Being a prepper who doesn’t own a NOAA all-hazards radio is like being a baseball player who doesn’t own a glove.
These affordable and dependable doo-hickeys are commonly called weather radios, but that’s not entirely accurate. Yes, they’ll let you know when a tornado, hurricane, or blizzard is coming. But they’ll also alert you if a tsunami is headed your way, or if Homer Simpson at the nearby nuclear power plant finally succeeds in causing a meltdown, or for a multitude of other natural and man-made calamities.
Sound an Alarm
These radios are programmed to sound an audible tone when watches and warnings are issued. I snapped this photo a couple of weeks ago – fortunately, all we got was a boatload of rain and a funnel cloud that sputtered out after a minute or two.
Yes, you can program your smart phone to sound off when emergency alerts are issued, and you can sign up for free text alerts. You should be doing those things. But there is no substitute for having an all-hazards weather radio on your counter, monitoring 24 hours a day for trouble.
I promise you that your radio will alert you before your smart phone – and seconds count in a disaster.
You’re going to want a model that can be programmed to only sound a warning for your particular county (called a FIPS code), lest you get an ear-splitting alarm every time the radio picks up any interrupt signal.
As I keep harping on this blog, the key to surviving a disaster is early warning; the more you have, the better your odds. And when it comes to early warning, nothing beats an all-hazards radio.
Afterthought
For the record, I got a heads-up that a tornado warning was coming minutes before my all-hazards radio sounded because I was monitoring the chatter of our county weather spotters on my handheld ham radio.
You want your comms up? Get your ham radio license. That’s a matter for a future post.