The city of Santa Rosa distributed 12,000 NOAA Weather Radios for wildfire-alerting and communication purposes under a FEMA grant.   This 2 minute, 23 second YouTube video describes the program.   This URL gives further details on the program in Santa Rosa.

This URL describes the program to distribute free NOAA Weather Radios to residents of Marin County.   This URL describes issues with PG&E and cell phone towers resulting in loss of alerts and communications by cell phones.  The article "PG&E Power Disruptions" concludes with:

"The county will lose the ability to notify residents of the need to evacuate or shelter in place due to a wildfire or other emergency situation.  There is one mechanism which will work for the entire county of Marin - weather radios."

This article briefly discusses the NOAA Weather Radio history, now in its 50th year of savings lives and property.  "Reliable sales figures show 100 million NWR receivers sold since 2008. Most two-way walkie-talkie manufacturers feature NWR on their handheld units, and each year approximately three million of these “portable receivers” are sold. Mobile NWR is important to hunters, hikers, boaters, RV campers, and millions of others. In 2006-2007 DHS, Commerce, and the Department of Education placed a NOAA Weather Radio in every public and private school in America. National Weather Service-certified “Storm-Ready” cities, counties, and college campuses use NWR as a foundational alert source."

There are many YouTube videos of people with collections (25+) of NOAA Weather Radios that all activate simultaneously when an alert is given.    This is one such video.   All the radios go off at 1:53 in the video, which can be seen here and here.

Use Weather Radios

Receive critical alerts when cell phones aren't working

See this URL (at the bottom) for a full discussion on NOAA Weather Radios in Marin County.