Rockville campus prepares for Hurricane Florence

Image taken from weather.com

Isabel Rockwood, Editor-in-Chief

Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina. According to The Washington Post, over 400,000 in NC are already without power and a foot of rainfall has already swathed the area with another 2 feet still expected. The storm is continuing to progress landward, with maximum winds of 90 mph.

Although Montgomery County is not predicted to have any heavy rainfall until Mon. 17, the college has been preparing for the possibility of a flood occurring in one or more campus buildings as it had been periodically doing for the past few months.

According to the facilities department, they’ve been working on the campus property, stating “we have secured outdoor items, inspected our backup generators for power outages, fitted membrane to walls and floor so water will collect in a sump pump unit, rather than entering the property.” They also established personnel to manually keep watch in all possible flood-risk areas.

They’ve done a large amount of preparation not only for the coming hurricane but also for the buildings’ general future.

The hurricane continues to make its way inland but loses strength the farther it does so. Nonetheless, people should take precaution during moments of inclement weather, and leave homes for class earlier for likely heavy traffic on highways as evacuees move farther north.