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Anyone here live in an area that gets "severe" weather, and NOT have a TV?


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We no longer have cable, and I rather like it. We are moving to FL, which can have bad weather at times (infrequent tornadoes, thunderstorms, etc.- we will NOT hang around for hurricanes, LOL).

I am trying to decided whether we should get that box for our TV, so that we will be able to watch regular channels. I don't know if the PBS station picks up well there- that could be a useful station for the DC. OTOH, I think I may rather enjoy having NO TV channels- and just relying on DVD's for our video entertainment. The one thing that I wonder about, is severe weather alerts, etc. I grew up with my mom and grandmother, aunts and uncles, neighbors, etc. all tuned in to the channel with weather reports/warnings during bad weather.

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We use the internet & neighbors. We've got a TV but no antenna or cable.

 

The neighbors have bunny ears & a weather radio.

 

We also get calls from family w/ TV if it gets bad. They don't trust us to notice. LOL (sort-of; we actually might not notice.)

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(Disclaimer) We do have cable, but I rely on our weather alarm for alerts. Cable goes out during many storms here, and I don't keep or like the tv on all day.:confused: Many stations now broadcast on radio stations too and DON'T forget the INTERNET. You can watch it right there on your computer screen.

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Buy a weather alert--quality, and maybe prior to arrival. Inclimate weather is the worst time to attempt to buy one off the store shelves. NOAA is a much better system than the local stations, anyhow. Some local TV websites will offer up-to-the minute data, allowing you to know where the storm is currently, and where it might be headed (ie which neighborhoods are in direct line of tornado).

 

We have two weather radios and one Red Cross radio for emergencies.

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But but but, what if my PUTER blows up, because it gets struck by lightning?! That would be so tragically horrific, I just wouln't be able to function from the grief! :lol:

Okay, weather radio and internet it is. I love that you can even watch recent episodes of some shows online,

woo-hoo!

In the voice of children on the Cadbury Egg's commercial saying "thank you Easter Bunny", I say-

"thank you WTM board". :)

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D'oh! We can just use DH's LAPTOP for crying out loud, LOL. But that means he'd have to leave it home with me during stormy weather. :D I can live with that.

So, my aunt has a weather radio, but it goes off in the middle of the night because of a storm or tornado 5 counties away. Is there a way to set it to only go off for weather very near you? I am clueless.

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Ah, nancypants. Come clutch it in the basement with us. We have a sofa, pingpong, and air hockey table. I remember sitting in the tub, big fat and prego with my toddler and radio.

 

We used to just use a weather radio. Those reports (though annoying and repetative) are better because you can clutch that weather radio as you sit in your bathtub under a mattress! Can't do that with a t.v.! :lol:
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or at least any stations within 5 hours of us so it wouldn't do any good! We keep a battery powered shortwave radio. (Husband is a radio nut).

 

An aside for the TV - if we had bad weather the power would likely be out anyway. We get terrible wind certain times of the year, our area is still trying to recover from last November.

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We are in TX and don't have a TV. My dh has a weather radio that we keep turned off. When the tornado sirens go off I either switch on the weather radio or jump on the internet - depending on how dark the sky is. LOL!

 

You will be fine.

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Ah, nancypants. Come clutch it in the basement with us. We have a sofa, pingpong, and air hockey table. I remember sitting in the tub, big fat and prego with my toddler and radio.

 

It's funny because now we live in Alberta, Canada where there is lots of nutty weather but tornadoes are fairly rare... they do happen but not a whole lot like in the south. Now we have a basement if we needed one but in Texas we were the hallway or bathtub people because of course there were no basements to speak of! LOL

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I never watch the tv when we have severe weather. OTOH, you will not catch me without my weather radio (set to go off for our county, as well as each of the neighboring counties) and the internet (intently keeping an eye on the radar).

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We love, love, love our weather radio. I wouldn't be here without it in "Dixie Alley" (didn't even know that was a term until all the tornadoes last week). We have satellite TV and it goes out in bad weather, so we can't rely on it (and we're getting rid of it at the end of June), and I unplug my computer in a storm (plus we have satellite internet that goes out in bad weather, too). We tried getting by with alerts on regular radio, but we get them faster and just for our immediate area with the weather radio. Best $45 bucks I ever spent!

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We don't have tv (w/o cable or satellite you don't have tv at all here), but when there's a hurricane brewing you'll know. It will be all everyone is talking about! :) We have a NOAA radio, but if we are actually in the storm, usually the power goes out. Make sure you have at least 1 battery operated am/fm radio. Certain stations will be wall-to-wall info, even streaming the tv weather guys.

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You want one with S.A.M.E. technology so you can program it to alert you when your specific area is under an alert. This is the radio we got. (We didn't pay this much. We paid $45 on Amazon.com.) We like it because we can program it to just the surrounding counties and to only alarm us to certain types of alerts (we really have no need for iceberg alerts here, so I turned that off). It also comes on automatically, so I don't need to turn it on if there is bad weather. There is a siren (sounds like an annoying alarm clock), the visual display tells us what type of alert, a color code on the side tells us if it is an advisory, watch or warning, and then the weather channel plays for 5 minutes so we can hear details. You can also buy a louder siren and a flashing light to hook up to it.

 

The university where my dh is a student has tornado sirens, but I hear the alerts up to 10 minutes before the sirens usually go off and send dh a text message to let him know to head to the basement.

 

If you have any questions I didn't answer, let me know. :) (Can you tell I love our radio?)

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I have lived in FL. I have lived in tornado alley in the midwest. All I used was the weather channel (online) and the local Christian station on the radio. It was fine.

 

If you want to get a weather radio you can. In my experience, they went off after it was obvious that severe weather was coming. But, it would (eventually) let you know if you were under tornado threat.

 

You'll be fine. Do me a favor and watch the shuttle launch while standing in your front yard. I can't believe how much I want to share that experience with my kids - and can't.

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I have lived in FL. I have lived in tornado alley in the midwest. All I used was the weather channel and the local Christian station on the radio. It was fine.

 

If you want to get a weather radio you can. In my experience, they went off after it was obvious that severe weather was coming. But, it would (eventually) let you know if you were under tornado threat.

 

You'll be fine. Do me a favor and watch the shuttle launch while standing in your front yard. I can't believe how much I want to share that experience with my kids - and can't.

 

Can you see it from Pensacola? That would be great! :001_smile:

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We have a weather radio, a scanner that has the area police stations and carries the frequencies used for tornado spotters, and the internet. We just don't even think about the TV station for weather any more.

 

 

The other day a repairman was here working on the computers, so I turned on the TV because it looked like a storm was coming in. Having to wait for the "Weather on the 8's" felt horribly old fashioned and slow! LOL. I like Accuweather.com andintellicast.com. The weather station's weather.com is not as reliable here in WI as the other two. And when storms really hit, the scanner and weather station can be taken with us to the basement, unlike the TV.

J

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Well, we can't pick up diddly-squat on our rabbit ears, certainly not enough to feel comfy going thru a hurricane (we did 3 in 2004 when we moved here). I know this because we did it - rabbit ears only. Not fun......

 

Then last year on Groundhog day - a Tornado landed in my front yard (all but 2 neighbors lost their homes).

 

I know get alerts on my cell phone, and i come check the TV. We have a station here in the Orlando area (i'm 60 miles away) that stays on with weather until all Severe Warnings in their viewing area are gone. I'm way more comfy seeing what is coming at me than listening to it on the radio (we have one of those too we leave on while sleeping).

 

OUr Comcast local only package is $13 a month. We have it on one TV, and it will be the last thing that goes away as i tighten the budget.

 

I might be the paranoid chick from CA dropping into FL - but well, we've been thru them, and the TV weather is my friend! LOL!!!

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We don't live in a heavily severe weather area (I'm in MN), but we do get tornadoes occasionally. We don't have tv. We try to keep up with weather on our computer, but can't do that if we have to unplug it. We got a weather radio last year, and I'm hoping that will work out for us.

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