This summer, the Georgia
Emergency Management Agency completed an expansion of NOAA
weather radio coverage in Georgia.

In 1998, the state’s Task Force on Warning and Communication was
founded. At the time, more than 20 counties were without NOAA
radio coverage. Many others had only partial coverage, said Jonna
Wheeler, special assistant to the director at GEMA.

Since then, GEMA has partnered with the National Weather Service and
received a federal grant to raise the number of NOAA transmitters
from 12 to 31. Now, 98 percent of Georgia can get NOAA weather
radio broadcasts.

The challenge now

The challenge now is to get people to use weather radios as a
fixture in their homes, like a smoke detector.

David Stooksbury, the state climatologist at
the University of Georgia, says using a weather radio to be
prepared for severe weather is more important now than ever.

“Because of cable TV and the number of channels offered now, the
likelihood that you’re going to be watching a local station that
carries local warnings when a tornado hits is not very high,”
Stooksbury said.

“Also, in Georgia, we have a large number of tornados at night
when people are usually not watching TV or listening to their
radio,” he said. “They’re asleep.”

Weather warning alarm

The weather radios being sold today have an alarm you can set to
go off when a weather warning is issued. You can program some
radios, too, to pick up only warnings for your county and those
nearby.

Radios with these features are sold in electronics shops,
department stores and fishing and outdoor outfitters shops. They
normally cost $30 to $100.

You may want to get a radio to keep with you when you’re working
outside, too. “It’s important to have one out in the field or on
the tractor to give you an extra heads-up,” Stooksbury said.

“It’ll give you a little more time to react,” he said, “so you’re
not caught in the middle of a field during a tornado or lightning
storm. That’s one place you don’t want to be.”

For more on buying and programming a NOAA weather radio, visit
GEMA’s Web site at www2.state.ga.us/GEMA/.
Or see the National Weather Service at www.nws.noaa.gov/.