In Blair County, Ida made for more unsafe conditions.
Fortunately, Thanks to appropriate planning, emergency response Has been swift.
Dylan Huberman spoke to the Director Of the county’s Emergency Management Agency To learn more, Dylan?
In addition to the emergency line, the county EMA added the non emergency line to keep phone lines available.
The storms that have pounded the center of the commonwealth all day long have caused severe flooding leading to road closures.
To get to and secure these areas, phone lines needed to be freed up from people concerned about basements flooding and other household concerns.
Blair County EMA Director Mark Taylor says the two separate lines have been effective.
“Uh, it’s customary whenever we have, uh, these kinds of emergencies to open up our emergency operations center. We assign, uh, call-takers that take the non-emergency calls and that relieves the overload onto our 911 system.”
Both lines will remain open throughout the storm.
Officials with Altoona Emergency Management is urging the public to avoid the following areas due to power outages and traffic signal outage
Those areas would be 17th Street and Valley View Boulevard
17Th St from Pleasant Valley Boulevard to Osgood.
7Th St & Pleasant Valley Boulevard.
South 15th St & Valley View Boulevard.
And Crawford Avenue & 1st Street.
