NOAA Weather Radios Make Useful, Perhaps Life-Saving, Gifts
Floridians urged to consider giving the gift of hurricane preparedness this holiday season
Release Date: December 8, 2005
Release Number: 1609-043
» More Information on Florida Hurricane Wilma
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The past two record-breaking hurricane seasons have shown the importance of having up-to-the-minute weather information. As essential as a smoke detector for fires, a special National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio All Hazards can alert you to approaching severe weather. Weather radios are available for a variety of prices, and they would make ideal gifts for the holiday season, point out officials from the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Florida’s State Emergency Response Team (SERT).
The National Weather Service broadcasts forecasts and severe weather warnings and watches 24 hours a day over the NOAA radio network. A watch means that potentially life-threatening weather is headed toward your area. A warning means that potentially life-threatening weather is imminent or already occurring. NOAA’s radio network is truly an all-hazards system; besides watches and warnings covering natural incidents such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, thunderstorms and winter storms, information on topics such as oil spills, 911 telephone outages, AMBER alerts and terrorist attacks is also broadcast.
Broadcasts are provided as a public service by NOAA, part of the Department of Commerce. The NOAA radio network includes more than 940 transmitters broadcasting on seven frequencies, covering all 50 states, adjacent coastal waters, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the U.S. Pacific territories.
Most weather radios have a special alarm tone that signals a severe weather watch or warning. These tones then activate the radio to alert you to the situation. When a warning is issued, these radios display the nature of the emergency (tornado, flood, etc.), alerting you to take appropriate action. If you want more information you can turn on your television, where there should be a text crawl detailing the situation from the Emergency Alert System. You can also log on to www.weather.gov for an update.
If you have a hearing or visual impairment, you can purchase a weather radio that can be hooked to a special alarm, such as a light, pager or bed shaker.
Prices for weather radios can vary from $20 to $200, depending on the model. They can be purchased at many retail stores that sell electronics equipment, including stand-alone electronics retail outlets, electronics departments within department stores and some drug stores. NOAA Weather Radios can also be purchased through some mail-order catalogs or on the Internet. In addition, NOAA Weather Radios are often sold in boat and marine accessory businesses since they are popular in the boating community.
Make sure the radio you buy has seven channels, an audible or visual warning alert feature and battery backup. A highly useful feature available on many models is Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) technology that lets users pre-select the alerts they want to receive based upon the area where they live. This advantageous feature allows residents to tailor their weather radio to meet their individual needs.
The National Weather Service does not endorse any particular make or model of radio. However, NOAA has a list of weather radio and emergency alert system manufacturers at www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/nwrrcvr.htm.
The State Emergency Response Team (SERT) is a collaboration of Florida’s state agencies led by the state coordinating officer. SERT’s mission is to ensure that Florida is prepared to respond to emergencies, recover from them, and mitigate their impacts. Visit www.floridadisaster.org for the latest information on the hurricane relief efforts.
FEMA prepares the nation for all hazards and manages federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates mitigation activities, trains first responders, works with state and local emergency managers, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration. FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003. For more information visit www.fema.gov.
Last Modified: Thursday, 08-Dec-2005 15:21:25