---
title: "How BeAware alert notifications work | BePrepared Help"
url: "https://staging.bepreparedsolutions.co/help/beaware/how-alerts-work"
description: "We watch official feeds around the clock and email you only when an alert near your addresses meets your urgency bar."
source: "BePrepared Solutions"
---

Explainer

# How BeAware alert notifications work

We watch official feeds around the clock and email you only when an alert near your addresses meets your urgency bar.

Updated July 5, 2026

## The idea

BeAware watches official sources continuously: FEMA emergency alerts, National Weather Service warnings, utility outage feeds, and environmental readings like air quality and flood gauges. Every alert is matched against the exact locations of your saved addresses. Most of what we see never becomes a notification. It shows up on your dashboard, and we only send a message when something meets the bar you set.

## What decides whether you get notified

Three things, all yours to control on the Alert Settings page:

-   **Topics.** Which categories you care about: emergency alerts, utility outages, digital infrastructure, environmental conditions.
-   **Urgency.** Your notification bar. _Critical only_ means only the most extreme, life safety alerts. _Recommended_ (the default) adds severe alerts like tornado and flash flood warnings. _Everything_ includes moderate advisories too.
-   **Channels.** Email is on for everyone. Text and WhatsApp alerts are coming soon and will unlock once you verify your phone.

## Why you get one message, not five

When several alerts hit your area in a short window, we group them into a single message instead of sending a burst. The most extreme alerts go out immediately; less urgent ones wait a few minutes so they can travel together. If a warning is updated without getting worse, we stay quiet. You only hear again if it escalates.

## Quiet on purpose

A quiet inbox does not mean nothing is being watched. Your **Recent alerts** list on the Alert Settings page shows everything we sent, and everything we intentionally held, with the reason. Most subscribers on the Recommended level hear from us only a handful of times a year.

BeAware alerts are supplemental. Never rely on any single service, including ours, as your sole warning source.

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_Guidance here is general and cannot account for your circumstances. In an active emergency, official instructions from local authorities take precedence over anything published by BePrepared Solutions._