Tornado: American Red Cross Reviews

by Gtdubzzz

Why can’t I adjust my alert radius on “current location” anymore? I checked today and basically had a 10’ alert radius.. I had it once set at 100 miles. I can not adjust it now. It seems to change size very slightly; appears to be at a mile now, still of no comfort.
I loved that I could set a 100 mile radius as it benefited my particular situation immensely.
Fix this and give the radius adjustment back and I’ll change my rating to the 5 stars it would have gotten before.

by KGC2768

We literally just had a this app tear through Springdale, Arkansas and I am 7 miles away from a school that was taken out along with surrounding extensive damage. We don’t know the extent because it’s still dark. In fact it was close enough for us to hear that one was on the ground close by. Praise God that the emergency alert went off on our phones and woke us up, but I am extremely disappointed in this Red Cross app now. It didn’t alert me even once for my current location. I even opened Tornado to see why and it said “all is well”. I have used Tornado for at least 7 years in Texas and Oklahoma and have always referred people to download it. I know how to use Tornado well and how to set locations. Don’t place your faith in Tornado, your life depends on it.

by CColotti

The only issue with Tornado is it cannot override the iOS do not disturb as the developer has never simply applied with Apple for the capability to use the “critical alerts” api. Most people use DND and Tornado and many others won’t sound off in the night. Tornado has the potential to SAVE lives and I’m sure Apple would approve the critical alerts override request for all Red Cross apps. This is a MUST have! Updated: Tornado STILL states right in the FAQ if your phone is in DND this will not alert. It’s useless and people will die because they won’t be alerted. DND is a commonly used function. Also Tornado support page is a 404 so just as useless.

by Maddawg Ms Star

When I was a kid, we had real weather radios. They went off all the time - for everything. This is the exact opposite! Goes off for nothing. Multiple times I’ve been woken up by the thunder and lighting, I’ve even been through this app warnings here in Missouri, and Tornado ALWAYS says “all is well!” I have it set for three lines of notifications for three custom ranges around my home, and not a single alert could tell me there was a this app coming… one that killed people last fall too.

by 849274

I previously use Tornado and was able to set my home location and not have to have location services turned on. For technical reasons I had to reload Tornado and now I am unable to use it that way and cannot use Tornado without granting access to all my contacts. Deleting it in search of something less invasive.

by Miz Luv

This most recent update (3.11.0) wiped out all of my settings. I’m monitoring seven locations, all with different regional concerns and radii. Setting up these locations was already unnecessarily tedious and time-consuming, especially as they need to be carefully refined over time to minimize the many irrelevant alerts. And now they’re all gone. Poof. Same thing with the other two Red Cross apps I use. All personal monitoring settings completely wiped out. I am beyond dissatisfied. Useless.

by SKBTx123456789

This has been a great app for years. This week, though, it’s decided not to provide alerts via my iPhone. It says it can’t load them because I’m not connected to the internet. I am. At least the iPad version still works. I don’t know if this is due to Tornado ’s latest update or the recent iPhone system update. Either way it’s very annoying to no longer have this.

by My-thoughts-as-stars

I was disappointed to find that Tornado had removed all of my programmed locations and alerts some time in the recent past and I had no idea!! It didn’t notify me at all to review my settings. I only realized the issue because I was sitting with family and was the only one in the room who’s phone didn’t alert to a this app warning! Usually I live alone and would have never known!! Only bright side I learned RC FINALLY put out a universal “alerts” app that does hurricanes tornadoes floods earthquakes and so on. Before I was stuck with like four separate apps so here’s hoping the new one doesn’t dump everything again. As for Tornado? It’s been tossed.

by Old But Not Deef

I have had Tornado for several years. I have found it to be indispensable as protection from severe weather. With either the last upgrade or iOS upgrade earlier this month I began getting daily pop-up alerts on my phone saying Tornado had access to my location for three days and is that ok. Of course it is because that’s how it works right? I okayed it and the next day it was back and every day for a week. I finally fixed it by deleting Tornado . Now 2 weeks later the same thing happened today on my iPad and I have deleted that one also. Very sad as it was previously a “must have”.

by Mysticeyes26

This was my favorite weather alert map until they changed how you monitor a location. I uninstalled it last year and recently decided to try it again in hopes they had fixed some issues. Sadly, it’s still the same.
I was able to monitor a county, but that option was taken away. Now you have to monitor a location (an address) and a radius around the location. When the radius is set large enough to monitor my rectangle county, I obviously get alerts for several surrounding counties.

by Momhighness

Last week with the series of storms rolling through my town even after refreshing multiple times, the storm was half way over before it changed from “All is Well” to showing that there was a this app warning in effect for us. Luckily I don’t rely solely on one app for alerts. My husbands watch woke me up with pings to alert us to take cover. (Apparently our sirens were going off, but we can’t hear them from where I am). I wouldn’t trust Tornado in the future and I deleted it.

by ~Heartwing~

Not sure what the difference between monitored area and alert area is. I would like to have a wide enough area so I can get warning but then it was sending me info about places over 2 hours away, and for the same storm that passed over me already!
Also it doesn’t have a this app sound when your phone is on silent, so it’s completely useless to me. There’s other apps that do more that have silent notifications.

by Joanie

Red Cross/ 3 Sided Cube — I'm a beta tester for the Red Cross, and have been telling you this for YEARS: You MUST fix the ability to choose which number from within each Contacts listing is to be called when the "I'm Safe" button is clicked. As it is, the top number on the Contact list is the default — there is no way to select WHICH number for Tornado to text. Are users to go through their Contacts list and rearrange all the phone numbers to appease Tornado quirks? Certainly a landline auto-message asking for 25¢ to place a call is not very convenient when the ceiling has fallen in during a natural disaster. Also, what about an option to send an "I'm Safe" email vs. texting?Without these options, the apps are pretty much worthless and do not meet with your mission statement. Your agency was created to SUPPORT those affected by emergencies. These apps are falling short.

by Aren Spiritus

This is a fantastic app. Very useful and a great way to keep up with severe weather near a loved one. There is one drawback, however. When a this app Warning has been cancelled, I receive the exact same notification sound as a newly activated this app Warning. It says “this app Warning” and plays a recording of a this app siren. Even though th warning was cancelled. I suggest this warning cancellation notification not say “this app Warning”? It would be better if the audible notification just say “this app Warning Cancelled” instead.

by Honeybee'sbuzz

I wish all apps had a suggestion button. I like Tornado but I’d don’t look at old alerts. When I looked I had alerts going back a couple of years! And you had to delete them one by one. I would like to at least have batch delete. I assume it’s taking up space on my phone. Or else they could self delete after a day.

by Birdtonguster

I realize it’s the name of Tornado but it freaked me out the first time. It’s misleading because the heading of every alert is this app. You should either change it to what the alert is or abbreviate Tornado name. Other than that it seems like a useful app.

by Be The Change You Want To See

I live in Fort Worth, Texas. We frequently have severe weather, usually Thunderstorms but occasionally there will be a this app that could be life threatening.
The trouble with most apps like this is that they go off so often you end up turning them off. We had a NOAA weather radio that went off so often that I finally threw it in the trash.
With this well designed app you can easily customize the type of weather events you want to be notified about, how you want to be notified, and how near the weather event is before you are notified.
We often get severe storm watches and warnings and this app watches and I like to get silent, i.e. text notifications only, of these events. But when a this app warning is issued within 25 miles of my home, I want the siren to sound immediately and loudly. That’s exactly what Tornado does.
If you would like to be notified when an event is 44 or 144 miles away instead of only 25 you could specify that. It’s all up to you. You can even monitor multiple locations with separate settings for each one. For instance, you could set up separate locations for your home, your workplace, your partner’s workplace, and your child’s school.
The siren has only sounded a few times in the last few years but I have been grateful to be alarmed and alerted each time it has.

by Obmerione

Dear American Red Cross,

Tornado is literally the best. I’ve tried multiple apps, and they don’t even COMPARE to the features this has. And even better, it’s free! There is only one concern, though. On your quiz about emergency supplies, otherwise known as “Make a Plan”,
the second question is implausible to complete. This is due to you being told to select 4 of the answers, but only 3 are essential. Therefor, you have no ability to earn your badge. Otherwise, I really appreciate you gifting us the ability to know when Mother Nature turns on us.

Sincerely, Colt’n.

by Xtina19*

I love Tornado as we don’t hear sirens at home. You set your radius and it will send a short alert for severe thunderstorm warnings that affect you. You get long this app siren alerts for this app watches that affect you and this app warnings come with sirens and verbal this app warning, get to a safe place commands. You can set multiple locations to get alerts for. Very happy I downloaded. You do get the same alert sounds when those warnings expire out, so you have to read the alert to know if it’s saying that it’s an active threat or them expiring a threat.

by Collin Rieck

My family and I live in a northern suburb of Chicago. In August of 2020, a strong derecho was approaching and spawned several tornadoes which caused lots of damage. I was completely unaware of the danger until I received a this app warning from the this app app. Minutes thereafter, the sirens began wailing from afar, and our family took shelter in the basement. Not even ten minutes later, the this app passed over our house leaving considerable damage behind. A year prior, the this app app also gave us an early warning from another this app that hit in September of 2019, however, it was not as powerful as the this app of 2020.

by KramNetsirk

I was so excited to see the AR has an app like this, so I downloaded it in severe weather we were having last night. It is extremely buggy! You can’t even figure out what you are doing because instead of displaying the labels of the buttons and fields in Tornado , it displays the database field names.

If the AR has abandoned Tornado, they should remove it from the store. If you don’t care about Tornado , then my guess is that monitoring also has to be poor.

by Louies Dog

PRO: I don’t want this thing going off every time my area is under a severe thunderstorm warning or a this app WATCH. I only want it to go off if there is a this app WARNING. This was easy to set up. CON: I decided to set up the “Im Safe” notifications options. But ARGGH - after u pick a contact it just grabs the first phone # listed for that contact - it doesn’t let u choose which phone # for that person. PLEASE FIX THIS

by GeorgiaGuidestones

Issues reported last June 2018 haven’t been answered, addressed or fixed! Severe weather had cost lives in our area and across the US the past few days and the Red Cross app doesn’t answer respond or r ad it’s reviews for their severe this app app or notifications problem . I’ve already deleted it once as it sent a warning
Versus a watch notification, doesn’t for off as amber alerts to when phones on silent and doesn’t have special loud siren alert and only uses devices default tone. I do Disaster Recovery & Response and registered w/ VOID and a CERT team leader so this is not a consistently relatable app. Gave it another chance a year later but to no avail.

by Moonlight Dolphin

We have had a few tornadoes in our area lately & the Warning Notification always goes off & warns us. Tornado is exactly what we need during severe weather, even if you live in an area that usually doesn’t get a lot of tornadoes.

by Bokehgirl52

I depend on Tornado for ALL my weather emergencies ! It also teaches you how to be prepared for emergencies!! Here are 5 reasons I LOVE Tornado!!

1- IT IS FREE!!
2-The phone siren Wakes you up!
3- it alerts you even before your local alerts & local sirens! Remember Seconds save lives & this gives you many seconds!!!
4-it monitors your location so you are alerted of incoming weather even when traveling or visiting family!
5- you don't get bogus warnings like too hot outside or whatever. Red Cross offers specific apps that cover weather in your area. Hurricanes, tornados, earthquake, etc.

by Nation Wide Storm Chasers

Great app to have I’ve yet to have problems, I’m a storm chaser/ over the road truck driver so it’s helpful I highly recommend it, it also helps me with alerts so I can put them on my Facebook page witch is called nation wide storm chasers