As a storm system that spawned deadly tornadoes across the South approaches the Big Bend, the Tallahassee NOAA Weather Radio emergency broadcast is once again off the air.
“THE TALLAHASSEE NOAA WEATHER RADIO TLH IS DOWN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE,” the National Weather Service in Tallahassee wrote in a public information statement. “The Tallahassee NOAA weather radio input signal was lost earlier this afternoon. Please have alternative ways to receive weather updates, alerts, and warnings.”
The agency noted a trouble ticket has been opened with Verizon to address the issue.
NOAA radio broadcasts warnings, watches, forecasts and other hazard information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
LIVE UPDATES: North Florida, Tallahassee bracing for tornadoes, severe weather threat
“Obviously, the timing is terrible, but serves as a reminder to have multiple ways to receive weather updates,” the local agency wrote in a Facebook post.
This is the second recent local outage of the emergency system during a white knuckle period.
The Tallahassee Democrat reported Monday that people trying to get updates on their NOAA weather radios during last Sunday’s record rainfall got an earful of static. Some 4.25 inches of rain fell Sunday at Tallahassee International Airport, beating a daily record of 2.75 inches set in 1948.
Meteorologists at the time said the problem involved a Verizon communication line that runs outside the office to a broadcast tower. However, Verizon officials said they weren’t aware of the issues. On Friday, a Verizon spokesperson sent the Democrat a statement saying service was restored but suggested an unidentified “third-party vendor” was to blame.
“A third-party vendor hardware issue caused some service impacts to National Weather Service broadcasts out of Tallahassee,” the statement read. “Engineers began working with the vendor almost immediately after the impacts were identified and were able to fully restore service by the morning of March 11.”
Don Van Dyke, a metorologist at NWS Tallahassee, said it appears a similar problem took down the radio this go around.
“There’s a very loud hum on the line,” he said, noting that Verizon has brought in a repair crew. “They are out investigating it now.”
The outage affecting Tallahassee did not appear on the online outage map until the Democrat’s report, which came after residents contacted journalists. Saturday’s outage was also not imeddiately listed online.
With the radio down again, experts advise residents to ensure their phones can recieve emergency alerts and stay tuned to updates from trusted media.
“We apologize for the inconvenience, but this issue is out of our hands. We will provide updates as they come.”
How you can get reliable severe weather alerts on your phone
The majority of cell phones have Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) enabled by default. WEA are emergency messages sent through your mobile carrier by authorized government authorities like local and state public safety agencies, FEMA, the FCC and the NWS.
You can also sign up to receive weather alerts through your favorite weather app, news app and even your phone’s operating system.
Here is how to make sure you have weather notifications turned on for iPhones:
- Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services.
- Tap weather, then tap always.
- Turn on precise location to receive the most accurate notifications for your current location.
- Go to the Weather app on your iPhone.
- Tap the edit cities button to display your list, then tap the more options button, then tap notifications.
- If prompted, allow notifications from the weather app.
- Below current location, turn on notifications for severe weather and next-hour precipitation (green is on).
Enabling weather alerts on Android devices can depend on your phone’s brand, but here is how to generally go about it:
- Go to Settings > Safety and emergency > Wireless Emergency Alerts
- Here you can choose which types of emergency alerts you would like to receive
If you’re struggling to find it, you can tap on the search box inside the settings and search for “emergency alerts.”
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee NOAA radio down again amid tornado, severe weather threat
