Hi everyone, I hope this finds you well, after the Hobgoblin attack of the 31th. We had no trick or treaters this year, which means I will have to eat all the Halloween candy. This is a tough job, but someone has to do it. After all it’s my civic duty. The colors of Fall are brightening all around us, which is one of the “treats” of the seasons. The “trick” of the season is that we have now entered our second tornado season. So, this is a good time to review your emergency plans and check your emergency equipment. Are you ready? Can you receive weather warnings? This includes at home, at work and on the road, even with a power outage. Do you have a place where you can take shelter at home, at work or on the road? And, if a tornado strikes near you, do you know what to do? Is your emergency equipment ready? These are questions that need to be asked and resolved. You and your family’s life depend on it. At ALERT we Continue reading →

Hi everybody and welcome to the October ALERT Newsletter. At our next meeting, October 8, we will be voting on a proposed amendment to the ALERT Constitution and Bylaws. The amendment is a follows: Amendment 3 ARTICLE IV Section 6. Upon written request by an applicant or member and after confidential review by the ALERT Board of Directors, yearly dues may be waived or reduced in cases of special need or consideration. If you are a current Operational or Support Member of ALERT I urge you to attend and let your voice be heard! Hope to see you there! …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 19 Uses For A Deactivated Cell Phone Have your replaced your old cellphone with a new, more advanced one? Ever wonder what to do with the old worthless one? Well here’s an idea for you – keep it charged and ready as an emergency backup. As much as we enjoy them, smartphones, for all their good features, are powered by batteries which seem to have the same capacity of a rotted out bucket. So, during emergencies, unless you have a reasonable assumption that the event is going to be short-lived, or if you have a method to charge the battery, such as a car charger or an inverter, you should ration the use of your phone. First, is should be said that immediately following a disaster DO NOT USE THE PHONE Continue reading →

Hi everybody and welcome to your September 2013 Newsletter. We had a great meeting last month & I would like to welcome our newest ALERT members, Dale Chambers KD4QHZ, John Gray KF4LKO, Jay Hamaker KK4ORI & Matthew (Matt) Hamaker KK4PTB. Welcome aboard! Our next regular meeting will be September 10th at 7 PM. There will be a short Board of Directors meeting preceding the regular meeting, scheduled at 6:30 PM. I hope to see you there! …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Tropical Advisory Notifications For many years I have received tropical updates via email from the National Hurricane Center. Recently GovDelivery discontinued this service due “to the substantial costs of providing a messaging service at this scale with high reliability”. This of course left me with the dilemma of finding another source for this information. Well, I have good news as I have found an alternate source for the NHC advisories. This source is courtesy of our cousins at the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN). The HWN operates WX4NHC for the National Hurricane Center. The net activates on 14.325 MHz when a storm is within 300 miles of a populated land mass. The HWN provides a free email advisory service, which includes a Tropical Wea Continue reading →

Hi everyone and welcome to your August 2013 ALERT Newsletter. I hope this finds you well. If you missed the last ALERT meeting, you missed a good one. We had a great turnout and many interesting things were discussed. Among the various topics that were discussed is news that the NWS is wishing to make an “in house” list of the contact information of Operational Alert Members who physically respond to callouts at K4NWS. This information will be gathered so that, if necessary, they can contact you if they feel they need additional information as they review the K4NWS storm reports & to clarify any details that they are unsure of. This list will be a private list and will NOT be given to the media or other entities. It will be for internal NWS use only. More details on this will be available at the August meeting. Also with the August meeting there will be our first Board of Directors meeting, probably following the regular meeting. The timing is still tentative. I Continue reading →