CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Last month's tornado caught many people off guard because the National Weather Service didn't put out a warning.
But Eyewitness News learned that people are now taking matters into their own hands and relying on weather radios even more.
Many people contacted Eyewitness News after the March tornado to say they never heard an alert on their weather radio when the damaging storm ripped through Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties.
Eyewitness News took those concerns to the National Weather Service office in Greenville, S.C., where meteorologists said they did not issue a warning because the tornado started from the ground up, literally forming under the radar.
That incident is actually making some people even more reliant on weather radios.
“Every single day, we have people coming in for weather radios,” Radio Shack manager Bruce Forness said.
Forness said many of them are asking that employees make sure their weather radios are properly programmed to the National Weather Service's frequency so they can monitor updates around the clock and not wait for the agency to issue an alert.
"They want to protect their families and their pets in case something does come by and they don't want to be surprised again," Forness said.
The National Weather Service said it’s glad people are being proactive. Meteorologists there said they try to issue tornado warnings 15 minutes before the storm. Sometimes, they develop quickly and people need to be ready to act on very short notice.
More information:
Weather radios
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