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The excitement is building for FIFA World Cup 26 events to kick off right here in our backyard.
City, state and federal officials are teaming up to keep everyone safe this summer.
When the world comes to Kansas City, it'll be during a time we typically see a lot of heat impacts and severe weather.
"The people that are going to be coming here are not used to our warm, humid conditions that we're going to be experiencing this summer, right?" said Brad Temeyer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "And so we're going to be putting together information and trying to get that out."
Temeyer and Kansas City Emergency Manager Christopher Carroll are partnering with other agencies and organizations to keep everyone safe.
"We're working closely with the Kansas City Police Department as well as our own city of communications to make sure that we get messages out in multiple languages and ensure that people are aware of cultural differences," Carroll said.
During World Cup events, whenever an alert goes out or a warning needs to be issued, the bulk of the communication is going to happen in the Kansas City Emergency Operations Center.
"If anything goes wrong, that's when it comes to this room, and we make sure that we deal with the situation, the emergency, the incident as quickly and as efficiently as possible to keep everyone safe," Carroll said.
Temeyer explained the World Cup experience in Kansas City will be unique with outdoor stadiums; however, that will mean added risk.
"We are going to have periods where we're going to deal with severe weather and heat and that sort of thing," he said. "We're just already working to plan and try to mitigate those impacts."
Roughly 100 people will be working around the clock at the Kansas City EOC during World Cup events.
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