Why You Need a Weather Radio

With severe weather affecting large areas of the country recently, this is a good time for a reminder about weather radios.

A weather radio will alert you to severe weather as well as many other adverse situations that may be affecting your immediate area.

When an emergency situation is unfolding (such as the recent tornadoes), every second counts. A weather radio will provide you with as much lead time as possible to deal with the oncoming situation.

It is important to understand the features available on weather radios.

I recommend that you choose a weather radio with S.A.M.E. technology (Specific Area Message Encoding) S.A.M.E. will allow you to program the unit so that you are only hearing alerts for the counties that you choose.

In addition, some units will allow you to block alerts that are not of interest to you. For example, if you live on high land and are not particularly interested in hearing about flooding in other parts of the county, you may want to block the flood alerts. If you live near the ocean, but marine warnings are not of interest to you, you are able to block those alerts. A radio that is constantly sounding due to events that are of no concern to you will quickly be shut off or ignored.

A moderately-priced unit that has both S.A.M.E. and event-specific capabilities is the Midland WR-300.

I have owned the Midland WR-300 for over five years and it has proven it's worth over and over. I am immediately alerted to severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, as well as the updated status of tropical storms and hurricanes.

I only receive alerts for my immediate area, and I only receive alerts for the situations that I have selected. That way, when my weather radio sounds an alert, I know it is something that may affect my family.

And we pay attention.

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