Rebecca Hersher

So this was a really bad year?

Yeah, very so bad.

They survived with voicemails.

No.

Yeah.

Voicemails?

Yeah, basically voicemails and a couple other things.

That's what saved their lives.

And to understand why, we have to talk a little bit about how weather warnings work.

Yeah.

In the United States, the National Weather Service issues, you know, official warnings that trigger alerts on the radio, on television, on cell phones.

Like your phone might buzz or make an alarm sound if there's a flash flood warning in your area.

You've probably gotten those in the summer, right?

Totally.

And those alerts save lives.

The U.S.

is a great example of this, actually.

This country has some of the lowest per capita fatality rates from weather in the world, even though we have widespread exposure to heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, extreme thunderstorms.

And that's according to an annual climate risk analysis sponsored by the German government.

But millions of people in poorer countries, they do not get effective warnings the way we do.