Do you have a weather radio? (Little Rock, Hope: work, house, investment)

[Cali BassMan]

How does it work?? Do you just leave it on all the time?? What about at night when your sleeping? Does it only come on when there's an emergency??
Planning for the future, what about safe rooms???

[anjoe]

Kroger stores in Arkansas are selling weather radios that you can program by each county. You can log on to kark.com website in Little Rock and they have some information on the weather radios. These radios only give your county weather information when a warning is issued. We signed up for 7 warn through katv.com and got a call last night when a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for our county. Best 6 dollars a year I ever spent! I think storm cellars and safe rooms are a great investment these days.

[Honeynutz]

Originally Posted by anjoe

Kroger stores in Arkansas are selling weather radios that you can program by each county. You can log on to kark.com website in Little Rock and they have some information on the weather radios. These radios only give your county weather information when a warning is issued. We signed up for 7 warn through katv.com and got a call last night when a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for our county. Best 6 dollars a year I ever spent! I think storm cellars and safe rooms are a great investment these days.

"There are also grants available in Arkansas. Most people don't know you can receive state money to help financially after you put one in your home/land. Arkansas Department of Emergency Management receives about $1,250,000 a year in grant money for safe rooms. Money is still available"...

Grants Available

[RogMar]

Weather radios with "SAME" technology can be programmed by code to only sound for alerts for whichever county you want. They run all prces, with the motorola wr 100 real popular @ $29.95.

I will tell you that the NOAA weather alerts aren't the quickest around.

If you have an outside antenna, and a digital-capable TV, a lot of stations have a 24/7 weather channel, which is much faster.

Having just gone through the Feb 5th F4, I'll tell you right now that the "grapevine" is the fastest.

I got 3 phone calls, the last one that it was about 10 miles out and headed right for us.

Storm cellers/safe rooms are excellent, and Arkansas will reimburse half of your cost up to $1,000.

Hope that helps.

[BroncoFan]

I purchased a small weather radio at Radio Schack about four years ago. It plugs in and stays "powered" all the time with a battery back up. The emergency (for county WARNINGS only)tone sounds in sync with the tones and alerts you see on the television and a computer-generated voice reads the warning. It's been very helpful, especially at night when we are sleeping. It's allowed us to get the vehicles in the garage to save hail damage a few times. My only complaint is on the real bad nights, with lots of flood warnings, it seems the thing never shuts up. Better safe than sorry though. I would highly recommend especially in this area of NWA.

[arguy1973]

I/We do three things, keep the radio on (battery powered) and also I bought a weather radio (battery powered) from radio shack that comes on every time a weather warning comes on and I keep a flashlight in hand or nearby. We have spent the night in the storm cellar before, but since moving we dont have one.

[Greenmon]

Thank you for reminding us, we got to get a battery operated radio working, so far i just look up on the weather sites like intellicast on the web,(got battery backup on computer with dsl), and listen to local radio stations when its going to be a strong storm, we have a plan in an interior room , or to head over the fence to a creek bed with an old cement spring house built in the side of the hill. We live 25 mins from Gassville up in the hills, so far the storms get split up and don't bother us, been lucky.We have had neighbors that had hail, that damaged roofs and siding that we did not get. Best to have a plan, and be prepared .

[Wanderer0101]

I have a Reecom 1650. All hazards, SAME, battery back-up, etc. Did quite a bit of research before I picked this particualr radio and I'm really happy with it. Yes, it stays on all the time and only comes on when there's an emergency. For many categories of emergency you can pick the level that sets off the alarm, as in 'Watch' or 'Warning', or for some hazards you can defeat the siren completely, which is quite useful.