Flood Warning System

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Palm Beach County’s Flood Warning System

Palm Beach County has among the most sophisticated and effective hazard warning systems in the country. The Division of Emergency Management closely monitors potentially dangerous situations in more than 40 hazard categories, including flood events caused by torrential rain, tropical storms and coastal storm surge, and employs the best available technologies and methods for disseminating critical information to all areas of the community.

The County maintains a 24-7 Warning Point at the Emergency Operations Center. The Warning Point staff is in continuous contact with the National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, the South Florida Water Management District and other key agencies. It receives, recognizes threats and acts upon forecasts, advisories, warnings and other notices personally and through a variety of state-of-the-art technologies..

Emergency Management officials, staff and partners take appropriate actions to distribute notices and warnings to the community in a timely and accurate manner,  including the general public, the business community, municipal partners, critical facilities (such as healthcare facilities and life-safety service organizations, and other local, regional, state and national governmental agencies.

Among its many notification systems used are: media releases; the Emergency Alert System (television and radio alerts); direct radio broadcasts via weather radios; telephone, text, and email notifications using the AlertPBC mass notification system; direct warnings using police, fire-rescue, EMS vehicle mounted loudspeakers and sirens; social media; and the Emergency Information Center.

NOAA’s National Weather Radio Network

NOAA’s nationwide network of radio stations broadcasts continuous weather information directly from the nearest National Weather Service office. It broadcasts official Weather Service warnings, watches, forecasts and other hazard information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The nationwide network  requires a special radio receiver or scanner capable of picking up the signal. Broadcasts are found in the VHF public service band at seven frequencies (MHz):

162.400; 162.425; 162.450; 162.475; 162.500; 162.525; 162.550