Emergency Contact Cards: What Information to Include

Why Emergency Contact Cards Matter (Especially During Tornadoes)

Sarah was at the grocery store when the tornado sirens began wailing across town. Her husband was at work fifteen miles away, and their two kids were at different schools. In the chaos that followed—as she rushed to the store's back room with other shoppers and the twister carved a path through their neighborhood—her phone lost signal. When she emerged twenty minutes later to find downed power lines and debris everywhere, she couldn't reach anyone. Her battery was dying, cell towers were overwhelmed, and she had no idea where her family had taken shelter or how to find them.

This scenario plays out more often than you'd expect. Tornadoes can strike with limited warning time, and they don't care if your family is together or scattered across the county [4]. When severe weather hits, communication systems fail right when you need them most. Cell towers lose power, networks become overloaded with emergency calls, and smartphones—those devices we've become completely dependent on—turn into expensive paperweights.