Do you have MORE than one way to get alerts?

What will one do to keep up with watches and warnings when technology
is slow to respond?

The Graphic, at the right, shows a Twitter account showing the lag between one weather product retweeted by a number of Twitter accounts. At the bottom of the picture, one will observe the Weather Bot sending an
advisory at 12:45 p.m.

Following that, the WX5EM Twitter account transmitted the information
to its stream at 12:19 p.m., a delay of four minutes.

Following that, two media accounts and one emergency management
accounts transmitted the same information to their streams at 12:23
p.m.

An eight minute delay occurred depending on which stream one was
following. "Back in the Day", eight minutes was the best one could
expect for a tornado warning. Today, that time has increased
significantly due to better technology, the Skywarn program, and
social media. However, 15 to 20 minutes is reduced to seven to 12 minutes when there are delays in the Twitter stream. One could build a case that there is little progress, using social media alone for warning transmission.

However, emergency managers have, for years, advised in having more
than ONE stream of information. Apart from a siren, one emergency
management program identified over 7 ways to get information,
including conventional television, radio, internet, NOAA All-hazards
radio, email, text message, and amateur radio.

Do you have three ways to get your warning? What are they? When the
power goes out, do you have three ways to get your warning? Have you
tested them recently?

Today, I spent a few moments in the barber chair quizzing a 20-something on the anniversary of the worst ice storm in Oklahoma history.

The look on her face when I brought up the subject revealed that she did not have pleasant memories of the event.

What is she doing different? Not much except her ex-boyfriends gas stove is no longer available now.

Have any supplies? Have a weather radio? How about the City Alert system?

No ... no ... AND no.

Next week, help me remember to take an Are You Ready book by for her.

In the mean time, the Red Cross is planning shelter operations for the next winter storm to help residents just like her.

Radio Shack has an interesting Weather Radio with AM/FM for Skywarn folks.

Since Jackson County has a grant to get a 75% rebate on the purchase of a new weather radio with SAME technology, it was not hard to say "yes".

The radio has an amazing additional feature. It's a scanner for two-meter and 440 mHz Skywarn channels, programmable. That's 20 channels for the local Skywarn enthusiast.

The radio specifications list .3 microvolt for both the weather radio and Skywarn band. That's not great sensitivity but locally it works to hear the local Skywarn repeaters and the County NWS transmitter, with the telescoping antenna collapsed and folded into storage.

Reading the reviews on the Radio Shack site, some complaints are:

low sensitivity
can't program a local Skywarn channel
no balance in audio between bands

One EXCELLENT feature is the BNC antenna adapter that comes with the radio. This makes having an outside antenna to improve reception of both weather and amateur radio signals.

Overall, this is a good unit, especially if you live in Jackson County, OK and are involved in the Skywarn Program.

http://blogs.woodtv.com/2009/02/11/tornadoes-in-oklahoma/ is a work about the Lone Grove, OK tornado of February, 2009.

One of the quotes in the comments involved a trucker's wife. Seems she is happy her husband is out of the State.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_re_us/severe_weather reports a ... "trucker driving through town was also killed when winds slammed into his rig".

That produces thought that truckers need the same warning the rest of us get. How do they get warnings?

http://truckerweatherwatch.org/ is the Trucker's Weather Watch. It's a site founded "by Sean Kiaer of Everett, Wa. on October 12 2006 to integrate the Trucking industry in to the National Weather Service's Severe Weather Reporting Network, known as SKYWARN™.

Folks who go to Skywarn training regularly hear "never try to outrun a tornado".

As one puzzles over how to get information into the trucks of the trucking industry, remember, in Oklahoma, at truck stops, the National Weather Service NOAA weather radio is played in the background in the rest rooms. Rather than MUZAK, the weather radio provides potentially lifesaving information.

Some, though not all, use Citizen Band radios with weather radios incorporated in them. Some relay on the goodness of dispatchers, friends, and truck stops to keep them informed of weather.

Of course, others are amateur radio operators. Those that travel the highways frequently, along the same route, have the active repeaters programmed into their radios.

Some use their cell phones, if they have a relative or friend in some sort of emergency management or weather service.

Some, it is feared, have nothing.

This is one of the reasons why Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) is so important. Can a system be developed to get the life-saving message into the hands of those that need it, before they need it?