COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Some weather radios in the Putnam County area were ghost silent due to an outage at the transmitter.
Residents in areas with bad cell service rely on weather radios. It's also helpful during a power outage when you can't watch TV. During storms Monday morning, some residents in the Cookeville area didn't get a warning from their weather radio due to a transmitter problem.
"Not every notification method is 100% all the time, there’s going to be issues, there’s going to be communication problems, and that’s just a part of life," said Krissy Hurley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Hurley said the NWS is aware of the outage. The agency has been working with Verizon to fix a phone line issue. "It’s up sometimes and it’s down sometimes, so something is definitely interfering with the line, and they’re trying to troubleshoot and figure out exactly what’s going on," Hurley said.
Anything can happen, which is why it's important to be prepared. "Like last night I had a weather radio, and I had three different weather apps zoned in for my house for the overnight period along with the wireless emergency alerts," Hurley said.
It’s also helpful to make sure your phone is not on do not disturb overnight.
She hopes the weather radios in the Putnam County community will be working again soon. "These things are out of our control sometimes when it comes to communication lines, and the good news is the transmitter’s working, so once that communication line is connected, there should be no issues,” Hurley said.
The National Weather Service will be out surveying storm damage on Tuesday. The agency plans to stop by Trousdale, Overton, and Pickett counties to see if any tornadoes touched down.
