Safety To-Do #6: Give Your Valentine a Warning System… Really?

“Emergency officials in Kentucky are suggesting carbon monoxide (CO) detectors and weather radios would make great Valentine’s Day presents.”¹

Although I highly suggest flowers and chocolate over CO detectors and weather radios, the officials’ point is well taken.  Last week’s Safety To-Do was to purchase and set up carbon monoxide detectors, so you already have that one covered (right?!); this week we will focus on weather radios.

While particularly useful in areas prone to severe storms, weather radios broadcast a wide range of warnings, including those related to:

• Hurricanes
• Floods
• Tornadoes
• Thunderstorms
• Winter storms
• Oil spills
• 911 telephone outages
• AMBER alerts
• Terrorist attacks

And, according to professors at the University of California at Berkeley, we may be adding earthquakes to that list in the future – an important feature for those of us living on a major fault line, where even a few seconds warning could help someone take cover, or signal an elevator to stop immediately at the closest floor before the shaking begins.²

Admittedly, the above list represents things about which many of us would rather not know, but blissful ignorance is definitely not the right approach when it comes to safety.  Fortunately, many weather radio receivers allow you to choose your geographical area and to opt out of receiving warnings that may not be of interest to you.  For these features you need to look for models with Specific Alert Message Encoding (SAME) technology and Event Blocking. ³

It is also recommended that you choose a radio certified by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), which developed the Public Alert Standard.  These models will have the “Public Alert” logo shown above.^{3, 4} In addition, if you or someone in your home or office has special needs, you will want to look for a model that has an external jack, which will allow you plug in devices such as text printers, bed shakers or strobe lights.  A couple of models that have received great reviews are listed in the Helpful Products section at the top of this page.

“NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration], KYEM [Kentucky Division of Emergency Management] and FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] agree, every residence or business should have a NOAA weather alert radio as standard equipment.” ¹

So, while it doesn’t have to be a Valentine’s Day gift – and frankly, for the sake of your relationship, I hope you do choose something more romantic – I do think a weather radio is a prudent measure.  Therefore, your Safety To-Do this week is to order one for home (and one for the office) … but you can wait until after Valentine’s Day to give it to your sweetheart.

¹ FEMA news release; “Weather Radios and CO detectors Can You’re your Valentine Safe,” http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=47465

² UCBerkeley News “Early Warning System Predicted Shaking from Oct. 30 Quake,”
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/12/10_earthquake.shtml

³ SAME technology requires Public Alert.

⁴ NOAA Weather radio/receiver buying guide:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/nwrrcvr.htm