Faculty and staff can now request weather alert radios for their buildings from the University police department.

The University received a limited supply of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, weather radios at the beginning of 2012. Since then, the police department has been trying to distribute the radios to campus facilities. Recently, however, the University police department decided to better utilize all of its available technology. Sherry Wooten, emergency planning coordinator, said they are now making it their goal to remind University departments of the resources that are available for campus facilities.

“Our goal is to reach as many faculty members, students, staff and visitors as possible,” she said.

Weather alert radios are all-hazard radios which are connected to the NOAA national weather services, which provides weather data, forecasts and warnings to alert local and national communities of weather conditions. These radios continuously broadcast local weather forecasts as well as special alerts that might affect the area the radio is monitoring, such as tornado warnings or severe thunderstorm warnings, Wooten said.

The radios were developed to warn people of approaching threats, no matter what the weather conditions are, said Lt. Steven Trame of UIPD.

“The radios will even work during a power outage and will receive alerts on a special frequency from the National Weather Services if severe weather is approaching,” he said.

The radios, which will be given out free, utilize Specific Area Message Encoding or SAME technology. This technology allows users to program the radio to monitor a specific county, instead of an entire state.

“You wouldn’t necessarily want to hear a tornado warning issued for Iroquois County in Douglas County when the storm is tracking from southwest to northeast,” Wooten said.

Areas that have a high concentration of students and staff, such as residence halls, sporting venues and campus recreation facilities, should be equipped with the radios in case of an emergency, Wooten said.

“By offering these radios to campus departments, they can be monitored by employees who would then circulate the emergency information to others throughout the buildings,” she said.

These weather alert radios were given to the University through the Champaign County Emergency Management Agency after the agency received a grant from the Illinois Terrorism Task Force, Wooten said.

Kristine Sass, freshman in LAS and resident of Snyder Hall, said she would like to see these radios utilized in her residence hall.

“It’s nice to know that the University is doing everything it can to provide us with a safe environment,” she said. “I think these would be really useful, especially in a place that houses so many students.”

Any University employee can request one for their building by emailing [email protected] or contacting Sherry Wooten directly at 217-300-1544 or [email protected].

Klaudia can be reached at [email protected].