Star City Blog

Red Cross Seeks Basic Aid Training Volunteers

The Red Cross needs volunteers to help prepare local kids for life’s bumps, bruises and frightening moments. More than 300 volunteers are needed to help teach basic first aid to 4^th graders for the Red Cross Basic Aid Training (BAT) program. 

Since the program’s inception in 1996, more than 22,800 local students have learned how to perform rescue breathing, assess an emergency situation give abdominal thrusts in case of choking and perform other lifesaving skills. The Red Cross will train approximately 2,800 students in Lincoln Public Schools beginning October 1, 2009 through the end of the school year in mid-December. Volunteers are also needed to teach BAT in Seward and York counties beginning in spring 2010.

TORNADO AWARENESS WEEK IS HERE

By John Cutler
For the Star City Blog

Saturday’s storm outbreak in Lincoln came as a thunderous reality check for the upcoming severe weather season. From the Lincoln-Lancaster County Emergency Operations Center, Emergency Management personnel sounded alert sirens in the eastern part of the city. High winds had raked the area all day, and late in the afternoon the weather energy built to the point where severe thunderstorms with deadly lightning, hail, and tornadoes were present.

All this became a good prelude to Severe Weather Awareness Week, April 5-11.  National Weather Service Meteorologist-Forecaster Rick Chermok had some notes for Star City Blog readers on the history of extreme weather and the week’s activities.

“Tornadoes get the most press,” Chermok says. “The larger tornadoes are most destructive, like the one that hit Parkersburg, Iowa last May 25.”