Winter Hazard Awareness Week Kicks Off
It's a Campaign to Help Keep You Safe This Winter.
Snow, ice, and below freezing temperatures are all part of Northland winters, and though staying home sounds like the perfect solution to it all, it doesn’t always work that way. At one point or another, most people need to step out of the house and brave the cold.
So the next best solution is education. Winter Hazard Awareness Week uses the internet and social media to reach out and inform the public about winter safety.
One Topic that will be covered during the week, is winter driving.
“Every year you are going to have cars going off in to a ditch, off the road,” says Yvonne Pilcher, a cashier for Denny’s Ace Hardware.
With the brutal temperatures that come with the territory of living in the Northland, Experts tell us, keeping winter survival kits in your cars is a must.
Survival kits should include snow scrapers, snacks, shovels, salt and sand, candles, and matches.
“A shovel helps out with shoveling, but salt and sand will also give you some traction under the tires,” explains Pilcher.
Other topics being covered during the week include indoor winter safety, and winter fire safety
“It’s the first time that heat comes on for the winter, and we’d like to see people checking that out,” says John Wisneski, Captain at the Duluth Fire Department.
Around 60 percent of fires in the winter are caused by heating problems, so the fire department recommends getting your equipment checked each year.
“Have somebody look at your chimney, make sure your wood stove is going to work if there’s a problem, make sure your heat is going to be on, make sure your natural gas furnace or boiler is ready to go,” says Wisneski. “And that’s just a win win for people. They’re going to save money and they’re going to nip any problems that are coming in the bud, doing it ahead of time.”
Winter Hazard Awareness Week Starts today and goes until the 18th.
