Night-time Disaster Early Warning ?

As seen from the UK.

Apparently there was little warning of the latest Tornado to hit Florida.

This was due to it arriving midnight, we hear, and most people being asleep.

Warnings were given over the radio, but you had to be listening to hear, and act on, the warning. It not being Hurricane season either didn't help.

Is there not a system in the US whereby residents can be warned at night of disasters ?

If not, perhaps a concerted efffort for those that hear warnings to go and sound their car horns ? Or similar.

Here in the UK, we still have old Air Raid sirens, tested every now and then, to warn of impending disasters.

Church bells too.

It's all very well being prepared for disasters, but if you're asleep when they happen, that does negate the preparations somewhat.

Even sleeping with water, torches and batteries by your bed, given a bit of warning would I am sure be helpful.

So, what's the procedure for early warnings, especially at night ?

There's an emergency broadcast system (EBS) built during the cold war but almost forgotten nowadays. Basically EBS radios turn themselves on when they hear a certain activation tone. But nobody buys those radios these days except maybe for some emergency personnel. The last time I heard that the EBS was activated, it was by some politician who used it to turn people's radios on and broadcast campaign ads just before an election. He got in trouble for that, but not enough.

Occasionally there's an accident or something that requires a neighborhood to be evacuated. The police go from house to house ringing the doorbells to get people out in those situations.

What he said.

You can buy inexpensive 'Weather Radios' that will automatically alert you to severe weather warnings. They said on Fox News that a warning was sent out some 8-10 minutes before the tornados hit.

Are you referring to the one that is on the regular broadcast radio bands? They're still there and they still get tested on a regular basis. Additionally TV stations and cable networks are also tested for this purpose. The one on our cable network is way too effective, it puts out this irritating alert sound that could probably wake the dead before the broadcast and at the end of it.

paulr said:

There's an emergency broadcast system (EBS) built during the cold war but almost forgotten nowadays.

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Here in Kansas and in Tornado ally we have Tornado sirens (think old Air Raid sirens). They get activated by the weather service when they see signs of tornados on radar. And people that have the weather radios would also get any messages.

From what I can gather, these tornado's seem to have come right out of the blue...I've seen some footage of the devastation on our news channels over here...bad gear!

BTW, abvidled..if I heard an air raid siren at night I would ignore it. We do not (to my knowledge) use them to warn of anything other than nuclear attacks. I have never heard of air raid sirens being used to warn of bad weather.


CFU

Casual Flashlight User said:

I have never heard of air raid sirens being used to warn of bad weather.


CFU

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Disasters really...

Brighteyez said:

Are you referring to the one that is on the regular broadcast radio bands? They're still there and they still get tested on a regular basis. Additionally TV stations and cable networks are also tested for this purpose. The one on our cable network is way too effective, it puts out this irritating alert sound that could probably wake the dead before the broadcast and at the end of it.

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Yeah, there used to be a requirement that all radio stations broadcast an EBS test signal once a month, but they stopped the requirement a long time ago and I don't think I've heard an EBS test in years. There used to be a lot of jokes and parodies of the test message but probably no one would get the jokes any more.

The real messages said something like "this is a test of the emergency broadcast system, it's only a test, if it was a real emergency you'd be instructed to follow the instructions of your local police department" and the parodies would say things like "if it was a real emergency you'd be told to kiss your a** goodbye because the bomb was about to hit" or things like that.

They do have those stupid air raid sirens in some towns and they test them at noon (big annoyance) and I think if they activated them for some reason people would just get bothered by the noise but it wouldn't occur to them to turn on the radio.

We have them here in the netherlands too, those sirens. They are actually tested every month on the first monday of the month at noon. If you hear them at another time, you know they mean business.
The system here is used to warn the public for all kinds of major problems. The standard procedure is to go inside and close all doors and windows and turn on radio or tv. which will be used to brief the public further on whats going on.

I've heard EBS testing on normal broadcast radio stations around here. And also heard a few Amber alerts being given out thru the system.

BTW, OSU has a cold war era air raid siren. Everyone on campus forgot about it until someone played a joke and set it off the other week.

K A said:

Here in Kansas and in Tornado ally we have Tornado sirens (think old Air Raid sirens). They get activated by the weather service when they see signs of tornados on radar. And people that have the weather radios would also get any messages.

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yup down here in southwest kansas we have them too. it goes off every saturday at noon for a test i guess:shrug: and it always goes off before a tornado hits, even if one doesnt hit it still goes off to warn people.

paulr said:

Yeah, there used to be a requirement that all radio stations broadcast an EBS test signal once a month, but they stopped the requirement a long time ago and I don't think I've heard an EBS test in years.

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There is still a monthly test - they changed the format totally - no more "beeeeeeeep" - it's a bunch of computer tones "Brappp Brapp, boop boop boop boop" - takes about 10-20 seconds total including the announcments

The big thing in any disaster prone area is to get a weather radio with SAME codes. I also get disaster alerts emailed to my home email, my WORK email (which shows up on my blackberry) and my cell phone - they pop a warning, I get all sorts of beeps and squawks all over the house

In the US we have the NOAA broadcast and you can buy radios which will receive those and alarm based on them. My CB in my truck will receive them and the first time it went off I locked the seatbelt when I jumped. I had just left work and was halfway home and a tornado was in the area around my work.

Most towns I know of have the Public Warning Siren System for things like that. They test them once a month. Otherwise, they are usually used for tornado warnings. Pretty loud and you can hear them all over town. There aren't any in the country, just in the cities. Its allways good to watch the news, listen to the radio, monitor the National Weather Service website/radio and the local 2 meter repeater. I'm a storm spotter so I usually keep up on severe weather and if it is predicted for my area. Here is a pic of they type of siren that is used here.

I strongly suggest buying a weather radio with SAME, SAME allows you to select the area you are in by county and the radio will automatically activate with an alarm when an alert is issued for your area. I have the Midland 74-200 and when I lived in Tennessee I was alerted many times to the potential of bad weather. The last summer I lived in Tennessee I saw three tornadoes on three separate occasions. Very scary. My parents still live in Tennessee and there neighborhood was destroyed about a year ago when a tornado swept through the Nashville area. The devastation was just incredible. If you live in a area where weather can be dangerous then a SAME radio could easily save your life.

NOAA Weather Radio Link

Lebkuecher said:

I strongly suggest buying a weather radio with SAME, SAME allows you to select the area you are in by county and the radio will automatically activate with an alarm when an alert is issued for your area. I have the Midland 74-200 and when I lived in Tennessee I was alerted many times to the potential of bad weather. The last summer I lived in Tennessee I saw three tornadoes on three separate occasions. Very scary. My parents still live in Tennessee and there neighborhood was destroyed about a year ago when a tornado swept through the Nashville area. The devastation was just incredible. If you live in a area where weather can be dangerous then a SAME radio could easily save your life.

NOAA Weather Radio Link

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Nice radio, and only $few.

I'll bet most people begrudge paying even that though.

(Like they won't put headlights on at dusk, to save c's)

Let's hope power doesn't go off just before warning !!

(I see it can be 12v powered)

EBS tests often happened late at night (when airtime is cheap),
which would have provided a strong incentive NOT to leave an EBS radio
on in the bedroom while sleeping, even if you had one.

good point; everyone here thinks we have a siren (or something) warning system for disasters..but...

State warning system failed at crucial point
Del Norte County didn't get notified when analysis showed wave headed for port town

Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
Friday, November 17, 2006

Problems in California's fledgling tsunami warning system were exposed in its response to Wednesday's Pacific tsunami, which unleashed waves that wreaked hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage in Crescent City.

"There are bugs that need to be worked out," said Allen Winogradov, emergency services coordinator ...."

rest of article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/17/MNG58MET1L1.DTL

When I lived in Indiana, I always had a weather alert radio in the bedroom and kept it on all the time. When it went off I knew there was a weather situation I needed to know about.

In 1999, we moved to Florida and again I turned my weather radio on to alert me of impending severe weather. It didn't take long to find out that the radio alert was going off seemingly every time someone in the area farted. It was always going off. So, since it became no more than a perfect example of the boy that cried wolf, it sits unplugged under the TV in the computer room.

Most of the newer SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) radios let you choose only the area or areas (usually counties) in the US that you want to monitor, plus there are various types of alert you can choose to monitor or not. For instance, in my area I can choose to monitor for severe winter weather and severe thunderstorms, but not for tsunamis or volcanoes (pretty rare in upstate NY), so alerts that don't concern me are eliminated.

IIRC, these radios monitor 162.400 - 162.550 MHz and the signals are transmitted by the National Weather Service/National Weather Radio. If you search on the terms "same weather radio" you can find a lot of information about them. The NWS even provides coverage maps so you can see how likely you are to receive a signal in your area. There are pages with information on who makes these radios, what the features are and what to look for, when test signals are sent out, etc.

My wife used to get really ticked off when one of the radios went off in the middle of the night to announce something like a winter storm watch until she realized that the alert would let her get up early enough to get to work on time. Then she figured it out that it would also wake her if there was a really serious emergency. She's gotten a lot better about it now.