Last night, I woke up about 0100 AM to the sound of heavy rain and thunder. I think I may have heard hail when I noticed that our power was out. The house was dark and I scrambled to grab my phone and used the flashlight app to check on the kids upstairs. As I turned to go upstairs, I heard my weather radio sound. The thunderstorm overhead had become severe. My son was also awakened by the storm but after some reassurance he when back to sleep
I returned downstairs to try to get back to sleep, when I heard my cell phone Weather Underground App sound that there was a severe thunderstorm warming. This was several minutes after the first alarm from the National Weather Service. To be honest, T-Mobile hasn’t been working great here in Kansas and without power and internet, I was left to using my cell phone data service to issue me the alerts I needed. I think it simply took that long for the Severe Thunderstorm Warning to reach my phone. Without my phone, I was without any alarm—except for my weather radio.
The point is this. Many people think that they don’t need a weather radio, because they have alerts on their phone or because alerts many times are sent to cell phones. While these secondary alerts are helpful and better than nothing, the weather radio doesn’t fail (as long as you keep fresh batteries in it and you program it properly). It is important to remember that the National Weather Service has individuals working around the clock—rain or shine-whose only job is to watch the weather and pass that information on to you! The weather radio is a direct link to receiving timely warnings from the National Weather Service. I encourage you to buy one and set it up in your house, before you may need it to warn you of danger.
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I use the Midland WR-120 in my home as pictured above. These radios are available at Lowe’s as well as other retailers, where I picked up my radio and this photo. I have been very happy with mine for a couple years.