Fort Worth, Arlington to enhance warning systems

[TexasStooge]

From the Star-Telegram:

Fort Worth and Arlington can already activate sirens to alert their communities about tornadoes and other emergencies, but both are working to get more detailed information into residents' hands.

In October, Fort Worth is expected to become the first Tarrant County city to launch a hazard alert system designed to provide audio messages to blind residents and video messages in American Sign Language to deaf residents.

The city estimates that 50,000 residents could benefit from the free subscription service, which would send alerts to smartphones or computers.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/09/12 ... rylink=cpy
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This is definitely great news, especially for those who are visually or hearing impaired.

[Stephanie]

That's great news and a long time coming, I'm sure.

[vbhoutex]

We still don't have anything like that here in Houston that I am aware of. I would hope that a large metropolitan city that is subject to severe storms on a relatively regular basis would have something like that in place by now, but I am not aware of it if it is. When I moved here in 1969 we had sirens, but they weren't for tornadoes or severe weather, they were for civil defense and the friday noon sounding(freaked me out the first time they went off after I moved here!! ). They are long gone though.

[TexasStooge]

We still don't have anything like that here in Houston that I am aware of. I would hope that a large metropolitan city that is subject to severe storms on a relatively regular basis would have something like that in place by now, but I am not aware of it if it is. When I moved here in 1969 we had sirens, but they weren't for tornadoes or severe weather, they were for civil defense and the friday noon sounding(freaked me out the first time they went off after I moved here!! ). They are long gone though.

Sad. REALLY sad. Hope everyone there has a NOAA Weather Radio in each home and/or business or some kind of advanced warning system. As Houston is a major city without sirens, whenever there is a Tornado or Hurricane approaching, many without such a warning would not be aware of the life-threatening conditions until it's too late (Sounds like an "It Could Happen Tomorrow" concept).