Mark... for me, naturally, the more options you have for receiving timely information, the better you can make a decision on how to react in case of an emergency...as an Air Force Radio Traffic Analyst, my job was to perform analysis of intercepted communication, and issue any tactical condition warnings or critical time restrained intelligence reports to higher echelons ...call sign, frequency, and operating schedule analysis was a necessary part of the job... on a practical aspect, living on the central Gulf Coast of Florida, I follow the Crown Weather Service Tropical reports, I have two SAME weather alert radios for tornado alerts, a portable digital TV with folding dipole rabbit ear antenna for local Doppler radar that is GPS linked, as well as an old Grundig crank radio with which during the 2004 9 day power outage listened to the BBC World Service... I'm not sure the BBC still broadcast on HF...it is my understanding that the LDS net was very effective during Katrina...FEMA frequencies are on the net.. many local VHF emergency nets in my area are encrypted...