Emergency Alerts
What would you do if you had an extra 6 to 13 minutes to react for a disaster? That is the average lead time from the National Weather Service for a TORNADO WARNING. If your sole plan is to rely on a local outdoor warning siren, your plan has a single point of failure. You need a minimum of three ways to get a WARNING:
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Phone voice alert.
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Mobile alert (when you are on the go).
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NOAA Weather Radio.
FREE Alerts (Voice, Text, Email)
Clinton County EMA encourages residents to have multiple ways of receiving alerts and warnings. Clinton County Emergency Alerts (CCEA) is a mass notification system used to notify residents about emergencies and other important information throughout the county. When registering for CCEA, users can also create a Smart911 profile, allowing EMA to have quicker access to important information to enable disaster recovery planning during a disaster.
There are two ways to sign up, with each having their strengths and weaknesses:
Option #1: Text to Join
Pro: Quick and Easy...just send a text.
Con: Non-geo-tagged location for specific alerts (receive generally all alerts for any county location).
How to join: Send a text to 226787 and send the keyword (all as one word with no spaces): CLINTONCOUNTYALERTS
Option #2: Set up a Managed Account
Pro: You have full control on what alerts you receive, how you receive them (voice, text, email), and can add more than one mobile and/or landline number, and multiple addresses (e.g. home, work, school, kid's house, parents' house, et cetera). Also, a free app option.
Con: You have to provide an address and at least one phone number (minimum information). More ideally suited for signing up on a desktop computer.
How to join: Click here to sign up
FREE Mobile Alerts
There are a lot of options for mobile alerts (some are free, while others require a subscription). Below are a few free suggestions to get you started, but they are by no means the only options available:
Smart911 (ties in with Option #2 above)
FEMA App
National Weather Service (Home Screen)
Instructions (same for iOS and Android)
NOAA Weather Radio
NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards (NWR) is the "voice of the National Weather Service" and serves as the agency's primary means of communicating around-the-clock weather information to the public. NWR is a nationwide network of over 1000 transmitters broadcasting continuous weather updates directly from the nearest National Weather Service office. Each transmitter broadcasts official National Weather Service forecasts, weather watches and warnings, special statements, and current weather conditions for a specific area. Generally repeated every 4 to 10 minutes, the broadcast cycle is routinely updated every 1 to 3 hours (or more frequently if the weather dictates). During severe weather, routine weather broadcasts can be interrupted to highlight special warning messages concerning imminent threats to life and property.
Working with the Federal Communication Commission's Emergency Alert System (EAS), NWR is an "All Hazards" radio network, making it your single source of comprehensive weather and emergency information. In conjunction with federal, state, and local emergency management and other public officials, NWR can also broadcast information about non-weather hazards, such as earthquakes, chemical or oil spills, AMBER alerts, and 911 telephone outages. NWR is the only federally operated system that broadcasts weather and emergency warnings to the public.
How to program your NOAA weather radio:
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Purchase a NOAA weather radio.
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Follow the instructions provided for your particular model.
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If your radio asks for a SAME code, enter 039027 (this should automatically select the transmitter for your area). Otherwise go to #4.
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(Skip if #3 is used) If your radio asks you to input your radio frequency or transmitter locations choose from:
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WXJ46 162.475 (Miamisburg, Ohio)
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KIH42 162.550 (Covington, KY...only as a backup for Blanchester)
Pro-TIP: Review the settings of your NOAA weather radio and ensure you are only receiving the types of alerts you want at 2 am in the morning (i.e. Tornado WARNING versus Frost WATCH).
