the City’s drainage system.
• Do not put leaves, dirt, grass clippings or any materials in ditches and drains. This causes flooding.
• It is against the law to dump the following into the drainage system
  • Wastewater containing animal fat, oil or grease in excess of 100mg/1
  • Garbage
  • Gasoline or other petroleum products
  • Machine oil (car or lawnmower)
  • Cleaning products
• To report illegal dumping call Berkeley County Water and Sanitation at 572-4400

What to Do if the Power Goes Out?

• Call Berkeley Electric Cooperative’s outage reporting system at 1-888-253-4232.
• Have a power outage kit including: flashlight, batteries, lantern, matches, glow-in-the-dark light sticks, wind-up clock and portable radio
• Use hot water sparingly (most hot water tanks with retain heat for approximately 24 hours)
• Know how to manually override you electronic garage door
• Unplug sensitive electronic equipment
• Turn off electrical appliances to prevent fires and equipment damage
• Leave one or two lights on to let you know when service is restored
• Use battery-powered flashlights for illumination
• Avoid using candles, oil-lamps or anything with an open flame
• Keep refrigerator and freezer closed as much as possible to keep food fresh (See Emergency Food Supply information in this Appendix)
• When power is restored turn on electrical appliances gradually. Sudden heavy consumption can damage the electrical system and extend the outage.

Navigating the Roads after Severe Weather Strikes:

• Traffic signals can be twisted to face the wrong direction or lose power during a storm
• Treat all intersections with malfunctioning signals as all-way stops, using extreme caution
• Do not drive through a flooded street if you cannot see the bottom of the water
• If you have any doubts about your safety, do not drive through a flooded area
• If you choose to drive through shallow water, drive slowly to keep upward splashes from stalling the engine