OC EMS offering Tips to stay Warm

It’s freezing cold outside, so stay indoors as much as possible, says Oconee County Emergency Services Deputy Chief of Special Operations Scott Krein. “Well, we have seen a significant decrease in the cold and normal temperatures. We want to make sure that people are paying attention to the elderly, to their neighbors and that kind of thing. If you have to go outside, make sure your skin is covered, may sure you have an appropriate jacket on and limit the outside exposure if at all possible. People want to make sure that their facets still drip a little bit, so that water flows through the pipes. A lot of our pipes aren’t berried as deep as they may should be for this cold temperature. Make sure that we use appropriate heat and not improvised heat to make sure that our pipes don’t freeze and those kind of things. We are seeing, unfortunately, an increase in fires due to people using their stoves that they may not have cleaned or properly serviced. We need to make sure that they take care of those and watch them very closely.” Chief Krein encourages creating a 72-hour safety plan that includes food water and any medicines just in case the power goes out or you cannot leave your home for some reason.