Keep Informed

It’s important to keep informed when a hurricane or tropical storm threatens. Here are some resources.

Alert St. Johns

The Alert St. Johns emergency alerting system enables the county to quickly communicate with the public and provide critical and time-sensitive information for emergencies such as hurricanes, wildfires, evacuations, water advisories, missing persons and civil emergencies. By registering for Alert St. Johns, you can receive alerts via cell phone by voice or text, email addresses, home phone, business phone and more. To sign up, go to sjcfl.us/departments/emergency-mgmt and click on the Alert St. Johns link.

NOAA Weather Radio

The NOAA Weather Radio is the National Weather Service’s direct link to the public. The Specific Area Message Encoder (SAME) allows weather radios to be programmed to warn only for specific locations. The SAME for St. Johns County is 12109. Frequencies for weather radios are as follows:

• 162.425 MHz if you are located south of International Golf Parkway

• 162.550 MHz if you are located north of International Golf Parkway

Wireless Emergency Alerts

WEA are emergency messages sent by authorized government alerting authorities through your mobile carrier. The alert system requires no need to download an app or subscribe to a service. The WEA message will usually provide the category and time, the agency issuing the alert and what action you should take.

Nixle Text Alert Service

St. Johns County Emergency Management is using Nixle Alerts to provide another way for the public to stay updated with relevant information from the St. Johns County Emergency Operations Center. Nixle Text Alerts are not emergency weather alerts. Anyone can text StJohnsEOC to 888777 to opt-in to receive notifications through SMS text messages. Nixle does not charge for this service, but carrier message and data rates may apply.

Other sources of information

• Television Stations: Local or national news stations monitor and broadcast weather alerts.

• AM/FM Radio: Radio stations are required to air Emergency Alert System messages.

• Smartphone Applications: Numerous free and paid smartphone applications have been created to notify the public of severe weather. Some of these applications use GPS tracking on your phone and will notify you of severe weather warnings based upon your location.

— Adapted from sjcfl.us/departments/emergency-mgmt