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Heat or Drought

Heat Safety

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Know the Signs

During hot and humid weather, your body’s ability to cool itself is challenged. When your body heats too rapidly to cool itself properly, or when too much fluid or salt is lost through dehydration or sweating, you may experience a heat-related illness. Learn the symptoms of excessive heat exposure and the appropriate responses. Heat Symptoms: Heat Exhaustion: faint or dizzy; excessive sweating; cool, pale, clammy skin; nausea or vomiting; rapid, weak pulse; muscle cramps. Get to a cooler, air conditioned place. Drink water if fully conscious. Take a cool shower or use cold compress. Heat Stroke: throbbing headache; no sweating; body temperature above 103 degrees; red, hot, dry skin; nausea or vomiting; rapid, strong pulse; you may lose consciousness. Call 911 - take immediate action to cool the person until help arrives.

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Stay Safe in the Heat

Heat is typically the leading cause of weather-related fatalities each year. Heat waves have the potential to cover a large area, exposing a high number of people to a hazardous combination of heat and humidity, which can be very taxing on the body. Learn how to stay safe during a heat wave at weather.gov/heat.

Practice Heat Safety wherever you are. Job Sites: stay hydrated and take breaks in the shade as often as possible. Indoors: Check up on the elderly, sick and those without AC. Vehicles: Never leave kids or pets unattended - LOOK before you LOCK. Outdoors: Limit strenuous outdoor activities, find shade, and stay hydrated. Heat-related deaths are preventable. Protect yourself and others from the impacts of heat waves.

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Pool Safety

Pool Safely is a national public education campaign to reduce child drownings, non-fatal submersions and entrapments in swimming pools and spas. The campaign was developed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to carry out the requirements of the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act (P&SS Act), federal legislation mandating new requirements for public pools and spas.

CPSC is working to ensure drowning and entrapment prevention are important public safety priorities by raising awareness, promoting industry compliance and improving safety at pools and spas.

The Pool Safely campaign emphasizes an important and simple message: adding an extra safety step in and around the water can make all the difference. CPSC estimates that each year nearly 300 children younger than five drown in swimming pools and spas and an additional 4,000 children that age go to hospital emergency rooms due to submersion injuries in pools and spas.

You can Pool Safely by adopting extra safety steps:

  • Make sure kids learn to swim
  • Properly fence all pools
  • Always watch kids in and around the water
  • Stay away from drains
  • Know life-saving skills

Simple Water Safety Steps Can Save Lives Stay Close, Be Alert and Watch: Always watch children and never leave them unattended; Keep children away from pool drains, pipes and other openings; Have a charged phone close by at all times If a child is missing, check the pool first; Share safety instructions with family, friends and neighbors. Learn and Practice Water Safety Skills: Learn to swim and make sure kids do, too; Know how to perform CPR on children and adults; Understand the basics of life saving so that you can assist in a pool emergency. Have the Appropriate Equipment: Install a fence of at least four feet in height around the perimeter of the pool or spa; Use self-closing and self-latching gates; Ensure all pools and spas have compliant drain covers; Install an alarm on the door leading from the house to the pool; Keep pool and spa covers in working order; Have life-saving equipment such as life rings or reaching poles available for use. Adopt and practice as many safety steps as possible. Adding an extra safety step around the water can make all the difference. You never know which safety step will save a life – UNTIL IT DOES

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Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI)

Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI) is an index used to determining forest fire potential.

The drought index is based on a daily water balance, where a drought factor is balanced with precipitation and soil moisture (assumed to have a maximum storage capacity of 8-inches) and is expressed in hundredths of an inch of soil moisture depletion.

The drought index ranges from 0 to 800, where a drought index of 0 represents no moisture depletion, and an index of 800 represents absolutely dry conditions. 

For more information on the KBDI and current maps, visit Texas Weather Connection’s Keetch-Byram Drought Index page.

You can also view a TAMU interactive map allowing you to zoom in to Fort Bend County.

Current KBDI 14 Day Outlook