Staying informed during a storm

LITTLE ROCK, AR - Emergency crews recommend having a plan in place to stay safe when severe weather strikes.

Meteorologists with the National Weather Service say despite warnings, people always get caught unaware. That's why they say people need to stay up to date.

When tracking storms, Meteorologist at the National Weather Service are on high alert making sure people know what's going on and where storms could strike. But too often, warnings from weather experts like John Robinson are ignored.

"Even though the warnings are always in place, it's very frustrating to have the warnings yet people just don't know about them, or in some cases they know about them and think it won't happen to me."

With so many ways to use technology to get information Robinson encourages people to take advantage of all tools, and not rely on just one.

"Virtually any technology can fail. The TV station can go off the air, lightning could hit the weather transmitter, it rains hard and your satellite receiver goes out. Don't rely strictly on one method."

Even cell phones can run out of battery life, so Robinson wants people to know how to get important information anywhere at anytime.

"Tornado sirens are for outdoor purposes. If it's right next door, of course you'll hear it, but even the people who are in tune with the weather sometimes don't hear sirens. We'll have a big storm come through in the middle of the night and somebody will say it was big enough to wake the dead, and another person will say they didn't hear anything at all."

The National Weather Service recommends having a weather radio, and programming it to go off only in your area. You can do the same thing with the NOAA app for your smart phone. Make sure your phone is fully charged and isn't set to vibrate, so you can hear it when the alarm sounds.

Twitter is also a great tool, but one of the down sides is depending on whom you follow, the tweet you're reading might not be up to date. It could be hours old, especially if people have retweeted it over the course of time.