Posted by madcityradio.com on April 21, 2009 at 10:18:52:
Weather radios for sale at discount
The Capital Times — 4/21/2009 9:17 am
With tornado season right around the corner, Dane County is making it easier to keep on top of severe weather warnings by providing thousands of weather radios to area municipalities for sale to residents.
The radios are purchased in bulk by the county at discounted rates, then are sold to cities, villages and towns so municipalities can offer the radios for sale to residents.
The county bought 5,000 weather radios this spring, for sale at $25 each, about half the cost of what they'd sell for in retail stores.
Since the program started two years ago, about 14,000 weather radios have been sold.
"We've helped make sure thousands of families across the county are better prepared for bad weather," said Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk. "These radios provide early warnings that help save lives."
The radios are programmable and can be set to sound alerts for specific warnings and specific counties. They also come equipped with batteries so they remain operable if the power goes out.
The radios can be set to sound flood warnings as well as severe storm warnings, a good thing to have considering the flooding that occurred last year in various parts of Dane County.
A total of 42 municipalities are selling the weather radios this year, while 23, including the city of Madison, are not taking part in the offer in 2009.
You don't have to be a resident in a particular community to buy radios in that community, however.
Communities selling radios, and the number of radios available in each city, village and town, include the cities of Fitchburg (200 radios available), Middleton (700), Monona (50), Stoughton (60), Sun Prairie (400) and Verona (250).
Villages selling the radios include Belleville (100), Black Earth (100), Brooklyn (100), Cambridge (20), Cottage Grove (150), Cross Plains (150), Dane (50), Deerfield (90), DeForest (150), Maple Bluff (100), Marshall (100), McFarland (300), Mt. Horeb, (50), Oregon (300), Shorewood Hills (150) and Waunakee (100).
Towns taking part in the radio sale include Albion (50), Berry (50), Blooming Grove (100), Bristol (150), Burke (125), Cottage Grove (80), Dane (20), Dunkirk (40), Dunn (100), Medina (25), Middleton (100), Oregon (75), Pleasant Springs (40), Roxbury (40), Springdale (60), Springfield (50), Sun Prairie (40), Vienna (25) and Windsor (100).
Contact the town, village or city hall in the various communities to find out when and where the radios are being sold.