In this letter to the editor, the author responds to the story “Canada to Shut Down Its VHF Weather Radio Service.” Radio World welcomes letters to the editor on this or any story. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

As a meteorologist in the heart of the U.S. “tornado alley”, it is disheartening to see a radio-based alerting system deemed unnecessary because cell phones and internet are naively trusted to replace it.

This cost-saving decision is destined to bring grief to Canadian families.

Weather radios can alert for more than just weather. Raging wildfires, wind and floods destroy cell phone towers, fiber optic cables, phone lines and electricity wires.

Yet, via weather radio, a radio frequency broadcast can be sent into homes, schools and businesses year round to announce evacuations, shelter-in-place and weather warnings. Public alert-certified weather radios have battery backup, so they will run several days even when power is completely out.

Will your cell phone or internet be operating in that power outage? It’s a vital question because there are numerous examples of such tragedies.

Nashville tornado

On March 3, 2020, an EF-4 tornado touched down at 1:48 a.m. and tore through Cookeville, Tenn., a suburb of Nashville. The two cell towers that served the area had been knocked off the air by thunderstorm winds an hour earlier.

Anyone who went to bed thinking their cell phone would alert them had no idea their cell service was cut off.

Weather radio broadcasts, on the other hand, awakened residents eleven minutes before the tornado arrived, saving many lives. Nineteen people died in this well-warned tornado.

Texas floods

In the Texas Hill Country flash flood of July 4, 2025, children in a riverside camp and adults overnighting in an RV park were swept to their deaths when the Guadalupe River rose.

A strongly worded flash flood warning was sent out via weather radio almost two hours before the river breached its banks, but no one in the camps was using a weather radio. As in Cookeville, they were relying solely on their cell phones, which failed to adequately alert them.

The Heaven’s 27 Foundation, named for the 27 girl campers who drowned, persuaded the passing of a state law in Texas that now requires weather radios in all camps and RV parks.

Similar legislation is proposed in four other US states.

Fire weather

Finally, a story about wildfires, which may be Canada’s most impactful threat.

Sonoma County, on the north end of San Francisco Bay, is part of California’s wine country. In the overnight hours of Oct. 8–9, 2017, shifting 60 mph winds redirected a wildfire into the city of Santa Rosa.

Despite the best efforts of a cell phone alerting system, many sleeping residents were unaware the fire was coming. Almost 3,000 homes were destroyed and 22 people died.

In the aftermath, Sonoma County’s emergency management agency made weather radios a prominent part of their alerting system. Today, Sonoma County residents can receive wildfire warnings via cell phone, landline phone and via weather radio. They won’t be caught unaware again.

Value in being warned

One does not need a crystal ball to see that tornadoes, floods and wildfires will continue to affect Canada, and with these threats comes the specter of death.

When your nearest cell tower, your fiber optic internet connection, your landline phone and your electricity are burned, flooded or blown out, only a radio-based alert signal will be able to get through.

Time and again, when all else fails, radio works. The cost of maintaining, improving, and expanding Weatheradio Canada is a pittance in comparison to the cost of lives lost when warnings are not received.

I hope the people of Canada can persuade Ottawa to reverse course and continue Weatheradio Canada, before they up with their own Heaven’s 27 group.

— Bruce Jones, meteorologist/national spokesperson, Midland Radio Corporation

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