No matter where you happen to be within the Bismarck or the surrounding area, you’re welcome to participate in a community-wide “Tornado Impact Assessment Drill” any time of day on April 30. The week of April 28 thru May 2 is designated as Severe Summer Weather Awareness Week in North Dakota - and Bismarck Emergency Management is requesting your help to conduct a practice test of our city’s tornado impact assessment survey tool. The purpose of the public assessment tool is to help support timely situation awareness for use in response and recovery efforts. The input you provide is fictitious for this drill – and you get to decide how extensive the property damage is that you would report.
To participate in the drill, please access the tornado impact assessment survey tool and report any level of fictional property damage from any location within the Bismarck or immediate area. Please consider submitting a photo along with the assessment. As this is just a practice drill, the photo could be of something very neutral and fun such as a tree, flower, insect, or sidewalk art, etc. (Photo size is limited to 5MB).
Using the QR Code located at the upper right will take you to the same survey.
Throughout the summer, any time a tornado watch (favorable conditions for tornado formation) would be issued, or an actual event would occur, Bismarck will make the same tornado impact assessment tool available via the city’s website and any combination of social media pages:
Assessments should NOT be conducted until the threat of severe weather has subsided, and it is recommended to assess only your immediate area.
Following a tornado event, we can utilize a small team of predetermined city staff to help assess the Bismarck area, but to expand that team to include hundreds of residents in a matter of minutes would be of great help. Of course, the highest priority is always personal safety. Nobody should risk personal safety for the sake of sharing assessment information.
The City of Bismarck will not dedicate city resources to assist individuals in the use of the survey tool during the drill or a real event. If you have difficulty, please discontinue use of the survey. After participating in the drill, you’re welcome to share feedback on your experience with the damage assessment survey tool here.
Thank you in advance for participating in this community-wide drill as a practice test.